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Fiksu report shows staggering App Store growth
December is always a big month for Apple and, by extension, the developers on the App Store, but December 2014 was a special kind of crazy. According to a new report by analytics and marketing firm Fiksu, downloads on Apple's digital marketplace skyrocketed 44% over the year prior, marking the third consecutive month of record-breaking sales. These numbers are the side effects of record-breaking iPhone sales and an overall increase in demand for apps. Fiksu also notes that across the top 200 free apps on the App Store the daily download volume averaged out to 9.2 million for the last month of 2014. The company's cost-per-app-launch index is showing iOS remains the more expensive platform on which to launch an app -- due to competition and the investment in marketing -- but as the sales figures show, making it to a top spot is insanely lucrative.
iPhone 6 launch broke app download records
The launch of a new iPhone always creates a bump in App Store downloads, but this year's iPhone 6/6 Plus debut was a special kind of crazy. According to a new report by analytics firm Fiksu, October saw a massive surge in iOS app downloads that shattered previous records and led to a daily download volume of over 7.8 million downloads for the top 200 apps on the marketplace. Fiksu's report emphasizes that user loyalty is a huge factor in device launches, suggesting the perceived devotion of Apple fans played a large role in the record breaking month. That trend is likely to continue into the holidays, as gift-giving leads to more upgrades and new iOS adopters who will undoubtedly be visiting the App Store to cash in their iTunes gift cards - everyone gets one or two of those every year, right?
iPhone 6 launch makes app marketing more expensive than ever
The launch of a new iPhone and release of a fresh new version of iOS always boost App Store activity, and this year's iPhone 6 launch has not only pushed more users to the App Store, but also pushed the cost of acquiring a loyal customer on iOS to the highest point it's ever been. According to new data from app marketing firm Fiksu, the cost of a single loyal user rose to US$2.25 in September. Fiksu also tracks both the marketing cost per new app install and the cost per app launch (each time a user repeatedly opens the application), which stand at $1.23 and $0.29 respectively. By comparison, the cost of an app launch on Android is just $0.08. These numbers mean two things: First, the App Store remains the Fifth Avenue of mobile marketplaces, and second, it's a place where it's increasingly difficult for smaller indie developers to score a hit without spending a huge amount of money in order to build their initial user base. [via TechCrunch]
iOS 8 adoption may be low, but iPhone 6 adoption is picking up the slack
iOS 8 adoption may be off to a slower start than iOS 7, but consumers seem to be picking up the iPhone 6 models in droves. Just when you might have assumed that the days of consumers standing in line for hours for the latest iPhone model were long gone, the iPhone 6 created a shopping frenzy at retail stores around the globe this weekend. The app marketing service Fiksu has been keeping an eye on both iOS 8 and iPhone 6 adoption, finding that while the former is a bit lower than one might anticipate, the latter is off the charts. Three days after launch, Fiksu's data paints a portrait of bustling iPhone 6 sales. As of Monday morning, Fisku's data shows that the iPhone 6 accounts for 1.58% of active iPhones. The iPhone 6 Plus, meanwhile, now accounts for 0.24% of active iPhones. In contrast, Fiksu last year found that the iPhone 5s three days after launch accounted for 0.54% of activve iPhones while the iPhone 5c accounted for 0.22% of active iPhones. Lending credence to this data, Apple this morning announced that it sold 10 million new iPhone 6 models over the weekend, setting a new weekend sales record in the process and besting last year's iPhone 5s/5c launch by 1 million units. Meanwhile, iOS 8 adoption continues to lag behind iOS 7 with the latest data indicating that 24.72% of users are on the new OS. At the same time last year, iOS 7 adoption was at 43.34%. But as we explained last week, there are a few likely explanations for this: iOS 8 isn't a massive visual upgrade like iOS 7 was. With record-breaking pre-orders for the iPhone 6/6 Plus, fewer people care about downloading an update when they'll be replacing the phone entirely in a matter of days. The iOS 8 update required more space to install than its predecessors, which could have stopped some users in their tracks.
iPad Air quite popular in first weekend of sales
During the debut of iOS 7, OS X Mavericks and the iPhone 5s and 5c, we regaled TUAW readers with facts and figures on the relative adoption rate of each new Apple product compared to previous products. The numbers came from two sources: Chitika Research and Fiksu. The latter company added an iPad Air tracker to the mix over the past weekend, and although the sales numbers are minuscule compared to overall iPad sales, the iPad Air appears to have an adoption rate almost five times that of the fourth-generation iPad. Fiksu's numbers, which are based on impressions on its ad network, show the three-day adoption rate for the iPad Air at 0.73 percent of the entire iPad installed base. By comparison, the iPad 4 was only at 0.15 percent of the installed base after the same amount of time. The iPad mini was a bit higher at launch, at about 0.21 percent of installed base after three days. Only time will tell if the numbers will continue to show higher adoption rates or if the initial surge was due to pent-up demand for a new device.
Fiksu: iOS 7 adoption rate at 58 percent after one week
For the past week, analytics and advertising firms have been checking in with word on the adoption rate of iOS 7 -- that is, what percentage of all iOS devices are currently running the new operating system. The latest is Fiksu of Boston, which announced yesterday that iOS 7 was on 58.5 percent of all Apple mobile devices that were accessing its clients' apps. By comparison, iOS 6 was only at a 47.5 percent share after one week, while iOS 5 was at just 27.2 percent in the same amount of time. Chitika has also updated its data, and now says that iOS 7 accounts for 51.8 percent of the Apple devices accessing its servers. For iOS 6, the company saw an uptake rate of 47 percent after one week. Mixpanel has been posting hourly adoption rate figures and now shows 61.24 percent of all Apple devices running iOS 7. Taking an average of the data from all three of these firms shows an impressive 57.2 percent adoption rate, incredible when taking the huge number of iOS devices into account.
App downloads saw a surge after iPhone 5 release
A mobile marketing firm named Fiksu has posted that the iPhone 5 had a tremendous effect on app downloads, bringing up totals by as much as 33 percent. That's huge, and Fiksu says it hasn't seen numbers like that since, well, the iPhone 4S released a year or so ago. I've heard about numbers like this before -- the creators of big apps like Doodle Jump and Angry Birds say their download numbers always experience a big jump whenever a brand-new Apple device is released, and considering how popular the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini have been already this year, it's not hard to imagine that developers saw nice benefits from both new devices. The high download numbers probably aren't over yet. Every year around the holidays, developers report a nice big jump in downloads, as more and more people bring new iOS devices home for the holidays and then go looking for apps to install on them. Especially around the Christmas / New Year's period, there will be lots of new iOS devices jumping into the App Store ecosystem, and we're likely to see more big movement during that time period. So yes, the iPhone 5 may have boosted app downloads, but I doubt the boosting is over yet. [via VentureBeat]
