Mobile games represent nine of the ten most popular free iPhone and iPod touch applications in Apple's App Store, according to new data issued by mobile analytics firm Distimo--in addition, games make up eight of the top ten premium App Store bestsellers. All ten of May 2010's highest-ranked paid App Store titles are priced at 99 cents each: Clickgamer.com's Angry Birds is the top bestseller for the month, followed in descending order by Lima Sky's Doodle Jump, Traction Games' Stick Skater, Halfbrick Studios' Fruit Ninja and Freeverse's Skee-Ball. Clickgamer's Angry Birds Lite is the month's most popular free iPhone app, followed by iDevUA's Glass Tower 2, Traction Games' Stick Skater Lite, Tapulous' Tap Tap Revenge 3 Boost and Jetson Creative's Ow My Balls!
The Distimo report arrives on the heels of news that Doodle Jump has now sold more than 5 million copies via the App Store--in March, the title surpassed the 3 million-download benchmark. Lima Sky co-founders Igor and Marko Pusenjak told The New York Times they believe the 99-cent Doodle Jump is the first iPhone application to rack up 5 million downloads. In related news, the Walt Disney Company announced last week it has acquired Tapulous--financial details were not disclosed. Per terms of the deal, Tapulous is now a wholly owned Disney subsidiary under the umbrella of the media giant's Disney Interactive Media Group--the Tapulous team will join the DIMG mobile content group, with founders Bart Decrem and Andrew Lacy assuming leadership roles within the unit.
Distimo reports that free applications now make up 28 percent of all App Store entries--at the other end of the spectrum, free applications account for 57 percent of all apps in Google's Android Market, substantially more than any other storefront. (Free apps are 34 percent of Palm App Catalog, 26 percent of both BlackBerry App World and Nokia's Ovi Store, and 22 percent of Microsoft's Windows Marketplace for Mobile.)
For more on the latest Distimo report:
- check out the Distimo Blog
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