We’re over half-way through 2018 and revenues are on the rise for the app economy. Between the two app stores, though, which one is seeing higher profits? More importantly, why?
Tag Archives: google
Android Adds Adaptive Icons
Google has revealed a new tool for app creatives, allowing for adaptive launcher icons. With this, developers can set up their apps’ icons to display as square or circular images, better matching the device it’s being viewed on.
Google Empowers Advertisers with Machine Learning
On July 10, Google unveiled new marketing tools designed to help marketers create more effective ads. This will provide marketers with machine learning technology, so that they can create more responsive search ads, maximize performance and better reach their revenue goals.
Google is Making Waves with Updates to the Play Store
Google is at it again with new updates to their Google Play Store that seem to have come out of the blue. Within the past few weeks, users have been reporting new updates that help improve the user experience both in the Play Store and while using apps and playing mobile game. These changes will help users navigate the Google Play Store more easily, discover apps, engage better with ads and even allow users to try apps without installing.
Reports Worth Reading For The Latest Mobile App Store Data
Although there are many sources reviewing and opining on mobile app data, there are a few exceptional resources that generate original data.
These resources are uniquely positioned to access and report on mobile app and app store data (data they collect and often only they can collect) or offer solid and thoroughly researched information and analysis.
Let’s take a look a few reports and sources worth subscribing to or bookmarking.
ComScore
ComScore is one of the leading market research firms globally that covers more than ten industries including financial services, media, technology, retail, and telecommunications.
In addition, it regularly carries out research and publishes its findings via press releases, whitepapers and case studies.
Additionally, businesses and other organizations regularly commission ComScore to carry out research on their behalf. As such, ComScore is well suited to cover trends in mobile app development and usage.
A recent article published by ComScore focuses on the way a mobile first approach has enabled tech entrepreneurs to build brands worth more than one billion (unicorns).
For instance, a ComScore study found that 98% of Snapchat users access the social networking site via mobile devices. Coming in a close second is Uber, which receives 85% of its traffic from smartphones and tablets. Mobile traffic accounts for 57% and 54% of the users that visit Pinterest and Spotify websites.
Flurry
Flurry is a mobile analytics and ad company owned by Yahoo that gathers and analyzes data from 150 million iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, HTML5, and JavaME platform app sessions per month.
Moreover, Flurry provides data analytics solutions to more than 170,000 developers globally, meaning it has the industry connections and data required to identify both current and developing mobile app trends.
Flurry maintains a Tumblr blog where it publishes mobile app related content.
For instance, a recent article published on Tumblr covers the emergence of messaging apps as the new frontier in the retail-banking niche. In particular, it quotes figures from a Goldman Sachs study that the retention rate of messaging apps is 5.6 times better than the average for all other apps over 12 months.
eMarketer
eMarketer is a leader in the digital technology information and data analytics space. In fact, eMarketer says that more than 1,000 businesses including media companies and ad agencies rely on it to make better and data driven decisions on issues related to digital technology.
To illustrate this better, an article published by eMarketer in March is based on a survey that found voice-controlled personal assistants are becoming increasingly popular.
Presently, 13% of mobile device owners in the US use a voice-controlled personal assistant daily.
Furthermore, 14% and 10% of American mobile device owners use the same technology weekly and monthly respectively.
Google Insights
It is virtually impossible to talk about mobile app data without including Google Insights because it covers a wide range of interesting niches such as consumer surveys, mobile app developers, Google Trends, Google Analytics, Google Correlate, Google Business Solutions, and Adometry by Google.
For example, you can use Google Correlate to find industry-specific patterns that correspond to real-world events or occurrences. This enables entrepreneurs to gain better understanding of consumer beliefs, influences, and changes in purchase behavior.
Think with Google is a free weekly “thought-starter” that can keep you plugged into the latest Google research findings.
Ben Evans
Ben Evans works at Andreessen Horowitz’s venture capital firm “a16z” and runs a website focused on disseminating information related to technology and mobile devices.
Evans also emails a newsletter every Sunday to about 49,000 subscribers that covers mobile and technology topics – well worth subscribing.
Ben just updated his popular “Mobile is Eating the World” slide deck (note the new title!).
One of Ben Evans’ latest post covers the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in conversational chat bots such as Google Now and Apple’s Siri.
Google, Apple and Facebook Quarterly Results
The quarterly reports released by Google, Apple and Facebook contain a wealth of actionable information that only they can provide.
Some recent examples include:
- Google sharing the majority of search in the US (and several other countries) is from a mobile device
- Google/Youtube announcing more video is viewed via mobile than desktop
- this image of Facebook’s ad revenue over last several quarters
There you have it, a few newsletters (Ben Evans and Think with Google), a few reports to subscribe to or monitor and a reminder that the leading tech companies are increasingly mobile-first.