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iPhone Piracy May Have Cost Apple, Developers $450M
Apple iPhones that have been jailbroken, modified to allow unapproved applications, have cost the computer giant and its developers some $450 million, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the financial news site 24/7 Wall St. The reports says a staggering 1.53 billion pirated applications have been downloaded, or three for every legitimate, paid download.
Citing research by Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi, the report says between 13 percent and 21 percent of the three billion downloads from Apple’s App Store since it began in July 2008 were for paid applications at an average cost of $3. The store also offers many free apps.
That amounts to income of between $60 million and $110 million per quarter as of the time of the research, when 127,632 applications were available.
Three-To-One Ratio
The Delaware-based web site said that by modifying the iPhone to circumvent Apple’s limitations, tech-savvy users can download similar, pirated software for free or cheaper from sites such as Cydia. Citing the number of visits reported by Cydia and the growth of iPhone use, the authors estimate there are some 7.5 million jailbroken iPhone users who can download whatever they please, although not every user who hacks an iPhone is believed to be pirating apps.
“Assuming the proportion of those that are paid apps falls in the middle of the Bernstein estimate, 17 percent, or 510 million, of these were paid applications,” wrote report authors Garrett W. McIntyre and Phil MacDonald. “Based on our review of current information, paid applications have a piracy rate of around 75 percent. That supports the figure that for every paid download, there have been three pirated downloads.” At $3 a download, the lost revenue is $459 million, they conclude.
While many developers put security features into their software, 24/7 Wall St. suggests that Apple hasn’t done much…
source : www.newsfactor.com
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Submited at Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 8:00 pm on tech by sofia
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