'AppStore Secrets' : Price Drops, Usage and Ad-Supported Models
Greg Yardley, co-founder and CEO of mobile analytics firm Pinch Media, recently gave a presentation at the New York iPhone Developers Meetup highlighting data gathered from over 30 million App Store downloads of applications utilizing Pinch Media's analytics libraries. The presentation, entitled 'AppStore Secrets', reveals a number of interesting of statistics and conclusions.
Notably, Pinch Media's data on price changes reveals that a price cut on average results in a 130% increase in sales demand, while a price increase decreases demand to 25% of previous levels. The data, however, also suggests that while price cuts can be beneficial, developers should not initiate price cuts on apps that are already seeing a trend of increasing downloads, and that applications that have already seen broad visibility benefit less from price cuts.
Regarding the ability of applications to sustain users' interest, Pinch Media discovered that only about 1% of downloads end up being used long-term, with only about 20% of users of free applications using the application beyond the first day. While paid apps generally perform a bit better in this regard than free apps, the drop-off in usage is still steep in the vast majority of cases. Similarly, the amount of time users spend engaged with an application decreases significantly, stabilizing at approximately five minutes per day, although games do perform approximately twice as well as other applications in this regard.
Pinch Media also performed analysis on ad-supported and paid applications to determine which model is likely to perform better. Based on their data and estimates of ad pricing, they concluded that in general an ad-supported application would have to "bombard" users with ads in order to generate as much revenue as a paid version. There are, however, certain applications (less than 5%) that can either command higher ad rates due to their audience or keep users engaged for a long enough period to make an ad-supported business model worthwhile. Consequently, Pinch Media recommends that unless there is a compelling reason to launch an ad-supported application, developers should charge for their apps and only switch to an ad-supported model if usage data suggests that such a move would be successful.
Popular Stories
Barclays analyst Tom O'Malley and his colleagues recently traveled to Asia to meet with various electronics manufacturers and suppliers. In a research note this week, outlining key takeaways from the trip, the analysts said they have "confirmed" that a fourth-generation iPhone SE with an Apple-designed 5G modem is slated to launch towards the end of the first quarter next year. In line with previo...
Apple released the AirTag in April 2021, so it is now three over and a half years old. While the AirTag has not received any hardware updates since then, a new version of the item tracking accessory is rumored to be in development.
Below, we recap rumors about a second-generation AirTag.
Timing
Apple is aiming to release a new AirTag in mid-2025, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman....
While the Logitech MX Master 3 is a terrific mouse for the Mac, reports claiming that Apple CEO Tim Cook prefers that mouse over the Magic Mouse are false.
The Wall Street Journal last month published an interview with Cook, in which he said he uses every Apple product every day. Soon after, The Verge's Wes Davis attempted to replicate using every Apple product in a single day. During that...
Apple today released iOS 18.1.1 and iPadOS 18.1.1, minor updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating systems that debuted earlier in September. iOS 18.1.1 and iPadOS 18.1.1 come three weeks after the launch of iOS 18.1.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. Apple has also released iOS 17.7.2 for...
AT&T has begun displaying "Turbo" in the iPhone carrier label for customers subscribed to its premium network prioritization service, according to reports on Reddit. The new indicator seems to have started appearing after users updated to iOS 18.1.1, but that could be just coincidence.
Image credit: Reddit user No_Highlight7476
The Turbo feature provides enhanced network performance through ...
In a research note with Hong Kong-based investment bank Haitong today, obtained by MacRumors, Apple analyst Jeff Pu said he agrees with a recent rumor claiming that the so-called "iPhone 17 Air" will be around 6mm thick.
"We agreed with the recent chatter of an 6mm thickness ultra-slim design of the iPhone 17 Slim model," he wrote.
If that measurement proves to be accurate, there would be ...
The iOS 18.1.1, iPadOS 18.1.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.1 updates that Apple released today address JavaScriptCore and WebKit vulnerabilities that Apple says have been actively exploited on some devices.
With the JavaScriptCore vulnerability, processing maliciously crafted web content could lead to arbitrary code execution. The WebKit vulnerability had the same issue with maliciously crafted...
