Last week, TeknoJurnal reported about an Android app named Hi-Q MP3 Recorder. According to TeknoJurnal’s measurement, the developer of this app, Yuku Sugianto, has taken hundred million Rupiahs to one billion from the app’s sale. A big number.

When contacted via email, Yuku, who currently studying at Nanyang University, Singapore, didn’t confirmed the number. One thing for certain, Hi-Q MP3 Recorder paid version has been downloaded more than 30,000 times from Google Play. By fixing the price at USD3, obviously you can predict how much Yuku made from the app.

How can it come to that? Yuku is willing to share the experience and tips for other developers in Indonesia which will be divided in two articles.

Releasing Paid App in Google Play

As we know, to b able to release a paid app in Google Plat, a developer must have a bank account in the countries which are allowed to sell app in Google Play. Unfortunately, Indonesia is not (yet) one of those countries. This is actually can be handled by cooperating with publisher which receive app from countries that are not supported by Google Play. But because the commission the publisher asked is quite big, this is not recommended by Yuku.

Yuku took care of this by asking help from his friend who lives in the United States. That schoolmate of Yuku is willing to help without any commission. Well, for Indonesian developer who does not have this benefit, you can try to contact Yuku. In his email, Yuku stated that he’s willing to help developer who is facing this kind of issue in releasing paid app in Googe Play. One problem solved, right?

App’s Portfolio

In every paid app released, Yuku also released a free lite version of the app. This is important so user can try on that app first before deciding to buy the paid version. Of course, there are differences for these two types of app.

For Hi-Q MP3 Recorder’s case, the main difference between the lite version and the paid version lied on the recording time limit. If the lite version has a limit of 10 minutes, the paid version has no limitation. Lite version of Hi-Q MP3 Recorder is already downloaded more than 500,000 times and ranked 4.2 by 2825 users. This is certainly a good portfolio for Yuku.

Other than the lite version of the app, Yuku’s portfolio also consists of many free apps with good rating. Beside Hi-Q MP3 Recorder, Yuku also has released free apps such as the Bible, Great Dictionary of Bahasa Indonesia and Infinite Password Generator. With different download and vote counts, these apps managed to rank above 4.5.

Yuku also suggests about several things in relation to technical issues and ways to make sure of the quality of the developed app. The suggestion will be revealed in the next article.