iPhone app downloads dropped significantly last month following a spike over the holiday season. According to app marketing platform Fiksu, downloads dropped 13% to 5.2 million per day in February, from 6.01 million per day in January.
Fiksu’s Cost Per Loyal User Index also showed that app marketing costs had fallen as well. Publisher acquisition costs for users that open the app three times or more fell from $1.56 in January to $1.29 in February, a drop of 17%.
Apple had a record-breaking holiday season last year, thanks to the release of a number of new iOS devices, including the iPhone 5 and the hugely popular iPad mini, several months earlier. These sales contributed to the boost in App Store downloads during the fourth quarter, with a whopping 2 billion downloads during December alone.
“On the heels of a record-shattering holiday season, February presented a more consistent ‘normalized’ and valuable landscape for mobile app marketers,” Fiksu CEO Micah Adler said. February’s numbers are expected to be the “new normal” throughout 2013, Adler added.
However, App Store downloads could pick up again in the coming months alongside the launch of new iOS devices. Some rumors have suggested Apple will unveil a new iPad lineup around March, one of which could be a Retina iPad mini, which is guaranteed to become a big seller.
App Store downloads topped 40 billion last year, and 20 billion of those came during 2012 alone. If 2 billion downloads per month is now the “new normal,” Apple could see in excess of 24 billion again in 2013.
Source: Fiksu
Via: The Next Web
