App downloads on the Apple iPhone surged 83% in the U.S. last month over last year's total

The number of apps downloaded on the Apple iPhone surged in November by 83% year-over-year. This come's from mobile research firm Fiksu. The Fiksu App Store Competitive Index,which tracks the aggregate volume of the Top 200 free apps in the U.S., came out to 5.65 million downloads daily. This is the first time that the index has crossed 5 million apps per day and is a 15% increase from the previous record of 4.91 million apps daily that was set in October when the Apple iPhone 4S was released.

Fiksu says that the uptick in downloaded apps was expected as each launch of a new iPhone brings a number of first-time Apple iPhone users looking to explore the App Store. Add the number of iPhones that were updated to iOS 5 and you have a strong demand for users to add new apps on their device. Fiksu added that it expects the numbers to rise for this month thanks to a record setting Christmas Day that saw 6.8 million activations of iOS and Android devices combined.



Another index created by Fiksu, called the Cost per Loyal User Index tracks the cost required for a developer to obtain a loyal user for a particular app. A loyal user is defined as someone who opens an app at least three times. In the last few months, developers have been spending their marketing dollars wisely as the index has dropped from a peak of $1.64 in September to $1.47 in October and $1.43 in November. To define it, developers spent an average $1.43 per app for each loyal user.



source: Fiksu via AppleInsider