Why aren’t Android apps selling more?

I was reading an article earlier today on the BBC News website about the fact that Android apps aren’t selling anywhere near as much as iPhone apps. I think there are loads of reasons for this, but it’s interesting that so many more apps are sold on the iPhone despite the fact that there are many more Android phones than iOS.

One of the main reasons I’m sometimes wary of downloading Android apps is that because the store isn’t vetted by Google the chances of downloading a rogue app or virus are much higher. I’m fine spending money on apps that are from big companies and have lots of reviews, but I don’t generally try out new apps like I would for the iPhone for this reason.

The other thing that may have been overlooked is that a lot of apps on Android seem to be free in exchange for advertising space. This means that downloads of these apps wouldn’t be counted when it comes to estimating the amount of revenue generated by apps. The article doesn’t say whether this was a factor that was taken into account when coming up with the figures. Angry Birds is a good example of this, but there are many others that use this pricing model.