Three essays on platform governance and mobile innovation

Abstract

In the face of intense competition in the mobile industry, app developers are struggling to adapt to market demands and retain active users. This has led to an increasing focus on the influence of mobile app development strategies and platform governance. However, there are still key issues that need to be investigated, such as the role of third-party toolkits, platform commission policies, and gender imbalance in the industry. This thesis conducts three studies to explore the impact of third-party toolkit usage, platform commission reduction, and female-specific support on mobile app market performance and innovation. The first essay examines the extent to which third-party SDKs affect mobile app market performance, finding that using more third-party SDKs is positively associated with app daily active users. This impact is limited to tool-type SDKs and is influenced by platform updates and mobile app developers’ platform-specific experiences. The second essay investigates the impact of platform commission reduction on app development, finding that the policy results in a significant increase in app updates. However, this effect is contingent on an app's in-app purchase revenues, the developer's portfolio size, and market concentration. When market concentration is high, the commission reduction does not lead to a significant increase in total app updates and results in fewer updates that add new features. The third essay explores the consequences and spillover impact of platform-specific support for a small group of female-led app companies. It finds that the Apple Entrepreneur Camp 2019 improves market performance for both supported and unsupported female-led apps in the Game and Education categories. However, the Camp exacerbates the performance gap between unsupported female-led and male-led apps in other categories, indicating that platform support for female-led app companies does not substantially mitigate the gender disparity when the supported group is not large enough to alter their peers. In conclusion, platform governance and mobile app development strategies play a crucial role in facilitating mobile app innovation and market performance. This thesis contributes to the platform ecosystem literature by examining the impact of third-party toolkits, platform commission policies, and gender imbalance on mobile app development and performance.