Nordic iPhone App Store Statistics

Lacking a better metrics from official sources, the data analysts at Xyologic have put together statistics on the top paid and free apps in the Android, iPhone, iPad, and WP7 marketplace. These numbers can’t be relied upon completely, but should prove themselves to be fairly sound when discussing what’s happening at the top of the marketplaces.

Our first coverage of these data-sets will look at what’s happening in the paid and free iPhone marketplaces in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, using data from the month of August. Games accounted for about 59% of paid app downloads in the region, with anywhere from 57.1% in Finland to 61.3% in Sweden. This is quite apparent when looking at the top paid app lists, with the following four games consistently in the top 5:

Siege Hero was by far the top paid game in August, with Cut the Rope: Expeiments, Finland’s Angry Birds, and Plants vs. Zombies also dominating the list.

After games, utilities were the second most popular paid category from 8.7-11.3% for each country except Denmark, where entertainment took second place with 7.91% of all paid apps. Photography, productivity, and entertainment closed out the top 5 categories for nearly each country and hovered around 4-5% for each type of app. The only outliers included Photography’s 8.7% download popularity in Finland, while Health & Fitness replaced Photography at 4.6% in Denmark.

Xyologic’s data set also highlights country-specific anomalies where 75% of the app downloads came from a single country. Finland’s ReittiGPS, a location based public transport search, was the 6th most downloaded paid app in Finland. In Norway, SnakeRace was a sleeper hit also taking the 6th position. In Sweden, the 12th most popular app was TrueCaller, a spam-call protecting phonebook app, while Denmark’s Biblioteket e-reader app came in around the 33rd position.

In the free app marketplace, Siege Hero’s free app was also consistently in the top two most downloaded, with Wordfeud in the lead in Sweden and Norway but nowhere to be seen in Denmark and Finland. Smurf’s Village was also a notable leading game across all countries. Useful apps, like Facebook and Instagram also stayed in the top 5 of the free position.

After games, the popular free categories included entertainment at around 10% of market share in Finland and Norway. The Danes second place was also entertainment, down to 7.2%, while the Swedes stayed connected with social networking apps taking their second place at 6.1%. Social Networking, Lifestyle, and utilities closed out the rest of free app downloads, with less generally less than 5% of total free downloads each.

The free apps to gain traction in only one country include both the YouSee TV Guide and bold.dk’s app in the top 10 in Denmark. Norway’s Angry Hills took 5th place, which seems to strengthen the Angry game theme in the Nordic countries. Sweden’s Kokaihop.se Recept grabbed 7th most downloaded in Sweden, and Finland’s Skyskanner Kaikki Lennot Kaikkialle! free flight search app came in 11th place.

This country-specific data is free to access on the Xyologic website.