8 Tips for Building Successful Windows and Windows Phone Apps in 2015

Microsoft recently analyzed applications in the Windows Store and Windows Phone Store and presented an overview of application market trends. The article seemed interesting to me, I decided to translate it and better understand - what is it worth focusing your efforts on today to create successful and popular Windows applications?

1. Create applications for operating systems version 8.1
By the end of 2014, Windows 8.1 became the main operating system for the Windows Store: in November, the vast majority (92%) of applications in the Windows Store and 65% of application downloads for Windows Phone were made from operating systems of this particular version .
The graphs below show how interest in Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 grew during 2014.


Charts 1, 2. Operating systems from which applications for Windows and Windows Phone were downloaded, around the world, November 2014.

Besides popularity among users, a significant advantage of Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 for developers is the versatility of created applications. An application written under 8.1 on any device can be easily converted into a universal project, in which, by managing one set of source code, you can create a product for both Windows and Windows Phone. And version 8.1 operating systems also have technical capabilities that simplify development - for example, using XAML and WinJS.

2. Optimize the application for a small amount of RAM
According to Microsoft statistics, 71% of Windows Phone applications are downloaded from devices with a small amount of RAM. These are considered devices based on Windows Phone 7.x with up to 256MB RAM, or devices based on Windows Phone 8.x up to 512MB.
The graph below shows the percentage of the number of application downloads relative to the device’s memory size.


Chart 3. Number of application downloads, based on the amount of phone RAM, worldwide, November 2014 By

optimizing your application for phones with a small amount of memory, you will double its potential market. Another option is to create a separate version of the application with lower system memory requirements, which can then be promoted in parallel with the main version of the application.
The most common device in the Windows Phone segment is the Lumia 520 model - this device accounts for more than a quarter of the total number of application downloads.


Chart 4. The number of application downloads, based on the model and the amount of RAM, worldwide, November 2014

3. Choose the popular category
In November 2014, the games category became the most popular by the number of application downloads, followed by tools and performance, music and video, social applications.
The positions of the categories in terms of the number of downloads are relatively stable, while the most popular category - games - is becoming increasingly popular, and now it accounts for 42% of all downloads of applications for Windows.


Charts 5, 6. Number of downloads per category, worldwide, November 2014.

Another important criterion that you should pay attention to is the indicator of the average number of downloads in a category, that is, the number of downloads per application.
Below is a graph of the number of downloads versus the number of applications available in the category.


Charts 7, 8. Indicators of the average number of downloads per application in the category, worldwide, November 2014.

Despite the fact that the games category is the most downloaded, the highest coefficient of downloads per application for the category of social applications.

4. Target the most promising countries and popular languages
The Windows Store is available in 242 countries and the Windows Phone Store in 191 countries. If you plan to adapt your application to consumers from other markets, pay attention to which of them makes the largest number of downloads.


Charts 9, 10. Indicators of the average number of application downloads in different countries around the world, November 2014.

Most downloads occur in the USA, but at the same time, many other markets also generate a high number of application downloads - China, India, France, UK , Brazil, Mexico, Russia.
Significantly increase the potential audience of the application by supporting additional languages. For example, an application in English will give you the opportunity to reach 25% of Windows Phone users, and if you add Spanish, Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese and Russian to it, you can reach more than 50% of users worldwide.


Charts 11, 12. The main application languages, worldwide, November 2014

5. Choose the most successful method of monetization
An important decision for the success of the application is to choose the method of monetizing it: paid application, in-app purchase or in-app purchase . An analysis of application revenue in November 2014 showed that in-app purchases and advertising generated the most revenue, and paid apps only came in third place.
Revenue from paid applications continues to decline both in relation to other methods of monetization, and in terms of absolute profit. In August 2014, paid applications brought only 20% of the total revenue to developers, and by November 2014 this figure had even decreased - to 11%.
At the same time, in-app purchases are generating more revenue. So, 88% of the top 50 applications use this particular type of monetization.


Chart 13. Income of developers, depending on the method of monetization, worldwide, November 2014

6. If you sell advertising, use Windows ad mediation
In both the Windows Store and the Windows Phone Store, ad revenue continues to grow; in November 2014, they accounted for 53% of total revenue for apps. Perhaps this was influenced by seasonality, because November and December are the months in which advertisers traditionally raise advertising budgets.
If your Windows Phone application makes money on advertising, then Microsoft experts recommend using the Windows ad mediation extension - a solution that helps to aggregate and manage several SDKs (sets of development tools) of advertising networks, increasing the application’s fill rate and profit.

7. For purchases within applications, choose the optimal, not the lowest price
In-app purchases at the end of 2014 accounted for 35% of the total revenue for Windows and Windows Phone developers. 44 of the 50 most profitable applications use this particular method of monetization.
Microsoft asked the question - what are the price indicators for in-app purchases that generate the most revenue? It turned out that lower prices do not always lead to higher profits. Although most of the in-app purchase prices on the Windows Phone Store are below $ 2, pricing is $ 9.99, $ 4.99 and $ 19.99. Thus, the purchase price within the application does not have to be low in order to be profitable.


Chart 14. Pricing for in-app purchases, which generated the most revenue, worldwide, November 2014

8. Create highly specialized applications that increase productivity.
With regard to recommendations on choosing the functionality of the application, Microsoft cites the opinion of Christopher Chute, vice president of cloud, mobile and digital technologies research at IDC. He believes that applications designed for a narrow niche in which a specific scenario of use by a specific group of users will be able to achieve in the near future will be able to achieve. Also, according to him, in 2015 highly specialized mobile applications will become popular that improve the workflow and allow you to make it mobile, increasing the productivity of employees and small businesses in general. Chut cites Office 365, SharePoint, and OneDrive as an example of such applications.