Pollen: indie teams have a bright future in the mobile market

The mobile app market is waiting for a “perfect storm” that will potentially change the balance of power: independent teams will have more chances to earn, and large companies will stop taking “all the cream”, Pollen analysts say.

The main thesis from which Pollen is based is the assertion that current blockbusters are not able to acquire new audiences. And this creates ideal conditions for small and medium-sized studios to get a long tail of sales, thanks to which they will be able to exist.

This, according to Pollen, is confirmed by the results of a study in which it was found that over the past five months, the number of iOS developers earning from $1,000 to $5,000 per month has increased significantly. If in September there were a little more than 5.6 thousand, then in April their number reached 6.3 thousand.

The tops of applications for the companies represented have also become more diversified over this period. In September, there were 1,700 companies whose games were in the Top 200, and in April there were already 1,900.

Pollen believes that this growth is a steady trend, indicating that independent developers will be able to earn more and more on their projects every day.

As an example of a new “middle class”, analysts cite the company PuzzleSocial, which earned about $6-$7 thousand a day on the tail of its sales last January. At the same time, the highest position of her main project Daily Celebrity Crossword is 1st place in puzzles in the box office top of Yemen (in Canada, the game in June 2013 reached 13th place in the same category).

Daily Celebrity Crossword
However, given the fact that PuzzleSocial has raised $3 million in investments, and its DAU is about 100 thousand, we can’t turn our tongue to call it an ordinary company, a good example of a new trend.

Plus, it should be remembered that, according to Vision Mobile, 52% of mobile app developers earn less than $1 thousand per month. And given the constant growth in the total number of teams and startups trying their hand at development, it’s hard to believe that most of them will soon jump the “poverty line”.

Pollen does not say how soon the “perfect storm” will pass.

A source: http://blog.pollen.vc