VentureBeat’s 2012 Mobile Summit: Great minds tackle 5 key mobile issues

VentureBeat is proud to announce our second annual Mobile Summit, where we are once again inviting 180 top mobile executives, investors, and policymakers to discuss five significant issues facing the mobile industry.

The event will be held at the beautiful Cavallo Point Resort (just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco) on April 2-3. The Mobile Summit is an invitation only event, but you can request an invite here.

We decided to host the … Continue Reading

Kindle Fire leads Android in taking a bite out of iPad market share

Good sales of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet led to significant gains for Google’s Android operating system in tablet market share during the fourth quarter of 2011, according to new data from mobile analytics firm Flurry.

Flurry, which purports to measure application sessions on more than 90 percent of all Android devices, found that Android tablets gained 10 percent share from Q4 2010 to Q4 2011 and now represent 39 percent of the overall tablet market.… Continue Reading

Web consumption wanes as mobile app usage skyrockets

The notion of the post-PC era may have legs to stand on, and Facebook could be playing a key role in the shift. This according to new data that highlights increasing mobile application usage at the expense of web consumption.

Mobile apps continues to rise in popularity, with people now spending 94 minutes per day, on average, using mobile applications, according to analytics firm Flurry. Meanwhile, web consumption, on both desktop and mobile devices, has … Continue Reading

Record-breaking 1.2B iOS and Android apps downloaded during holiday week

New and bored smartphone owners alike went on a download spree last week, with a record-breaking 1.2 billion iOS and Android apps downloaded between Dec. 25th and 31st.

The staggering number of apps downloaded, courtesy of analytics firm Flurry, goes hand-in-hand with the report that 6.8 million iOS and Android devices were activated on Christmas Day. Naturally, many new owners of these smartphones downloaded all kinds of games and apps to make their smartphone experience … Continue Reading

Android had a merry Christmas weekend with 3.7M activations

Android devices more than doubled their typical activation rate over the Christmas weekend, with 3.7 million devices activated, according to Google’s Andy Rubin.

The holiday bump, while not surprising, is yet another reminder of Android’s unstoppable growth. Last week, Rubin revealed that Android had reached a new milestone of 700,000 daily activations. At this rate, it seems certain that Android will hit the magical 1 million daily activation milestone at some point this year.

We … Continue Reading

Christmas marks record high for Android and iOS activiations, app downloads

Christmas is a time for giving, and for many the gift this year was gadgets. Android and iOS devices saw a year-over-year 140 percent jump in activations this Christmas, with application downloads sailing past the historical norm.

Smartphones and tablets have surpassed the luxury phase, and are proliferating the market as every day household items. Though they still haven’t taken over feature phones, which own around 60 percent of the market, smartphones are widely adopted. … Continue Reading

Where in the world is the next booming smartphone and tablet market?

The U.S. and China currently have the world’s largest potential smartphone and tablet markets, but many other countries are ripe for wider smart-device adoption in 2012.

Flurry, a mobile analytics company, has crunched numbers from the past month to paint a picture of what the global smart-device market looks like now, and where it’s headed next. It identified what smart-device markets have the most potential for future revenue, making them fertile ground for everyone from … Continue Reading

Apsalar’s analytics tools delve deeper into mobile app engagement and monetization

Analytics is becoming the big science behind mobile games. And the folks at Apsalar are aiming at becoming the biggest propeller heads in the business.

The San Francisco company, a veteran of DEMO,  is announcing today two new analytics tools aimed at measuring engagement of players and its relationship to higher revenues per users. The tools can be used together to create a user engagement index and to optimize the revenue generated from each user.… Continue Reading

Mobile app developers are choosing Apple iOS over Android this season

Mobile app developers are choosing to develop apps for the Apple iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) over Google’s Android mobile operating system, according to a new report by analytics firm Flurry.

About 73 percent of apps created for the fourth quarter are based on iOS, compared with 27 percent for Android. Three quarters ago, the figures were 63 percent iOS and 37 percent Android.

