What developer does not dream of getting into the American top, at the same time conquering the tops of all other countries? As the latest research by Distimo has shown, the versatility of the application can play against you.
The aim of the study was to thoroughly examine the differences of app stores from a geographical point of view. It turned out that users in different countries of the world like completely different applications. For example, 27% of the most popular iOS apps are popular in only one country. The USA turned out to be the country with the most exclusive content: a total of 7,158 iPhone apps were published in the US App Store, which are not found in other countries.
At the same time, Google Android Market has a higher percentage of “exclusive” apps compared to the Apple App Store for iPad: 4.9% vs. 3.4%, respectively.
Nokia Ovi Store has the highest rate of “exclusivity” of applications (that is, applications published only in one country) – 29.4%. But the share of apps that are popular only in one country is not much different from other stores.
The content differs the most in Asia: 67% of the most popular iPhone apps in the Japanese Apple App Store are unique. The situation is similar in China, where 56% of the most popular iPhone apps are not found in other countries.
But there are also countries where the same applications are popular. As a rule, these are either states located geographically nearby, or countries where the same language is spoken. For example, the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada: here the number of total top apps is 54%, while the average for all stores in the world is 33%.
