Depends on whether you're trying to produce apps that target the global market or your own local market. There might be more apps purchased per capita on iOS, but if iOS is 0.001% penetration in your country, and your app is only for people in your country, then that stat isn't really relevant.
Who would make an app only for one country outside specific fringe cases
Edit: Specifically on the topic of apps relevant to independent developers, the topic I’m replying to. An indie dev isn’t going to create a regional newspaper or utility company or a media empire or a government.
Regional newspapers; social networks (or dating, or classifieds) following the Facebook "start by seeding interest in the people around you" model; government services apps; any "portal" app for banks, electric companies, cellular providers, or insurance companies, etc.
(I'm Canadian; half the apps on my phone only exist in Canada.)
More relevant to paid use-cases: streaming video services that offer content in the country's distinct language that's only spoken there. (Example: the Philippines. There's enough Tagalog content for entire services to be based around offering it; and nobody outside of the country would ever be interested in it.)
> An indie dev isn’t going to create a regional newspaper or utility company or a media empire.
How many people do you think work at regional newspapers in e.g. Tanzania? I'd guess maybe five people. You think they can hire some big software firm to write them a mobile app? They're either hiring the editor's nephew to do it, or they put out a classified ad looking for someone in town who can do it, and they end up getting a call from the guy who runs the cellphone repair store who "thinks he can give it a try." Same with the banks there, the utilities there, and even the government services there. Also same with schools, restaurants, museums, etc.
You'd think that most of these would just target the web rather than making mobile apps. But in many of these countries — and esp. in poorer regions of them — Internet access is still so shit that the lower bandwidth requirements of a native app with offline sync really matter. (Example again from the Philippines, c/o a friend of mine who lives there: people who meet on dating websites move immediately to talking on WhatsApp, because out in the provinces you've got a miniscule data plan with spotty connectivity, which can handle the few KBs of push data per WhatsApp message, but can't handle refreshing some bloated website chat interface to check for new messages.)
I brought up dating sites for a reason, actually! Match-group companies really only cover developed countries in North America + Europe + East Asia; they have virtually no penetration into South America, Africa, or South/South-East Asia.
Instead, "the rest of the world" has developed and popularized its own collection of apps and sites, some of which are global (being well-known to everyone except the English-speaking world), while others are quite regional.
Locanto (a Craigslist-alike, containing among other sections a Craigslist Personals-alike) is a good example of a global one. It exists in the west, but has basically no market penetration. But ask anyone in South Africa, or Colombia, or Indonesia, what they think of when you say "dating site", and they'll probably point to Locanto.
Others are regional but backed by "media empires" of their own — there's the whole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid_Media set of sites, for example, that each cover one country in SEA.
Yea, Cupid media‘s “33” sites like MexicanCupid, UkraineDate, etc is a great example of country specific branding while a great deal of software/ IT infrastructure could be shared.
But it’s also common in many industries to have 3rd party software companies offer various levels of customizable software that can look very brand specific while being nearly identical. Sometime it’s obvious like with Android, but no car company wants someone else’s look and feel let alone logo in their infotainment system. So it’s not alway obvious how distinct everything actually is under the hood.
There's also a huge opportunity in taking concepts that are working well elsewhere, and building them for the specifics of your market. For an early example, see Trademe in NZ (basically better rebay, and still completely dominant). If I recall, there's also a Berlin development house that basically does this at scale for the German market.
For a lot of people, winning in their country (rather than SF-bay-world-domination-hyperscale) is plenty.
Now you’re talking about wage labor opportunity, not App Store sales profitability. If you make an app for a local newspaper, you’re not making money off app sales, you’re selling the IP you create and the profits that IP or automation generates for the owner. Different topic.
If you're a person who lives in Tanzania and is considering getting into mobile app development — and you've decided, first-and-foremost, that you want to "work locally" to produce apps that benefit your fellow Tanzanians — then by making this decision, you've basically opted out of "selling apps" altogether, instead placing yourself firmly in the "selling app-dev labor for the development of free apps" camp; and you've also opted out of targeting iOS, since it's got at most 7.75%[1] market share in Tanzania.
(And probably a large percentage of that 7.75% is tourists visiting for safaris, who won't ever be downloading your app-for-locals anyway. Tanzania's less-tourist-inclined neighbour, Kenya, has a 3.43% iOS market-share, which sounds closer to realistic for the area.)
(If you want a knock-down argument, though, how about this: India has a billion people and 3.92% of them use iOS (which I didn't realize until pulling the citation above.) There are definitely independent Indian game developers, making games whose characters are historical or mythological figures well-known in India, but not of much interest outside of India. They sell these games, for money. Would it make sense for these people to bother with iOS development, vs. focusing solely on Android development?)
