Almost three-quarters (72%) of the top 100 apps for sale in the education category on iTunes specifically target preschool and elementary-aged children, up from 47% in 2009, according to the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. With the proliferation of kid apps also comes an increase in prices. The average price for a children’s education app has risen from $1.13 in 2009 to $2.14 in 2011. However, children’s educational apps remain lower in price than the average $3.56 for adult apps.
The report — which examines educational content available at the Apple iTunes app store — finds that apps for toddlers/preschoolers are the most popular age category (58% of the top 200 iTunes apps target this demographic) and have experienced the greatest growth since 2009 (up from 23%).
Adults are the second most popular age category for education apps (40%), followed by elementary school-age (19%), middle school-age (18%), and high school-age (10%). [The report determines an app’s age range through several factors including app subject, skill set, inclusion of popular or cartoon characters, and identification of target user.]
More than half of apps targeting middle school children (52%) mention school or education in their description, compared with 40% of apps targeting highschool kids, 28% of those targeting elementary school kids, and 4% of those targeting toddlers.
Very few children’s educational apps feature licensed characters or other properties. Of the entire sample, only two educational iPhone apps are based on licensed characters.
The number of app developers has also grown: 109 publishers were included in the 2011 study, 89 of which were not represented back in the 2009 report. Out of the 109 publishers, seven had at least five kid-targeted apps.
The report offers recommendations for the growing children’s app market:
• Create standards for products marketed as educational; currently there are no voluntary or regulatory guidelines.
• Create outreach initiatives to make educational apps accessible to lower-income families. Some 38% of lower-income parents are currently unaware of apps for children, while 47% of higher-income parents download them. [Technology]
Source: “iLearn II: An Analysis of the Education Category of the iTunes App Store,” Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Sesame Workshop, Carly Shuler, One Lincoln Plz., New York, NY 10023; 212-595-3456; carly.schuler@sesameworkshop.org; www.joanganzcooneycenter.org.
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