400,000 apps in the App Store have never been downloaded says report

posted by Alan F. / Aug 02, 2012, 9:01 AM

400,000 apps in the App Store have never been downloaded says report

"If you’re not on those lists, it’s not sure that you’re being discovered by anyone else. The top 25 tend to be the same companies who spend millions of dollars to get to the top of those lists. If you’re an independent, small app publisher, then it’s really tough to be discovered."-Christian Henschel, Adeven CEO

Would you be surprised to hear that more than 60% of the apps in the App Store have never been downloaded, even once? That's the conclusion of analytical firm Adeven. The latter even counted the number of flashlight apps and found that Apple iPhone users in need of a quick light have 1,899 choices. Christian Henschel, Adeven CEO, said that there are only a "couple of thousand apps" that get downloaded in number from Apple's on-line applications store.

The sad thing about this is that it goes against the hopes and dreams of a number of small developers who read about the success that major developers are having. It's easy to see a game like Angry Birds take off, make a ton of moola, and think that this money tree can be easily planted. The reality is that it takes money for promotion and a whole lot of luck. Adeven CEO Henschel says that without a proper search mechanism in the App Store, the only way to get noticed is through the lists showing the top titles.

Apptrace offers free analytics for app developers

Adeven is promoting its free analytic service Apptrace which collects iOS app data in the 155 countries that support the App Store. Besides measuring how specific apps measure up in the entire store, Apptrace will soon be able to compare data for app vs. app analytics. Adeven will be introducing a unified SDK to handle the analytics for multiple ad brokers that a developer might use. Amazing that as recently as five years ago, there was no need for a company like Adeven and now it is filling a giant hole for information used by developers.

Adeven will start providing Android analytics in the fourth quarter and it will be interesting to see if there are as many dead apps in the Google Play Store as found in the App Store.

source: Adeven via GigaOM

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41 Comments

1. remixfa

Posts: 14605; Member since: Dec 19, 2008

wow. proves once again that number of apps dont mean jack. everyone uses the same quality apps and it pretty much confirms my thoughts that there are only 100k-200k apps actually in regular use by people.

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 9:13 AM 36

12. cepcamba

Posts: 717; Member since: Feb 27, 2012

Yep. To be honest, my N8 running Symbian Belle has pretty much all the apps I have on my XperiaS save for the droid-exclusive ones. On the same note, WP has a fraction of droid and iOS apps but all of them (nearly) are of top quality.

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 10:24 AM 15

23. crankyd00d

Posts: 191; Member since: Oct 17, 2011

Not trying to be an ass but it is Android, not "droid", Droid is Verizon and it represents everything that is wrong with Android (just a few things really)

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 12:30 PM 6

30. dickwyn

Posts: 621; Member since: May 07, 2012

Quality is more important then Quantity ?

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 5:18 PM 4

37. jroc74

Posts: 6023; Member since: Dec 30, 2010

Interesting question...lol I do think quality is more important than quantity. BUT...if the quantity isnt too far from the quality, then quantity is better. Like I used the E Trade app on my Android phone and my kids mother iPhone. I liked it better on the iPhone, but it wasnt so bad on Android that I hated it. Still...interesting question for debate.

posted on Aug 03, 2012, 6:25 PM 0

13. SuperAndroidEvo

Posts: 4888; Member since: Apr 15, 2011

Apple always boasts about their app store tally. Didn't they ever think that this news would get out? 400,000 is way more than half of the TOTAL number the claim. Man this is crazy. I am VERY shocked!!!!

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 10:26 AM 15

17. Aeires unregistered

Too bad they didn't have a breakdown of tablet apps vs phone apps. Apple boasts about their tablet apps a lot, if it's the same situation as this, then it's over rated.

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 10:33 AM 8

26. SuperAndroidEvo

Posts: 4888; Member since: Apr 15, 2011

Yep NOW it wouldn't shock me if Apple fluffed or finagled the iPad's numbers also. Apple must really think that people are stupid & would not look & see stuff like this. I mean did they ever really think this would get out? Seriously?!?

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 2:20 PM 5

24. smartphone

Posts: 160; Member since: Oct 21, 2011

It means apple store has only 250,000 apps. Its no surprise and if you count number of apps that had been downloaded more than 100 times you will get few thousands apps. That is the truth people are mad about the numbers. I had seen only one geek who had installed more than 200 apps ( others all below 100). Across all platforms people had almost same type of apps. Its quality that matters.

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 12:50 PM 3

34. E.N.

Posts: 2610; Member since: Jan 25, 2009

lol you would be the first to comment. But anyway, haven't we established for years now that quality is more important? Let's not pretend that android = apple in terms of app quality. And android users don't really even buy apps as often as iOS users, so we can expect android's stats to be the same or worse.

posted on Aug 03, 2012, 5:02 AM 0

2. StreetNerd

Posts: 870; Member since: Dec 08, 2010

WHWAHAWHHAWHAWAWA nice!

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 9:20 AM 8

3. Gaurav008

Posts: 328; Member since: Jul 20, 2012

there will be evn mre in andoid..i think...:0

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 9:20 AM 7

4. andro.

