@Androidbeats
Yes, you are right about 2011. Unfortunately I didn’t know android programming at the time so I come a bit late. Anyway there are still spaces to explore on the market. With regard to your retiremet, I don’t think I’ll ever do it, even if I make 1 million $/day because I really love the process of creating. Relaxing & creating is the best combination to eliminate boredom from your life.
With regard to big players, you don’t need to win them. Is enough to get 1/100 000 of what they get to have a dreamlike life (if google earns 2k$/second from ads then you would need 2k/100k = 0.02$/second which is about 1700$/day :D.
If I may, can I know how much you have earned before retiring for a party life? I bet it is 1 mil :D. I also bet you are making 10k - 20k a month now 
I did not completely retire but just doing other stuff not technology related.
To answer your question:
I have about 18 mil in savings and currently making an average of 9k a day.
are you doing games or just kind of general apps? Good job.
I’ve been doing apps for several years now, and yes it is harder but at the same time, people are spending more time than ever in apps, there are only 2.3B-ish smart phone users, in the next 10 years that will double and that means more installs, yes it will get more competitive but still worth it compared to many other industries.
@Androidbeats
unbeliveable :eek: . Man 18 mil with android games is too much. You did this all alone? WTF! Whats your previous profession if may I ask?
I read on your previous comments that you were claiming to make 15-30$ a day on IOS with a 1 month app so I could never imagine 9k$/day with 18 mil savings now. This is ridiculous
Couple of both.
I just went against the trend.
Back in 2014 when everyone was trying to create the next Flappy bird, I concentrated on apps mainly.
After a while I started making games and so on.
That was two years ago I believe…
I was exploring the IOS store.
If you are making a living from apps you should not ignore IOS.
My previous profession is a software developer until a friend of mine introduced me to Android back in 2011.
I kept my job and doing apps as a hobby until 2014 when I quit my job and did this full time.
Hi,
@Androidbeats, Good to hear you again here.
Well 5% decline is still very good and i think that might be your prime reason to keep you away from active android development.
I can assume that 2011 must be those golden years when CPCs were pretty high and it very easy to get downloads. Since i started development from 2013 and i can compare 2013 with 2018. Its big challange to even maintain the revenue these days.
Those 2014 were the days when i was making 350+ per day with 4 apps and now hardly i am making 200 per day with 14 apps.
How about your ads revenue and number of apps?
I too noticed that searching something with specific keyword in play store, search results indexes to specific app. I assume that app must have higher ranking for that particular keyword.
Would you like to share some tips or anything relevant to android?
Then write it here buddy.
Its dearth of relevant topics here in the forum these days.
Forum is filled with automated spams and shit these days.
Lets spread the motivation again as it was during 2013 - 2016.
@Androidbeats
What an inspiration! The maximum that I saw here for a single person was a guy who claimed to make 4500$/day with a construction game.I thought it was almost impossible to earn alone more than that. That’s a new record (1/20k of Google’s revenue :D). When I reached 1k$/day on december I was boiling inside - can’t imagine how you feel now, even though after a while everything seems normal and you just want to surpass your limit.
@ardi I think you misunderstood what I meant with big players.
You can’t just compete with Google while you are working for them.
With a basic search of most used mobile apps for 2017, you will get the top players:
Facebook, Google Maps, Instagram, Bitmoji, Twitter, Reddit…etc
Those are the big players.
Most mobile users are already trapped inside this apps so it became harder to get their attention.
I mean since I started in this business my question was always trying to satisfy my own needs first.
My first ever app playing around with my buddy at work was a Youtube mp3 converter.
You simply browse youtube and we added a mp3 button under each video, you tap the mp3 button and there you have the audio saved to your phone.
We did it back then because we always wanted to save some music from youtube but we did not want to visit youtube-mp3.org and paste url and back than there was not much about mobile friendly design etc…
I think I am running away from the subject of this thread.
if anyone has any questions I will be happy to answer.
Cheers
@Androidbeats, Sorry for asking this.
How much percentage of IOS apps are contributing in your total earnings these days.
Once again congratulations man 
. You are making decent money and You are real motivation.
Happy making more money. 
Wow, i am drinking coffee and need to grab pop corn. Enjoying this thread more than any blockbuster.
$1000 per day 
$9000 per day
It will definitely change my dreams tonight. I am feeling all shocked. My TV is paused and i am still having the coffee.
@Androidbeats
Don’t worry about running away form the subject, no one gives a shit anymore here and anyway there is nothing more interesting and inspiring than reading your story. Every piece of advice is very much welcomed. I think going to IOS will be my next step thanks to your advice but at the same time I have other ideas that I want to implement.
@gcc
That 9k/day really blows my mind too…The only fact that this is possible to achieve makes me angry about my past choices. I could have done better by avoiding some mistakes…
As i told earlier that i have left the job and now i work 100% for myself.
Considering this fact, i work around 10 hours daily including sundays too.
Though i take random offs whenever required.
But i burn my mid night oil only for android and i have set a big list of around 10 points for this whole year.
That includes my IOS starting too 
Working on ASO these days. Do’t know how much it will help me to get more downloads. Since it was my very first point of this year, so i am almost close to bind it off and will proceed to convert few of my eclipse projects to AS. That will be real pain in the ass since few lib compatibility issue is there.
