Android 8: Monetizing and Distributing Kirk Scott 1

8.1 Introduction 8.2 Monetizing 8.3 Distributing 8.4 Summary 2

8.1 Introduction 3

There are several sections of the Android developer’s Web site One of these sections is, “Distribute” In this section the first headings is, “Google Play” This set of overheads continues the previous set It covers the remaining subsections under Google Play 4

As with the previous set of overheads, this set of overheads simply presents the content of those subsections of the Web site In other words, for better or worse, Google’s “advertisement” for Android is simply repeated The reader or listener will have to evaluate the material presented in that light 5

The previous set of overheads basically covered the topic of how many potential users could be reached through Google Play This set of overheads is somewhat repetitive, but it is aimed at how to make money and the process of distributing apps 6

8.2 Monetizing 7

Flexible Monetizing and Business Tools Sell your app in more than 130 countries. Flexible monetization options with in-app purchase, subscriptions, and more. 8

9

Streamlined purchase flow for users When users find your app, they can purchase it instantly with a streamlined, consistent purchasing process and convenient payment methods. 10

Instant purchase from device or web Google Play makes it fast and easy for your customers to buy your products, whether from a phone, a tablet, or a desktop computer. When users find an app or game that they want to buy, they can purchase it in as few as two steps—one to initiate the purchase and another to accept purchase details and permissions and complete the transaction. 11

Google Play's convenient purchase experience is the same familiar process for all products everywhere across Google Play—apps, games, in-app products and subscriptions, and other digital content. 12

Cloud-connected Purchasing is even more convenient on Google Play because it’s cloud-connected. Users can find and purchase your products from anywhere—from their Android phones or using any web browser on any host computer. 13

When users find an app or game they want to buy, they purchase it and download it instantly to their devices over-the-air. Users who sign in to the Google Play web site can also buy apps and games and push them instantly to their phones, tablets, or other devices. Google Play manages the application download. 14

Convenient payment options Users can purchase your products on Google Play using several convenient payment methods—credit cards, Direct Carrier Billing, gift cards, and Google Play balance. 15

Credit card is the most common method of payment. Users can pay using any credit card that they’ve registered in Google Play. To make it easy for users to get started, registration is offered as a part of initial device setup process. 16

Payment methods on Google Play Credit card Direct Carrier Billing Gift card Google Play balance (stored value) 17

Subscribers on many popular carrier networks worldwide can charge purchases to their monthly mobile phone bills through Direct Carrier Billing. This form of payment is convenient and simple and is extremely popular in regions where credit cards are less common. 18

More than 75 million users in key markets around the world can purchase your products through Direct Carrier Billing. Many more will get the option in the months ahead. 19

Google Play balance is a stored account balance in Google Play. Users can increase their balance through promotions and offers in the store, and they can use their balance to make purchases of apps, games, or other content. The payment methods available to users worldwide may vary, based on location, carrier network, and other factors. 20

Choice of billing models Google Play gives you a choice of billing models to let you monetize your products. You can offer apps to all users for free, or you can set an initial price for the app, paid before download. You can also sell one-time purchases and auto- renewing subscriptions from inside the app, and you can take advantage of AdMob integration to monetize your app through targeted advertising. 21

Billing models on Google Play Free (no charge to download) Priced (user charged before download) In-app products and subscriptions 22

23

You can combine these billing models in different ways, based on your business needs or market conditions. For example, you can use a freemium or ad- supported model by distributing your app for free and selling in-app products or advertising. 24

Alternatively you could set a nominal price for your app at download and sell value add-ons, gameplay levels, and upgrades as in-app products. The only restriction is that free apps must remain free (to download) for the life of the app. For details about in-app products or subscriptions, see Google Play In-app Billing.Google Play In-app Billing 25

Flexible pricing in the currencies of your customers Google Play gives you complete control over how you price your products. You can set prices in more than 130 countries, for millions of users around the world. When users browse your app’s product page or initiate a purchase, Google Play shows them the price they will be charged in their local currency. 26

27

You can set and adjust your prices at any time, in any available currency. Your prices in available currencies are independent, so you can adjust one price without affecting others. This gives you the ability to run short-term promotions and discounts in specific countries and more easily manage shifts in exchange rates. You can set and manage prices for your apps and in-app products from the Google Play Developer Console. 28

Monthly payouts in your local currency To sell products in Google Play, all you have to do is register for a Google Wallet merchant account and link it to your Google Play Android Developer Console account (see Get Started with Publishing for details).Get Started with Publishing Once you’ve set up your account and published your apps, Google Play makes monthly payouts of sales proceeds to your merchant account, in your local currency. 29

Detailed financial reporting When you sell priced apps or in-app products on Google Play, you get a variety of financial reports to help you track and project sales, optimize your marketing campaigns, and support your customers. To help you keep up-to-date with the current activity, you can download daily reports summarizing recent purchases of your products. 30

The reports include estimated sales amounts and include a variety of other data for each transaction. At the close of the month, you can download a complete sales report that gives you the final details of all transactions that closed in the month, including the payout amounts and other data. Additional financial reports are available in your Google Wallet merchant account. 31

8.3 Distribution 32

Distribution Control Deliver your apps to the users you want, on the devices you want, on your schedule. 33

Instant publishing, instant updates On Google Play, you can publish your products to customers instantly. Just upload and configure your product in the Google Play Developer Console and press the Publish button—your app appears in the store listings within hours, not weeks. 34

