As the plethora of mobile apps continues to grow, app publishers are increasingly ask the question - what can I do to have a successful app? In this report, we adopt theoretical lens from transaction cost theory and economic utility in the development and test of a model that examines the impacts of app diversity and app cohesivity on app success. Using data gathered from the Microsoft Windows Phone App distribution platform, our main conclusions are as follows: app diversity (the number of geographic locales an app is built to support) is of particular significance as a potential driver of app success within platforms and app cohesivity (a measure of integration with the platforms services) is positively associated with app success (its download count/rank within the platform). Interestingly, both relationships appear to be moderated by the pricing scheme (free/paid) adopted by publishers for that app.

1. Success in app
distribution platforms :
the contribution of App
Diversity and App
Cohesivity.
City University of Hong Kong
City University of Hong Kong
City University of Hong Kong
Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences
January 5, 2015

2. - Online Platforms
- Definition of
terms/perspectives
- Methodology
- Analysis and Results
- Conclusion
Discussion Outline

3. Online Distribution Platforms
- Of increasing importance as a means to reach
customers (mobile > web usage)
- Rapid growing phenomenon (29k – 1 million apps
in 5 years)
- Enterprises are beginning to include apps in their
strategy.
The space is getting crowded, how can
enterprise or independent vendors succeed ?

4. Platforms
“An the extensible codebase of a software
based system that provides core
functionality shared by the modules that
interoperate with it, and the interfaces
through which they interoperate “
(Tiwana et al , 2010)

5. Apps
Applications (apps) refer to modular
pieces of software designed to run within
specific platforms and are deeply
integrated with features sets made
available by the platforms.
(Adapted from Tiwana et al 2010)

6. Platforms - “A Model of Software Delivery”
Platform
Apps
Runtime Env.
Distribution
Channel
Android Apps
Android OS
Google Play
FireFox Addons
FireFox Browser
FireFox
Marketplace
Platform Platform Platform

8. Related Work
- Portfolio diversification improves
performance (Lee et al 2011)
- app positioning, developer actions, and user
engagement impact performance. (Kajana et
al 2012).

9. Success
Several indicators have been proposed – traffic,
downloads, subscribers (Crowston et al. 2003)
We chose the downloads indicator.
Operationalized as the rank (downloads) of an app

10. Terms – App Diversity
App Diversity – The number
of locales (language based
geographical user sets) that
an app supports. Also
referred to as localization
Operationalized as a count of the
indicated languages supported.

11. Perspectives on App Diversity and
success
“A transaction cost is a cost incurred in
making an economic exchange”
- Platforms have global instant reach
- Within platforms focus is on users
- Multilingual support can lower
search/information costs for users
H1 – Language support is positively associated with
an apps rank within distribution platforms

12. Terms – App Cohesivity
App Cohesivity – The degree of
integration an app possesses
with its platform
services/resources.
- A software platform may provide access to
platform resources such GPS, Camera, File
Systems, Payment authorization etc.
Operationalized as a count of the number of
platform services which an app requires.

13. Perspectives on App Cohesivity and
success
- Platforms provide a list of services via
permissions
- Apps can leverage those features in providing
better customization and more functions.
- These can increase customer utility.
E.g an app using gps/contact/email access for better
recommendation or using a camera for automatic translation.
H2 – App Cohesivity is positively associated with an
apps rank within distribution platforms

15. Methodology
Study sample
• Collected data points on
apps within the Windows
Phone App store.
• Windows platform is still
evolving and provides more
statistics on its apps making
it a suitable test bed.
1100 Apps from the
Top Free (600) list
and Top Paid
List(500).

16. Methodology

17. Analytical Procedure
We perform
ordinary least
squares (OLS)
regression analysis
to test our
hypothesis regarding
the impact of app
attributes on its
ranking for free and
paid apps.
Choice based sampling on the top
2000 apps on each list.

18. Variables
Dependent : Rank
Independent : languagesupport, permissionset
Controls : publisherProlificacy (number of published apps), actual price,
packagesize, platformversions, description, screenshots, (social media,
twitter/facebook interactions)

20. Regression Results
Negatve coefficients imply a positive effect as rank is reverse chronological (a rank value of of 1 > rank value of 100 )

21. Regression Results

22. - App Diversity and App Cohesivity are
positively associated with app success
- But this relationship only occurs when the
app is free.
Lesson for App publishers : When your app is
free, increase your success odds by supporting
more locales and by implementing permission
based customizations.

23. Well, the
new price of
apps is free .

24. Limitations / Future Work
• Conducting same study on other
platforms were possible (e.g iTunes,
Play). The effects may be different
on other platforms.
• Integrating both lists (free and paid)
or a unified picture of effects.

25. Victor Dibia
dibia.victor@my.cityu.edu.hk
Recommended Citation
Victor Dibia, Christian Wagner (2015), "Success Within App Distribution Platforms: The Contribution Of App Diversity And App
Cohesivity", HICSS 2015, 48th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii , USA.

27. Methodology