Apple apps have lost steam and experts wonder if they will recover.
A report has just been released by the rapidly growing smartphone application user acquisition platform, Fiksu, which has provided mobile commerce statistics that suggest that the download of apps for Apple products has continued their decline throughout April of this year, while at the same time the acquisition cost per loyal user has risen.
Changes in the games and social networking categories at the technology giant’s App Store have brought in some increased competition due to the new opportunities that have been made available there. The report suggests that this could be an important part of the reason that the costs of marketing over this channel have increased.
There was a 2.9 percent drop in the Fiksu App Store Competitive Index, which provides a measurement of the average aggregate daily download volume among the leading 200 iPhone applications available for free in the United States. It fell to 4.23 million downloads per day, from March’s 4.45 million daily downloads.
Still, Apple seems unconcerned about the suggested downloading dip, and does not appear to be taking emergency action.
According to the Fiksu CEO, Micah Adler, “April’s continued downward trajectory of app downloads was expected, as no major events sparked discovery during the month.” Adler went on to say that “Additionally, app marketers continued to scale back their use of robotic install tactics in response to Apple’s policy on third-party marketing services.”
He did add that Fiksu has been observing more aggressive spending in advertising, as marketers step out of the year’s lull within the first quarter and look for new chances for ranking competition. This is particularly true within the dynamic and potentially highly profitable gaming and networking categories, which saw notable volatility throughout April.
What marketers and other industry experts are now investigating is whether the mobile commerce statistics identified by Fiksu will simply represent a temporary dip in downloading before the start of summer, or whether this is an indicator that the momentum is beginning to slow down and that all new strategies will need to be created for rebuilding.
