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Flurry reckons iPhone free-to-play ARPU is $14.66

Predicts geyser of cash

Flurry reckons iPhone free-to-play ARPU is $14.66

A lot has changed in the world of mobile games in the past 10 years and that's something we're considering as we repost PocketGamer.biz articles from the past decade.

This week, we cover the first small-steps in what has become the largest single sector of the +$150 billion global games market. 

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[July 15th, 2010] The free-to-play model is starting to make money for some iPhone publishers reckons analytics company Flurry.

According to data provided to VentureBeat, and generated from 21 companies, it calculates such games are generating $14.66 per user per year. This is up from $9 per user per year in January.

Obviously, these are guestimated figures, particularly in terms of the 'per year' part of the description, as the dataset is being calculated on a monthly basis.

Hence it would probably be more technically correct to say in January, 75c was being generated per user per month. This had risen to $1.22 per user per month by June.

Pump the pocket

Such numbers will also be highly dependent on the activity in a relatively small number of games, with purchases peaking during a game's launch. For example, two of the most high profile games, ngmoco's We Rule and GodFinger were released in March and in June respectively, likely boosting the market significantly.

"The free-to-play business is starting to emerge," Simon Khalef, Flurry's CEO, told VentureBeat.

"There are not a lot of companies that have broken the code for making money on the iPhone. “We never saw anyone crack the code for a real business model. Now it's a geyser of money. You can build companies around this business model."

[source: VentureBeat]


Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.