App store analytics provider Distimo in its latest report once again focuses on in-app purchases across a variety of mobile application stores, Apple’s App Store in particular.
According to Distimo, the percentage of applications with in-app purchases is significantly higher in the App Store for iPad (10%) compared to that for the iPhone (2%).
One of the main reasons for that, still according to the startup, is the fact that the App Store for iPad became available after in-app purchases were introduced, contrary to the App Store for iPhone. Another reason to take into consideration is that the iPad may currently be used more as a media consumption device than the iPhone, with magazine and newspaper publishers selling much of their content as in-app purchases.
Evidently, the fact that there are more applications available for the iPhone than for the iPad also skews the numbers.
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In any event, the Games and Social Networking categories in both stores have the highest proportion of applications with in-app purchases available, the startup posits.
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The most successful free applications that monetized using in-app purchases this month in the Apple App Store for iPhone were MobiTV and ESPN 2010 FIFA World Cup, which isn’t surprising considering there was this little event called the World Cup going on.
As for paid applications: the apps that saw the strongest level of monetization with in-app purchases this month in the App Store for iPhone were Guitar Hero, TomTom U.S.A. and Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies II.
Pages and iBooks (both apps are published by Apple) are both, again, the number one paid and free applications on the Apple App Store for iPad in terms of total download numbers.
Netflix for iPad, introduced back in April, is the second most popular free iPad app, while RSS reading app Pulse comes in at second place in the paid applications ranking.