I too realizing many mistakes now. But that is how it is. Setting my target of $500 per day on an average for this year.
@ardi, did you say that it was $1000 per day for you in december and now its reduced to $130 per day?
If thats true, then i must say its really very big variation and certainly not 20% reduction as you said it earlier in your post.
Or may be you are talking about some of yours specific apps.
@gcc
Nope, I didn’t mention 20% drop, someone else did. The earnings of this year for me are 3x the earnings of the precedent year so I have a big grow. This month to month variation for me is completely normal and expected because of the seasonal type of apps i make. I start to slowly grow from July and reach the 1k at December. After that the cycle starts over.
Not necessarily true, unless the apps you are making are: music players, calculators, tic tac toe, ram boosters, file manager…
If you don’t consider the apps you mentioned is part of the overall app market. We could have file manager in 2011 getting millions downloads in months, but not possible by now. Backed in that time, it was quite common that people downloads a lot of file managers, but now will only stick with one or two.
If you want to talk about niche app, you may have some success, getting good downloads, but that doesn’t mean mobile app market is still growing fast. A few competitors doing the same apps with yours could steal your downloads within months. What I want to said is that the supplies grow much faster than demands, so it was decline in my opinion.
Anyway, I had find out another area that grows exponentially like mobile in 2011, so I would give it a try. Also, I actually had increased revenue last year actually, with some success of new apps, but this doesn’t change my opinion that mobile revenue is shrinking overall.
Edit: Also don’t be so happy with sudden spike in revenue, like grow from $100 >> $1000 daily within a month, and think it was sustainable forever. It depends on the app type, but most people that I know especially who make game, couldn’t get back into $1000 again with the same app once the revenue dropped. The reason is people had been clear or bore with the game. While for other app type, once the competitors coming, you will notice some drop gradually, unless your app is the way better than competitor’s.
Yes I understand what you are saying and I would never do that thinking mistake. My situation is different because as I said, I have seasonal apps and I’ve been through this cycle for some years now - growing from year to year. The year before for example I reached a maximum of 400$/day, that is 1/3 of this year maximum). So your point makes sense in general but not in my case.
Regarding the area that is growing exponentially, I think I know what you are talking about and I’ll very soon lauch some apps in that field too :D.
Hi there, great discussion guys.
@Androidbeats: you are really inspiring, congrats!
I think I am the same type of the guy who left his “normal” job and started developing apps/games. I started around 2012 and it was really good time. I have never been featured, but I was able to earn enough money to buy flats 
I like to say that app/games markets were created by “it guys” for “it guys” I got my highest revenue somewhere in 2016. From that time my revenue is going down. Mainly because of the ad network changes and changes in the market. And… it is also my fault, because I became too lazy to create new apps/games 
Yep… 
Here is what happened… 2 years ago my apps were in top lists for specific keywords. It generated lots of downloads. But… at some day new apps arrived and my apps went down in the rankings. It caused my revenue dropped to 30% of what I was earning in 2016. It was a slow process but it happened and I couldn’t do much with it 
Additionally, google started advertising apps in search lists. This also caused that apps went down in the rankings → much less downloads. Also people started to experiment more with ASO and it also caused drops in downloads/revenue. Popularity of Unity 3D also changed the market
The thing is that it is really hard to create app/game now and make money for the next 3-5 years. If you are lucky and you are featured then maybe you earn quite a lot. But if your downloads don’t come from organic traffic you will earn close to 0 after beeing featured. Because of that it is extremely hard to plan the future. It is very risky to assume that your next app/game will succeed.
Previously, I was doing updates very quickly. Now, you have to be more carefull and add more content in each update. This is good for the users, but spending more time on updates doesn’t mean more money At least in my case.
@shuiwo
Totally agree with you what you said.
Only survival game is left with android these days. Does not matter that what new idea is being used in the apps or game, next day your competitor will come up with same feature, same app, same ASO and sometime with look like logo too.
Unfortunately Google does not interfare much in such cases. But it eats your downloads and divide your revenue eventually.
I am more confused these days thinking of that Either working on new apps is good idea OR updating existing app with new feature is good?
Whatever is the case, Android app store Market is growing every year and more money is being given to the developers every year, but number of developers and apps are growing even with faster pace. This is the root cause that revenue is divided for all and smaller cake is getting received per head.
But i want say is that:
2011 Year:
Total money made say ‘M’ after working ‘H’ hours. Other overall efforts are ‘E’
2018 Year:
Total money made is ‘M/2’ after working ‘H’ hours. Other overall efforts are ‘E’
It can be changed to ‘2M’ or even to ‘4M’ after spending ‘H × Few more hours’ and Overall effort to ‘2E’ to ‘4×E’
Its still the better option compare to other areas. But no place for copy-cats/reskinning/wallpapers/screen-savers. Users are fed up and need more meaning full apps. If thats found out, then i think 2011 can be achived again.
@shuiwo, by the way whats new area you are looking into these days.
@tomi, welcome back.
How many apps and earnings from them you have?
@ardi, have you also noticed low CPMs starting from this year compare to last years? I am talking about Admob data for USA geo.
Happy to see real people talking again. It’s being 4 years but still struggling to make $1 a day but still the hopes are high and i’m very much motivated. I’m learning from my mistakes. Totally agree a new app is very difficult to sustain in the market as the number of apps and competition is growing high every day. But keep going and never lose hope.