Social Networking on iOS
From Friendster to Myspace, to Facebook. Social networks have dominated the web for nearly a decade. In more recent years however, there has been another trend growing at an even faster rate and scale than any of these networks - combined. Already having provided an upwards of 500,000 jobs in the US by apps alone the mobile industry is set to have another year of explosive growth across the boards.
This has also created new business opportunities for a whole host of publishers worldwide who are utilizing the features that mobile devices provide (camera, microphone, real-time sharing, location-based technology and virtual items). The biggest examples of those who've used these elements effectively are apps like WeChat, LINE, Kakao, Zoosk, Badoo, Find My Friends and Facebook. Some of these publishers are even starting to figure out ways to monetize this distribution.
This month's Index Report provided by App Annie shows some of the key growth trends in the social networking category, as well as the top 10 publisher and app charts. Over the past 12 months alone, Social Networking apps on iOS have been reaping the rewards both in downloads and revenue. January revealed that is was the 3rd largest category in iOS revenue, up from 12th just last year. While revenue growth was seen across all major countries, Japan in particular stood out with a ten-fold increase in monthly revenue year-over-year, mainly attributed to the massive success of LINE.
So let's get into it shall we?
Looking at the cart below, needless to say - things get a little exciting when a category collectively starts to figure out how to monetize its large base of downloads. What's even cooler is when it's done so well to the point where, revenue growth (for social networking apps) outpaces growth of its own downloads as well as revenue for other app categories.
As stated above, in January of 2013, the Social Networking category ranked 3rd in monthly revenues, behind only Games and Productivity in the iOS App Store. That marks an incredible growth of 87% when compared to January 2012 monthly revenues.
As seen below, Japan clearly made their mark with their 10-fold increase in revenue, with their runnaway sucess LINE that has been at the top of Japan's iOS download charts since January of last year. It wasn't until April however that it started making its way towards top grossing, but has yet to slow down since.
It's interesting to note however, the Social Networking category’s nine-spot rise in the worldwide revenue rankings was achieved even with a slide drop in the worldwide download rankings. This indicates that the category’s growth is maturing and translating downloads into revenues.
The chart below reveals Social Networking monthly downloads up 30% YOY, and currently represent 5% of total iOS App Store downloads. China is also proving to be one of the fastest growing major countries by downloads, with monthly downloads doubling from January 2012 to January 2013. Surprisingly, half of the category’s worldwide downloads come from the United States and China.
Just last year in January, the main Facebook app was the most downloaded social networking app worldwide on iOS for that month. A year later, it’s Facebook Messenger. Needless to say, Facebook continues to do a good job on building out its user base on mobile with its expanding group of apps (Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger and Poke).
Money in Messaging and Dating
As seen in the image below, the entire top 10 social networking apps by monthly revenue is dominated primarily by messaging apps, then dating apps. LINE in particular which trumps WhatsApp Messenger from a year ago by discovering how to monetize their Japanese audience through a variety of in-app purchase features.
WhatsApp Messenger, which has normally monetized through a $0.99 paid download, adopted a freemium subscription model with its newer Google Play version launched a year ago, where a $0.99 per year subscription kicks in after the first free year has passed.
Further down the top 10, it’s all dating apps. The big names in dating (e.g. Badoo, eHarmony and Match.com) are all present, as well as gay dating apps, notably Grindr Xtra and Scruff.
Looking at Top Publishers, we have the usual suspects..
When it comes to Top Publishers by Revenue, 8/10 of the contenders are in the games category.
When we start to look at the Google Play App Store, as well as other key metrics more information can be found in the slide-show below. Alternatively, to see a full report of App Annie's Index for January of 2013 for Social Networking on iOS - Click Here.
