Why is Appfigures revenue data “estimated,” despite the fact that Apple creates these reports?
First and foremost: currency conversions. Apple does NOT give conversions for daily, weekly, or financial data. Apple does provide developers with the amount of yen, dollars, or pounds that they’ve made, but all of this data is in it’s original raw currency. Apple converts currencies only once, at the end of each payment cycle.
At , our goal Appfigures to create a platform that’s useful. Seeing how much money you’ve made in a handful of different currencies is not all that useful. So, we decided to provide conversions for daily, weekly and financial data. These conversions provide real time estimations of the amount that you are making. However, please keep in mind that this data must remain an estimate since it relies upon fluctuating currencies.
Another wrinkle is that Apple’s payment reports are generally released much after the fact—it’s not unusual for these reports to be finalized a month, or two after the downloads for which they compensate.