Génération Nouvelles Technologies recently published an article on a study by userAdgents done on the French iPhone App Store. FYI, the study can be requested for free on their website.

A numbers game. 

The study found that in the beginning of February 2010 the French App Store had 76, 976 applications from 23,942 publishers, with an average of 280 apps being added per day. With the average price of an application at €1.35, 74% of applications are less than €1 (with 40% of applications being free) – and the most expensive application apparently costs €719.99 (FYI the article says €799.99, which is incorrect).

I am rich.

€719.99 for an iPhone app? You must be joking. Paying more for an application than the actual phone is just nuts to me. But hey, the app must be pretty damn special.

 One of the first most-expensive applications, called “I am rich”,  used to do nothing more than show off one’s ability to buy an iPhone app for $999.  Apple now sells this application at €0.79 in the French App Store, after some (not rich) users complained to the company when they purchased the application thinking it was a joke.  Whoops.

A not-so-French touch. 

Get this: turns out the most expensive application in the French App Store isn’t even French – it’s the iRa Pro developed by Illinois-based Lextech Labs. What does the almightly expensive application do? It allows you to view multiple live video feeds from cameras directly onto your phone – that’s right, surveillance. I’d love to know how many people there are in France that need to view multiple live video feeds on their cell phones – but hey, maybe somewhere off in the French countryside this is how farmers monitor their cows (while video surveillance is surprisingly big in France, let’s not forget that a majority of government officials are not equipped with iPhones for professional purposes) . The company also sells an (identical) application called the iRa Direct, which is some €300 less expensive (€399.99).  

Foreign invasion.

The 2nd and 3rd most expensive apps aren’t French either – in fact a majority of the expensive applications in the French App Store are foreign. After rummaging through the App Store (which doesn’t let you rank applications by price = very annoying), the most-expensive French-produced iphone app is most likely between €80 and €100 (I’ll have to verify this in a later post – unless someone cares to step forward with the most expensive French-made app).

A little less bling bling.

So if the French price their applications as cheaper than foreigners do in the French App Store, does this also reflect something about their preferences and how they view application pricing? Or are they just gaining momentum?