App Publishers Lost $17.5B To Piracy In The Last 5 Years, Says Tapcore

[Len]

Not all pirates say "arrghh" and wear eye patches. Some are smart, sophisticated, and technologically advanced. So smart, in fact, that they've siphoned off almost $18 billion in revenue from legitimate mobile publishers, says Tapcore.

Some apps have lost as much as $76 million to pirates, apparently.

"Piracy refers to the illegal modification and/or distribution of an app by someone other than its official owner," says Remco Smit, SVP of business development for Tapcore, which re-monetizes pirated apps for their original owners. "Pirates [remove] attribution, advertising, and tracking functionalities ... then republish the apps on one of the many alternative app stores around the world with their own monetization solutions included."



Essentially, pirates steal a mobile game or app, insert ads from an ad network account that pays them -- not the original owners -- and sit back to enjoy their stolen treasure. Tapcore estimates that about pirates make off with about $14 billion a year in stolen booty.

Only 28 of the most-pirated apps are games, while 72 are non-game apps.

But big games tend to return more revenue for pirates. This includes individual apps like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which has lost $76 million in revenue, and its sister game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which has lost $75 million in revenue.

Subway Surfers may have lost even more: $91 million.

While most people get apps from official sources such as Google Play or the App Store, there are hundreds of third-party app stores around the planet, especially in China, where Google Play cannot operate. As a result, Android, in particular, has many third-party app stores.

Tapcore estimates that together, they have revenue approaching Google Play's, at $36 billion in 2021.

App downloads from these third-party stores totaled about 70 billion in 2017, and of those 15-20%, or as many as 14 billion app installs, were pirated.