Show HN: Apps ranked by valuation

https://sensortower.com/ios/leaderboard/estimated-app-worth/all-categories

by diziet • 13 years ago

41 22 13 years ago

mashmac2• 13 years ago

How are these valuations calculated?

For example, Instagram has an estimated value of ~$4.6 Billion, but it's actual value (based on purchase by FB) is ~$1 Billion. The page doesn't provide a clear link on how they estimated the valuations, either...

Edit: If you click on one of them, then mouse-over the valuation on that page, if offers the following explanation:

"To calculate App Worth, we take into account many factors and metrics:

- User Estimates

- User Activity

- International Reach

- Revenue Estimates

- Sensor Tower Secret Sauce™"

megablast• 13 years ago

Not sure why this is secret. A formula would be useful, but I guess this is just a fun estimate.

diziet4• 13 years ago

Part of the reason for that is that I didn't want people gaming the algorithm. The things it looks at are user numbers, revenue estimates (very good here~) and internationalization when computing the worth.

scholia2• 13 years ago

Instagram was presumably worth $1 billion when Facebook bought it 16 months ago.

That doesn't tell you what it would be worth today.

soup10• 13 years ago

Dunno how accurate this is for the biggest and free apps, but I own a medium size paid app and it seems reasonable. The search/keyword graphs they have are interesting too, haven't seen that data before.

kranner2• 13 years ago

Apparently there's a lot more money in Bible apps than I had imagined.

If this ordering is close to being accurate, it's a wonderful resource to reflect on to understand what consumers truly care about.

diziet4• 13 years ago

We've also got an ordering based on number of ratings: https://sensortower.com/ios/leaderboard/estimated-app-worth/...

With the Bible app, I was surprised too when it showed up -- but the app has over 30 million users. It's quite bigger than a lot of funded social networks, it is just a matter of monetizing or engaging the users properly. Religion is a big market!

kranner2• 13 years ago

Thanks for this resource!

Gurrewe• 13 years ago

They seem to have mixed up Sweden with Slovakia. Funny.

irollboozers• 13 years ago

Looks great! One curious thing I'd be interested to see is the sum of the values of all the apps and how it compares with Apple's estimates.

k-mcgrady• 13 years ago

Not exactly sure how the valuations are calculated but they don't seem too accurate. I looked at my own apps and some that should have appeared didn't, others that shouldn't have appeared did.

bruceboughton2• 13 years ago

So:

- Pandora's app is worth $1.7bn

- Google's Search app is only worth $0.7bn

Riiiiight...

netcan2• 13 years ago

If pandora didn't have the pandora app, it would be out of business. If google didn't have the google search app.. it would probably not be noticeable on its balance sheets.

bruceboughton2• 13 years ago

Pandora existed before it had an app so I'm not sure it would be out of business. A significant proportion of its business may go through the app but that's not the same thing.

Google is a vastly bigger scale business though so I'm surprised such a small percentage of its profit is attributed to the app. Especially as they are pushing Google Now.

In general, though, I'm not sure the attribution of profits to apps is consistent for multi-platform businesses.

codeka• 13 years ago

I wouldn't put any games in the top ten (or even top 50). I don't see Candy Crush or Clash of Clans being around six months from now, so I don't see how it could be worth anywhere near $1.36B...

diziet4• 13 years ago

Well, given that Clash of Clans has been around and in the top 3~ grossing consistently for the last year, and Candy Crush has been at #1 for a year and a half, and neither show any substantial signs of slowing down and are improving on game mechanics and monetization strategies I would take your wager. These apps are very international and in the App Store terms, a year is quite a long time.

scholia2• 13 years ago

I'm with you on Candy Crush (my family has numerous addicts) but I'm not sure it's worth so much more than Angry Birds.

Angry Birds also makes money offline (soft toys etc) but presumably that's not covered in your table....

netcan2• 13 years ago

Accuracy aside, this is interesting.

The thing that always sands out to me in any "thing - value" list always how little correlation there is between hard/complicated things and value.

Whatsapp vs Viber. Kindle vs Bible. Waze/Google maps vs Urban Spoon/Yelp. Creating an awesome bible app seems incredibly doable.

diziet4• 13 years ago

Yep, creating an awesome Bible app is doable. Getting people to download and use it, that's the hard part!

cpursley• 13 years ago

I'm a valuer/appraiser by trade and would be interested to know how you're making calculations. Direct cap or irr (DCF)? A dollar amount multiplied per estimated user?

stevenp• 13 years ago

I will happily sell my apps for the price listed. Who should I contact for my check? :)

Show HN: Apps ranked by valuation

Related Stories