Once your app is published, you can update it as often as you want. You can change prices, configuration, and distribution options at any time through the Google Play Developer Console, without needing to update your app binary. 35

Later, as you add features or address code issues, you can publish an updated binary at any time. Google Play makes the new version available almost immediately and notifies existing customers that an update is ready for download. To streamline the rollout across your customer base, Google Play also lets users accept automatic updates of your app, so that your updates are delivered and installed as soon as you publish them. 36

Reaching the customers you want Google Play does more than connect your app with users—it helps you reach the broadest possible distribution across the Android ecosystem, while making sure that your app is only available to the audience that you want to reach. 37

Geographic targeting You can use controls in the Google Play Developer Console to easily manage the geographic distribution of your apps, without any changes in your application binary. You can specify which countries and territories you want to distribute to, and even which carriers (for some countries). 38

39

When users visit the store, Google Play makes sure that they are in one of your targeted countries before downloading your app. You can change your country and carrier targeting at any time just by saving changes in the Google Play Developer Console. To help you market to users around the world, you can localize your store listing, including app details and description, promotional graphics, screenshots, and more.localize your store listing 40

Capabilities targeting Google Play also lets you control distribution according to device features or capabilities that your app depends on. There are several types of dependencies that the app can define in its manifest, such as hardware features, OpenGL texture compression formats, libraries, Android platform versions, and others. 41

42

When you upload your app, Google Play reads the dependencies and sets up any necessary distribution rules. For technical information about declaring dependencies, read Filters on Google Play.Filters on Google Play 43

For pinpoint control over distribution, Google Play lets you see all of the devices your app is available to based on its dependencies (if any). From the Google Play Developer Console, you can list the supported devices and even exclude specific devices if needed. 44

Statistics for analyzing installs and ratings Once you’ve published your app, Google Play makes it easy to see how it’s doing. The Google Play Developer Console gives you access to a variety of anonymized statistics and custom charts that show you the app's installation performance and ratings. 45

You can view data and charts for active, daily, and total installs per unique devices or users, as well as upgrades and uninstalls. You can also view the app's daily average user rating and its cumulative user rating. To help you analyze the data, you can view install and ratings statistics across a variety of different dimensions such as Android version, device, country, app version, and carrier. 46

47

You can see your app statistics on timeline charts, for all metrics and dimensions. At a glance, the charts highlight your app’s installation and ratings peaks and longer-term trends, which you can correlate to promotions, app improvements, or other factors. 48

You can even focus in on data inside a dimension by highlighting specific data points (such as individual platform versions or languages) on the timeline. So that you can “take your data with you”, you can download all of your installation data as a CSV file for viewing in the business program of your choice. 49

Advanced delivery options Google Play offers convenient options for managing how your apps are delivered to users. 50

Alpha and beta testing, staged rollouts It's always valuable to get real-world feedback from users, especially before launch. Google Play makes it easy to distribute pre- release versions of your app to alpha and beta test groups anywhere in the world. 51

You can start with a small group of alpha testers, then move to a larger group of beta testers. Once users are added, they access your app's store listing and install the app. User feedback from alpha and beta testers goes directly to you and is not posted as public reviews. 52

To help you ensure quality and protect your app ratings, you can choose a staged rollout when launching an app or an update. With staged rollout, you distribute the production version of your app to a percentage of users. You can adjust the percentage as you go, starting small and increasing until your app is available to all users. 53

Multiple APK support In most cases, it’s easy to create an app that supports all of your targeted screen sizes and platform versions from a single APK. Distributing a single APK to all of your users is a highly recommended approach, because it’s the easiest way to manage and maintain the app. If you need to deliver a different APK to devices, Google Play provides a way to do that. 54

An option called Multiple APK support lets you create multiple APK packages that use the same package name but differ in their OpenGL texture compression formats, screen-size support, or Android platform versions supported. You can upload all of the APKs to Google Play under a single product listing and Google Play selects the best APK to deliver to users, based on the characteristics of their devices. 55

The APK Expansion Files option lets you upload up to two secondary downloads for each published APK, including multiple APKs. Each of the two expansion files can be up to 2GB each and can contain any type of code or assets. When you upload the expansion files, Google Play hosts them for free and handles the download of the files as part of the normal APK installation. 56

Protecting your app Google Play provides two key features to help you protect your application against piracy — Google Play Licensing and app encryption. 57

Google Play Licensing is a network-based service that you implement in your app. The service lets your app query a trusted licensing server at runtime, to determine whether the app is licensed to the current device user. You can use the licensing service to protect any app, even apps that you distribute for free. For an overview of the service, see Application Licensing.Application Licensing 58

Additionally, Google Play offers app encryption to help protect your priced apps. When delivering your priced apps to devices running Android 4.1 or higher, Google encrypts the app binary so that it can be run only by the user who downloaded it, on the device to which it was originally downloaded. Your priced apps benefit from app encryption automatically — there's no extra development work or configuration needed. 59

8.4 Summary 60

This part of the Google information is largely oriented towards making money From our perspective, however, it’s important that apps, educational apps, for example, can also be distributed free of charge All of the commercial machinery of the Google Android infrastructure is also available and useful for non-commercial purposes 61

As a practical matter, it’s also true that educational apps might need some financial support The could be sold at development cost rather than for a profit Once again, the Google infrastructure is there to support this 62

The End 63