The 6th edition of Developer Economics series for Q1 2014 is released today.

There are always great insights to the trend of mobile development as they surveyed with 7,000+ developers.

I am highlighting some salient points for 2014.

App Developers across 3 continents

Here is the demographic of the 7,000+ developers surveyed:

There is around 700,000 developers in each of the 3 continents. That’s quite a lot.

Revenue Model

The most popular model is contract development:

Contract development is responsible for 56% – over half of the app economy for 2013

Another is in-app advertising:

In-app advertising remains one of most popular revenue models at 26% of app developers, particularly strong on platforms where demand for direct purchases is weak, such as Windows Phone and Android.

In terms of developer revenues per capita:

iOS maintains its momentous gap with median revenues between $500-1000 per app / month, much higher than the median revenues of Android developers ($100-200 per app / month).

Poverty Line

60% of developers are below the “app poverty line”, i.e. earn less than $500 per app per month, according to the latest Developer Economics survey.

Average Developer

There is no such thing as an average developer. Developers in the Hunters segment care for revenue, Digital Media Publishers care for reach, Hobbyists care for documentation, Enterprise IT developers care for speed and cost.

There are many types of developers now. Some are directly earning revenue by paid downloads or in-app purchases. Others are indirectly earning by extending their services from web to the mobile.

Some are there for the money eg hacker/hobbyists

Tablet

Tablets are very much a “companion” development option; tablets attract 83% of app developers but just 12% of developers target tablets as their primary development screen.

Priority is still phone, with tablet providing a complimentary value.

For tablet, iPad is still king. Out of the 12% of developers that solely target tablets:

Despite the flood of Android tablet sales, 52% of app developers that mainly target tablets, prioritise iOS, with Android coming in a distant second at 28% of app developers.

Another not-so-good Report

Millenial Media also released a 2014 report at the same time.

But their insights were much weaker, more biased. They only surveyed 351 developers. For example, they said 90% has advertising, while Developer Economic, who surveyed 7,000+ developers said 26$ has advertising.

Obviously biased, as Millenial Media is a mobile ad network company, and their developers all run ads..

So, read the better report.