How do iPhone users discover and acquire apps?

17 years ago

“AdMob just released some data about how iPhone users discover new apps in the App Store and how they use them once they have downloaded them. According to AdMob, most users download apps from the App Store directly from their phones. Only 7% go through iTunes to download apps. To find new apps, 62% of all respondents searched for a specific app and 60% looked through the lists of top selling apps in the store. AdMob also found that the majority of users (62%) installs between 1 and 6 new apps per month and 22% of all iPhone users download more than 11 apps per month,” Frederic Lardinois reports for Read Write Web.

“It is also clear that the Top 25 lists in the store play a major role in most users’ purchase decisions. 46% of all iPhone users rely on recommendations from friends, while about 20% find new apps through ads in other applications and about 19% base their download decisions on news articles and blog posts they have read,” Lardinois reports. “Given the size of the store at this point, it only makes sense that users rely on popularity as a measure of quality.”

Lardinois reports, “About 40% of all iPhone users use about 4 to 6 apps at least once a week. Only about 5% use more than 20 apps per week.”