Mobile Application Pricing

24 Pages Posted: 24 May 2011 Last revised: 10 Sep 2014

See all articles by Joshua S. Gans

Joshua S. Gans

University of Toronto - Rotman School of Management; NBER

Date Written: January 23, 2011

Abstract

This paper examines the pricing of mobile applications when application providers can either supply consumers directly or through a mobile platform (such as a smart phone or tablet). It is demonstrated that when platform access (i.e., purchasing a device) takes place in advance of application pricing, a non-trivial unravelling problem exists that rules out selling platform access at a positive price. Consequently, all platform revenues come from sharing application provider revenues. It is demonstrated that several restrictive conditions on application providers, such as most favoured customer clauses, can allow the platform provider to earn more profits and charge a positive access price increasing the likelihood the platform is provided.

Keywords: platform, two-sided markets, complements, most favoured customer clause

JEL Classification: L17, L32

Suggested Citation

Gans, Joshua S., Mobile Application Pricing (January 23, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1850667 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1850667

Joshua S. Gans (Contact Author)

University of Toronto - Rotman School of Management ( email )

Canada

HOME PAGE: http://www.joshuagans.com

NBER ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
725
Abstract Views
4,463
Rank
65,212
PlumX Metrics