January 2013
Developer Economics 2013: The tools report

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This is the fourth in the series of Developer Economics reports, our highly acclaimed developer research series. Besides benchmarking developer mindshare, revenue and lead platforms, this report focuses on developer tools, incl. ad-networks, back-end as a service, cross-platform tools, cross-promotion networks, user analytics, and voice services. You can also download the graphs from the report.

Download the report

We’re also proud to introduce our new Developer Economics portal, the independent source for facts-based insights, developer tool benchmarks and business patterns that helps app makers and mobile product managers worldwide to build a successful app business.

What can you find there?

• The best independent research on the app economy. Our unique insights help developers to plan, develop and market mobile apps faster, cheaper and with better chances in the market.
• Systematically tracking and benchmarking mobile developer tools. Dozens of tool sectors, more tools per sector, more information per tool, and of course everything is continuously updated. On the site you’ll find the best tools to boost your app business.
• Business patterns, leveraging proven economic frameworks and case studies. We don’t offer “5 easy steps to success”, but explore together with you the difficult questions that face every serious app developer and the methodologies that really work in this fast-paced industry.

Facts and insights to build a successful app business

Some of the key findings from the report:

• Android continues to lead mobile developer mindshare, with 72% of developers now developing for the platform, a 4 percentage point increase compared to our 2012 survey. iOS shows a 5 percentage point drop in Mindshare
• Developers that do not develop for Android or iOS generate, on average, half the revenue of those developers that do
• iOS emerged as the highest priority platform, with 48% of iOS developers using it as the lead platform among all others. iOS, Android and BlackBerry constitute lead platforms, which are most often used as a main platform among their developers
• Advertising is now the most popular revenue model for apps, used by 38% of developers in our global sample