Platform Ecosystems and Multihoming: Evidence from the Mobile App Industry

We study a source of multihoming cost for complementors in platform-centric multi-organization ecosystems, and how the cost may be alleviated. We find that an ecosystems relative complexity reduces apps chance of multihoming to that platform. The relationship is weakened as developers have more experience with the second platform, and when the developer has relied more on modular complementary resources in building the focal app for the first platform. Our analysis is based on newly launched mobile apps on the iOS and Android platforms. We extend literatures on platform ecosystems, complementarity, and modularity.