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Analysts: iPhone piracy costs Apple and developers $450 million

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Analysts: iPhone piracy costs Apple and developers $450 million
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According to the 24/7 Wall St. report, it’s estimated that Apple and its App Store developers have been duped out of a combined total of roughly $450 million in pirated versions of applications.

Despite their having been over 3 billion downloads since the App Store's launch in July 2008, it’s estimated that only 17 per cent of these were paid applications.

Current paid applications have a piracy rate of roughly 75 per cent, with some developers reporting as much as 90 per cent - notably Fishlabs’s Rally Master Pro, which suffered a 95 per cent piracy on its first day.

Considering the average price for an application is $3, Bernstein analyst has Toni Sacconaghi estimated a total loss of $4.59 billion dollars split between Apple and developers.

However, this number comes with the highly dubious assumption that those pirates who downloaded the application for free would’ve also paid for the app if a pirate version wasn’t available.

A more reasonable estimate of those who would’ve spent money in the App Store is 10 per cent, leaving an entirely more plausible loss in revenue of $450 million.

Despite the loss in revenue, Apple has been uncharacteristically stoical on the subject, taking no major steps towards a solution.

Tom Love
Tom Love
Tom has recently migrated south for the winter after blagging his way through university. Living alone and diagnosed with an extreme case of post-study depression, Tom joins the Pocket Gamer staff in a futile attempt to become a functioning member of society.