2015 will be about zombie hunting for the entire app ecosystem

This sponsored post is produced by SimilarWeb.

The app market has become bloated with loads of unnoticed, unused, and undiscoverable apps. As of July 2014, according to Statista, there were 1.3 million apps in the Google Play Store and 1.2 in iTunes. The pace at which smartphone users are downloading apps is also accelerating, with Gartner predicting that in 2015, 180 billion apps will be downloaded. With about 2 billion active smart phone users globally, this works out to a ratio of roughly 90 apps per phone.

Why all the big numbers? Because in reality most of the these apps are “zombie apps” that sit in the app stores never seeing the light of day — and those that do get downloaded almost never get used.

These zombie apps have a huge impact on the entire app economy. App developers have a long and difficult conversion path from app creation to monetization. Finding the apps that have a pulse, i.e. those that are actively used, will reveal those that are profitable and are therefore able to survive in this zombie-filled wasteland.

Let’s look at the challenges facing developers to see how the entire system is rigged to maintain this ‘zombie field status quo.’

App discovery

App discovery is very difficult. Very, very difficult. Forrester ran a survey which showed that about 60% (63% iOS and 58% Android) discover apps from general app store browsing. About 30% relied on the top-ranking lists and most popular apps, meaning that if you are not in the top few hundred no-one is going to find you. App store optimization is the strategy that allows you to add important keywords to your app title and app page which will help users discover your app in the store.

Here is an example of an entire app micro-industry that evolved around the keyword “candy”. Hundreds of apps have added the word candy to their app title to try to get users’ attention in the app store while riding the coattails of the highly-popular Candy Crush Saga.

In December, Amazon changed the name of their primary app from “Amazon” to “Amazon Shopping”. According to SimilarWeb data, they rose from the low 40’s to position #3 within a few weeks.

All of the Zombie apps have this effect on top apps where they stay at the top of the charts, and this exacerbates an existing problem with the way app popularity is measured on top leaderscharts: by downloads, not by actual usage.

The flaw in App Store ranking

Let’s look at the top seven apps in the U.S. on Google Play for January 14^th this year. We see that Facebook’s messenger is the #2 ranked app, above Facebook and Instagram.

This doesn’t show us how often the apps are actually used or how many people are currently using them. But with SimilarWeb’s app engagement data, we can see a very different picture.

Only 1 in 4 people use Facebook Messenger on a daily basis, quite low for a messaging app. Facebook is used by most people every day, and almost half of Instagram’s users are using the app on a daily basis. Thanks to these skewed rankings, it’s difficult to understand which apps are really “alive” and which are just collecting installs.

Zombie users

So if app developers can’t crack into the top rankings, they need to use other marketing channels like advertising to promote their apps. Sophisticated marketers can use mobile advertising to reach highly-targeted potential users, but the measurement needs to move beyond simple installs. Getting a smartphone user to start using an app after install is another huge challenge.

Continuing with the Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram example we see from SimilarWeb’s data that half of all Messenger users churn after just half a day. So while Messenger may be highly rated in the app store, half of its users stop using it after install. All of these users remain in Zombie mode until the app is uninstalled.

Conclusion

Zombies are clogging up the entire app ecosystem. App store rankings make it nearly impossible for new apps to get ranked and noticed. In 2015, look for the conversation to shift from app ranking to a deeper understanding of the full app economy. Apps will be measured by engagement and usage rather than installs and store ranking. Only a small percentage (about 7%) of apps earn their money up front from an install. The apps that can retain their users and drive deep engagement will be the ones who will walk tall in the new app economy.

Ariel Rosenstein is Senior Director at SimilarWeb.

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