Posts: 1999; Member since: Sep 16, 2011

Those 400,000 are probably all fart apps of wallpaper apps or otherwise stupid apps,the teenage ifan masses already have a fair number of these already downloaded and don't need several of the same apps! Its fair to say alot of app developers are releasing clones of already existent apps though

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 9:26 AM 14

5. good2great

Posts: 1042; Member since: Feb 22, 2012

so what you're saying is there aren't 400,000 fart apps in the play store? please man... be real... you know there are TONS of android apps that you will never download that are stupid, wallpapers, fart apps, and clones of other apps. like remixfa said above, its about 100k apps that both iOS and android users download.

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 9:34 AM 7

18. Non_Sequitur

Posts: 1111; Member since: Mar 16, 2012

Android has faaaaaaaar less useless fart apps. And who said live wallpapers are stupid? Ohno. I always use live wallpapers and many of my friends do as well.

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 11:01 AM 8

21. good2great

Posts: 1042; Member since: Feb 22, 2012

come on Non_ you seem like a reasonable guy... this app argument is stupid... apple/google dont create the apps they allow them... to me its the same... android has 600,000 apps some useful and some stupid as hell same with apple... the only difference is apple's apps are well polished they pretty much run like the android version but they look a lil more attractive... you have to at least agree with that...

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 11:31 AM 2

22. Non_Sequitur

Posts: 1111; Member since: Mar 16, 2012

Yes. I do agree that both platforms have a ton of stupid crap. I'm just saying that I haven't seen as many fart apps on Android as in iOS. I never said Android had less stupid apps. xD This is one of my favorite 'tard apps.https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=shake.to.charge.battery&hl=en

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 11:41 AM 4

28. SonyFTW2020

Posts: 311; Member since: May 03, 2012

HAHAHA "fart apps".......lol

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 3:39 PM 0

20. Non_Sequitur

Posts: 1111; Member since: Mar 16, 2012

I used to be an iFan and I was a fart app connoisseur. Makes sense, as I got my iPod Touch when I was like 9 or 10. xD Ahhhhh. Those were the days.

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 11:04 AM 4

6. Aeires unregistered

How depressing for those developers, especially after having to pay a developer fee to have your app in the store. On the other hand, goes to show a ton of developers aren't doing their homework. Close to 1900 flashlight apps, didn't anyone developing a flashlight app do a search before taking the time to make another one?

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 9:34 AM 12

7. good2great

Posts: 1042; Member since: Feb 22, 2012

very good point

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 9:35 AM 5

14. remixfa

Posts: 14605; Member since: Dec 19, 2008

I think its also going to show the difference between Apple market's vast majority of "pay apps" vs free apps. i bet money those are mostly pay apps unused. Android is going to have its share of unused apps, but I doubt it will be so large. The majority of android apps are "free & add supported" which makes it more likely someone will DL it just to see what its about. I'm sure there will be a metric ton of apps that were DL and barely used before deletion (if they track that much), but the amount of "never used" apps should be much less.

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 10:28 AM 5

38. jskrenes

Posts: 209; Member since: Dec 11, 2008

Maybe it's relatively easy to generate the code for a flashlight app, so a developer might try their hand at writing a flashlight code before a new app. But then it would make more sense to have thousands of Android flashlight apps than to pay a dev fee to Apple.

posted on Aug 20, 2012, 1:00 PM 1

8. Fallout09

Posts: 421; Member since: Oct 17, 2011

For me, I try download as many apps of a particular type and test them all out.... You would be surprised how many higher rated apps are inferior to one that has yet to be downloaded or rated.

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 9:52 AM 3

10. snowgator

Posts: 3621; Member since: Jan 19, 2011

It is kinda fun to kick around apps, try them out, compare them. But most people do not do that. They just download what every other user they know downloads, or whatever shows up first on their search when they need something. I wanted a Bill pay system on my Focus S, and most of the higher rated ones were pay apps with a small, very limited trial. So of course I pick one of the higher rated ones. It is just human nature.

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 10:06 AM 1

36. downphoenix

Posts: 3165; Member since: Jun 19, 2010

Amen to this. A good example is Instagram, what a bad app that is unbelievably popular. Pixlr-o-matic is 10 times better, but has 1/10th the downloads.

posted on Aug 03, 2012, 2:25 PM 0

9. snowgator

Posts: 3621; Member since: Jan 19, 2011

The question is: How many in the other stores are downloaded VS. completely ignored? Does a developer have a better chance gambling on a smaller, still developing ecosystem (WP, BB10, one of the other open source OS's)? Most of everyone on this site have already realized that app development is a hard, long sell.

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 10:02 AM 2

15. remixfa

Posts: 14605; Member since: Dec 19, 2008

developers in smaller newer ecosystems like WP7 have a much higher chance of having a high download % for a new/unknown app than on a super saturated OS like iOS or even Android. Large developers with name recognition like Rovio or EA obviously have an advantage on the big guys, but the small developers have better chances in smaller markets. Less choices in similar apps mean more likely purchases/downloads.

posted on Aug 02, 2012, 10:30 AM 3

11. gwuhua1984

Posts: 1237; Member since: Mar 06, 2012

LOL, who's that guy that was saying quantity over quality again?