apprupt was invited to an event of a very successful (iPhone) app development company on Friday. Among other interesting talks, a very interesting discussion evolved around the topic of app piracy. The managing director of the app development company mentioned that on average, 5-10% of their apps were being pirated. This correlates with other available numbers on app piracy, although in individual cases this number can be much higher, even up to 40 or 50 %. Interestingly, the company (offers paid and lite apps) is not too worried about app piracy. Why?

Piracy, for obvious reasons, is generally a negative thing for developers and, as in many other industries, is a phenomenon that is difficult (or better impossible) to avoid or control. Having 10% of your product copies pirated feels like a lot of revenues lost. Of course, the company agreed they would rather not have their product pirated, but these were the upsides they saw:

• Users that might otherwise not have bought their app at all get in contact with their product

• Users that download a cracked version seem to be quite active in forums, where they do recommend the app

• The company would still be able to monetize the user through marketing within the app

• The company used the cracked apps to market their own products

 
Of course, trying to monetize a cracked app might not compensate for the initial revenue lost, however, together with the potential increase in “social” product reviews and recommendations, does seem like a very real upside. As a side note, the company refuses to remotely influence the cracked app in terms of quality in order to avoid negative reviews of their own product.

Securing your product against piracy from the beginning is one thing, but looking at the cracked copies that are already out there as an additional marketing channel sounds rather clever to us.