Over 2011, developer support for Android has declined from a third … Continue Reading

Paid DLC for next 3DS update announced; Nintendo joining the future?

Nintendo of America chief executive Reggie Fils-Aime recently confirmed that the next 3DS update, which is likely to arrive next month, will finally allow for paid downloadable content (DLC), according to an article by Develop Online.

As it follows through on this promise, Nintendo will be one of the last major companies in the handheld space to move into digital distribution of paid content, competing head-to-head with Sony, Apple, and the Android Market in portable … Continue Reading

Just like with TV, there’s a prime-time for apps too

Mobile app usage peaks at around 7 pm during the day, according to the mobile analytics firm Flurry. The data shows that, just as there is with television, there is a prime-time for mobile apps as well.

Mobile app users generally use their apps from 3 pm to 10 pm, with the peak time being around 7 pm. That’s slightly off from the usual television prime-time, which lasts from around 7 pm to 11 pm. … Continue Reading

After three pivots, Playhaven finds a niche in monetizing mobile apps

Playhaven started life as a gamer’s social network. Then it morphed into making communities for mobile games. Now, after its third pivot, the company is focused on how to make money for mobile app developers via a real-time game marketing platform.

Andy Yang, who took over as chief executive in March at San Francisco-based Playhaven, acknowledges the company has been on a rollercoaster in the past few years as it adapted to all of the … Continue Reading

Mobile app ad inventory is growing at staggering rates

Mobile analytics firm Flurry said in a blog post this morning that the ad inventory of mobile apps — all of the space available for ads within apps on iPhone and Android devices — is growing so fast that it will soon be able to absorb all of the online ad spend for U.S. display ads on the web.

That is, the two-year-old market will soon meet the demands of a 15-year-old mature market in … Continue Reading

Consumers spend average of $14 per transaction in iPhone and Android freemium games

Not everyone buys virtual goods in mobile games. But among those who do, the average purchase price is pretty big: $14.

That’s a pretty big number, considering free-to-play games are relatively new to consumers, according to stats gathered by mobile analytics firm Flurry. Not everyone is used to buying items inside games. But the number shows that people who make in-app purchases (the name for goods purchased while an app is still running) are willing … Continue Reading

Heyzap launches free personalized game recommendations on Android

Heyzap is expanding its offerings as a mobile platform provider. At first, it enabled users to “check in” to their mobile games to tell their friends what they’re playing. Now the company is analyzing the check-in data to offer free recommendations of Android games.

If Heyzap helps game developers find users and helps users find new games amid the masses of offerings in mobile app stores, there could be some serious money in it for … Continue Reading

In Q2, developers favored Apple’s iOS over Google’s Android

Developers are a critical battleground in the war of apps between Apple and Google. And Apple’s pulling ahead, according to Flurry’s latest stats.

In the second quarter, Apple’s iOS operating system gained support from developers while Android saw a decline, according to Flurry, a company that provides advertising and analytics services for app makers. The battle for developers is an important one as the winning platform is kind of like the feudal warlord who has … Continue Reading

GamesBeat veteran speakers come back for more

Today we’re revealing the tenth group of speakers for our third annual GamesBeat 2011 conference. This group is a set of veterans who have spoken at our past conferences and have meaningful updates for our event on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. We like when our past speakers show up again with more to say.

Our new speakers are Keith Lee, CEO of Booyah; Peter Farago, vice president of … Continue Reading

Free-to-play mobile games to be highlighted at GamesBeat 2011

Today we’re revealing the sixth set of speakers for our third annual GamesBeat 2011 conference. Our newest slate of speakers will be part of a panel on the free-to-play mobile gaming market. They include Jeferson Valadares, general manager of games at Flurry; Gabe Leydon, chief executive of Addmired; Lou Fasulo, chief operating officer of Z2Live, and Dave Casteluovo, CEO of Bolt Creative.

Free-to-play and in-app purchase business models on mobile have changed … Continue Reading