Waiting for the storm?

Last May, the number of downloads of free apps from the American App Store began to grow again. If we talk about the cost of attracting a loyal user, then, on the contrary, it began to fall. Moreover, it is very significant,” says Fiksu in its next monthly report.  

For the first time since January 2012, the number of downloads in the United States began to grow. If there was still a drop in April, then May surpassed the average March figures in terms of the number of downloads. However, before the February results, when the number of daily installations of free applications was 6.35 million per day, he is very, very far away. Another thing is that these indicators can be trusted, while almost a third of the February 6 million accounted for bot downloads.  

Fiksu itself explains the increase in the number of downloads in May by the end of the school season. As far as we understand, the company is also confident that growth will continue: “in the summer, students of all ages enjoy their newfound freedom, including downloading their favorite apps.” 

But the cost of attracting a loyal user * has declined. The last time this happened was in January, that is, as soon as the Christmas season ended. However, this time the user’s cost did not fall to a minimum of $1.14. If we compare with this April, the fall in May amounted to a significant, but not catastrophic 13.7%: from $1.46 to $1.26.

Fiksu believes that this is due to an unresolved situation with UDID, which Apple is going to abandon. This step, according to analysts, can lead to a sharp drop in the cost of attraction (together with the rejection of identification codes, the market will lose an accurate metric, and therefore the ability to track the impact of a factor on sales, this will lead to a blurring of advertising and marketing budgets).

If we talk about existing alternatives to UDID, marketers cannot yet decide which of them is the best in terms of traffic/growth ratio. So many of them took a wait-and-see attitude. 

*We remind you that a loyal user is the one who has opened the application three or more times.