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How to get a top 10 iOS app: a Wednesday launch in Italy

The numbers you need for the iTunes store hit parade

Getting into the top ten apps on iTunes is something developers aspire to, but figures from Distimo show the huge disparity between iTunes markets around the world and across the week.

Distimo styles itself as an app store consultancy, and so it set out to establish how many applications one needs to sell through iTunes in order to get a top 10 hit. As the lists are generated by country the numbers vary widely: eight thousand downloads will get one into the top ten in Australia and Italy, but ten times that number are needed to get into the American top ten.

The UK falls into the middle, with a top-ten entry needing at least 18,000 downloads, though that number falls significantly on a Wednesday and Thursday when fewer people seem to be interested in mobile applications. Distimo has a map of the top ten countries for the iTunes store.

There's nothing hugely surprising in the lists, though the predominance of weekends in downloading traffic (33 per cent of downloads are over the weekend) demonstrates that mobile applications are still a leisure time activity.

Almost all the app stores have become repositories for mountains of mediocrity, and standing out within them is next to impossible. Getting into the top lists is vital, and often self-sustaining if only one can get a foothold - so knowing the scale of the challenge, and when to best take it on, is information worth having. ®

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