This is the latest installment tracking the progress of the Oz Weather iPhone app in the iTunes app store. (Part 6 installment here.)
The latest stats, to 4th August 2009:
* Total app downloads: 48,600
* Net app revenue: AUD$73,800 (US$59,000) – net of 30% Apple share and 10% Australian GST
* Average User Rating: 4 stars – from 885 ratings of all versions
The following graph shows a complete history of more than 8 months of daily sales records, since launch on Nov 1st 2008.
The associated Australian overall paid apps ranking is as follows:
I already explained the cause of the great sales dip in June in the previous post, but the other feature that stands out here is how the ranking in the latter half of the graph has been declining despite a fairly constant average base level of sales (excepting June). The obvious explanation for this divergence is that the total number of all apps being bought is gradually increasing with time as the number of iPhones/iPods in Australia has increased. Recent estimates by AdMob put the total number of iPhones in Australia at around 750,000 and iPod Touch at 350,000 – making a combined total of 1.1 million devices on which Oz Weather could be installed. This would mean that Oz Weather has been purchased by about 4.4% of Australian device owners.
This might seem to leave room for plenty more sales, but others have suggested that 3% is a high ownership rate for other popular apps such as “Flight Control”, so maybe we’re already pushing the boundaries!
Ajnaware's Weblog 
Interesting stats. I would have thought that 3% is quite low considering that yours is one of two weather apps in Australia worth having. All of the people I know who have iPhones own your app so it is 100% amongst my aquaintences.
Hello Graham,
just came across Oz Weather on another iphone blog:
http://i-phone-home.blogspot.com/2009/08/oz-weather-iphone-appstore-top25-app.html
Regards,
Thomas.
Hi Thomas – yes I saw a reference to that earlier. The article seems to imply that Oz Weather collects data in addition to Pinch Media, which is incorrect. Pinch Media provides aggregate data only, and is used by a lot of apps to give devs feedback on patterns of app usage which Apple doesn’t provide. Its also no different in principle to analytics data for website usage – which is standard practice. So if anyone is actually concerned about Pinch Media, then they are barking up the wrong tree. Apple is the one that could presumably get access to user’s personal data, but of course they don’t pass it on the devs.
Do you think I should buy apple shares now, or is it too late?