Mar 22, 2012
An Analysis of the Education on the App Store
The JoanGanzCooney Center’s experts studied the changes in the market of educational apps within 2 years. The first iLearn research was done in 2009 and the second one in 2011.
The researchers studied approximately 200 apps in the education category of the iTunes App Store included the 100 top-selling. The apps market differs from the toys, video games and broadcast industry where products for licensing dominate: among 200 apps for iPad/ iPhone only two of them were based on well-known, branded characters.
The percentage of apps for children has risen, accompanied by a decrease in apps for adults.
Over 80% of the top selling paid apps in the education category of the iTunes Store target children. For the last two years this number has considerably risen in every age category. At the same time the percentage of apps for adults has decreased from 57% to 40%.
Apps for toddlers/ preschoolers are the most popular age category (58%), and experienced the greatest growth (23%) for the 2 years.
Apps for elementary aged children may represent an opportunity. While only 20% of the overall sample targets this age group, almost 46% of the top sellers (top 25) target elementary aged kids.A similar trend was noted amongst the preschool set in 2009 analysis, and subsequently this age group experienced significant growth.
The average price of children's apps has risen faster than those targeting adults.
The average price of children's apps has risen faster than the price of apps in the education category for adults.
Apps are available in a variety of different subjects, including: general early learning that is the most popular subject (47%). The second most popular subject is math, 13%. It is interesting to note the
popularity of apps in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) subjects. Furthermore, four out of the top five apps for teach STEM subjects and it represents an opportunity for developers.
Branding or quality
To the researchers’ mind the apps will be useful for the society but there is a risk of having the same problems as the toy industry has, where it is difficult to survive on innovation or quality alone without a popular license.
Today the average price of an app for children is too low to warrant its development - $20 000 —200 000 ayear. A “Top50”education app might have 100-200 downloads a day. Through regular updates, good social media support a great app might hope to stay in the “Top50”for six months to a year at $.99 that translates to $12000‐$50000 in revenue (revenue after 30% platform margin).
But the experts think that the app’s price shouldn’t be raised. The developers should shift the “point-of-purchase” to inside the app, creating what is effectively a free/low-cost trial for parents and educators. People should be able to purchase apps at a nominal fee, evaluate them, and then (if worthy) invest further to expand the play experience.
Unfortunately in-app‐purchase (IAP) has received a bad rap in children’s media due largely to the irresponsible practices of certain developers selling “Pay-to‐Play” consumables as if the tablets were a quarter‐gobbling arcade machine that leads to astronomical “gotcha” charges from Apple.