Several figures for the beginning:

- more than 100,000 apps are published in App Store;
- the total number of apps in medical category is 1,300 or 1.3 % of the total number of applications in App Store;
- the iFart Mobilе program (special example) was bought by 8,000 of visitors on average daily, when it was number one in Entertainment category (the data from http://www.joelcomm.com);
- there are about 13,000 of apps or 13 % in Entertainment category;

How to estimate profitableness of the app which is №1 in medical category?

As the popularity of one or another category in App Store completely depends on profit it generates, it’s logically to suppose that the first place in Medical category is guaranteed by in as many times less purchases as the size of Medical category is less than size of Entertainment category.
Thus the №1 app’s purchases in medical can be estimated in 800 a day (= 8000 / (13/1.3)) by the price 0,99$.
So the app №1 in medical category can bring to it’s developer about 560$ daily or 16,800$ monthly for 0.99$ (by our optimistic estimations).
You can see that is quite good and profitable, because  the development of a good app costs from 5.000$ to 7.000$!

16,000 per month is good, but how to increase profit more?

1. We consider that more profitable business-model for medical apps is not one-time sales, but the sale of subscriptions or co-called “in app purchases”(selling a monthly the subscription/”in app purchases” for 0.99$, you earn NOT 0.7$, but 8.4$ per year from one buyer!);
2. As Medical share is only 1.3 %, you should have programs from more popular categories in your portfolio. It will allow using their popularity for attraction of consumers’ attention to yours medical app;
3. The presence of free limited version of the program is necessary. If it is of high quality you have nothing to afraid. The more users know about it, the more people will buy requiring payment version (though it raises the price of working out a little).
4. Make good SEO for not spending money for advertising all the time. Permanent traffic from Google Search is the guarantee of a long life of your app on the first place of medical category!

Summing up all the facts, it’s possible to conclude that meanwhile it’s difficult to earn immediately on medical app in APPLE  App  Store in contrast to popular Games or Entertainment categories, but it’s rather real to cover qualitative software development  and occupy the leading positions right now!

So I think it’s clear that it’s important to take leadership in mHealth sphere right now because this sphere will actively develop during nearest years and income from medical apps and mHealth-services will pretty increase apparently in 2-3 years.

Author:
Vit Goncharuk
Editor at iPhoneMedicalApps.com
CEO at Viactivity Ltd[Software development, production and SEO for iPhone, Android, Symbian, Web-projects etc]