Explosive Growth in Education Apps | MindShift.
KEY FINDINGS
1. Apps are an important and growing medium for providing educational content to children, both in terms of their availability and popularity.
- Over 80% of the top selling paid apps in the Education category of the iTunes Store target children.
- In 2009, almost half (47%) of the top selling apps targeted preschool or elementary aged children. That number has increased to almost three-‐quarters (72%).
- The percentage of apps for children has risen in every age category, accompanied by a decrease in apps for adults.
2. Early learning apps for toddler/preschool are particularly prominent. Developers should consider potential saturation of this market.
- Apps for toddlers/preschoolers are the most popular age category (58%), and experienced the greatest growth (23%).
- General early learning is the most popular subject (47%), and there are signiicantly more general early learning apps than the second most popular subject (math, 13%).
The App Explosion
– Mobile app revenue is expected to generate $38 billion by 2015
– There are over 500,000 apps available on iTunes and more than 300,000 on Android
– The App Store has paid out over $2.5 billion to developers.
– Two out of the four top holiday trends according to ToysRUs are related to children owning iPads.
3. Developers should not default to the lowest price point and should consider a fair price‐value proposition. The average price of children’s apps has risen by over $1, but they are still less expensive than those targeting adults.
4. Apps are a significantly different market than television, video games, or toys.
- Of the entire sample, only two iPhone apps and zero iPad apps were based on well-known, branded characters.
- One hundred and nine different publishers were represented within the sample; 89 of these publishers were not represented in the sample two years ago.
5. Apps for elementary aged children may represent an important opportunity. While only 20% of the overall sample targets this age group, almost 50% of the top sellers (top 25) target elementary aged kids. A similar trend was noted amongst the preschool set in our 2009 analysis — subsequently this age group experienced significant growth.
