Following on from my Six months of Google Android development post, it is now time for an update as it’s almost one year to the day since I published my first GA app.
On the market, I currently have 4 paid apps, 2 free apps supported by ads (provided by AdMob) and one free app with no ad (or source of revenue). I have pulled out 2 previously free paid apps which I am working on to improve (I wasn’t satisfied with them so didn’t want to leave them on the market in their current state). I regularly update my apps – typically, about once a month, though a couple of them haven’t been updated for a couple of months as I’m writing this.
Developing apps for Google Android is a part time activity for me – even though I no longer have my not-programming day job, I am splitting my time between web programming (php, SQL, HTML, CSS, JS), Java programming & Google Android programming. On top of that, I moved into a new house a few months ago and we are still very busy with decorating.
Six months ago, I reported a monthly income of about £80, split between ads and paid apps. Well, this income has increased and is now about £200, with a 80/20 split in favour of paid apps.
My paid app with the most downloads is nearing 500 downloads, and the other ones have achieved between 40 and 150 downloads. Free apps have between 1200 and 25,000 downloads.
Six months ago, I wrote
- even months after release, I still get a steady volume of downloads for my apps.
- the rate of downloads is increasing, thanks to a larger user-base I am assuming.
- even though Google offers users the possibility to cancel their purchase within 24 hours, I have found that very few users use this. Currently, my cancellation rate is about 5%.
- developing is getting a bit more difficult as the diversity of Google Android hardware increases.
These observations are still largely true, except for the cancellation rate, which unfortunately has increased (about 20% now).
My hunch is that if you develop apps full time, you can now make a living from it. In my experience, sales have really increased since June and most buyers have been registered with Google Checkout for fewer than 100 days, so that means there is a current flow of new users. That can only be good for app developers 
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