This is part of a series of articles ahead of our conference Mobile Media Strategies 2011, taking place on June 14.
If you were to ask Screen Digest senior analyst Ronan de Renesse the best price is for an app, he doesn’t consider the answer for very long: “Free”. Giving apps away is still the most popular app strategy – look how much green there is on this graph of Distimo data from March.
But in an interview with TheMediaBriefing, de Renesse argued that while free is the best entry point for new users, freemium is the most promising business model. Hook your customer in and you can still charge extra for improved functionality.
Here’s our video chat with de Renesse:
Easier with TV?
In the UK, Sky is offering mobile access as part of its premium subscription package. For example, for its iPad app Sky customers paid just £6 extra while non-subscribers paid £35.
News monetisation
In March this year Sky announced that it intends to charge for its Sky News app. Despite showing promise by being a live app rather than edition download, de Renesse is less convinced that this will work.
“The more devices you include the more you reduce the addressable market. So how many people today have a tablet, smartphone, PC and are reading a lot of news as well.”
Originally published on TheMediaBriefing