Trends on Tuesday: What Kind of Apps Will Users Return To?

Flurry Analytics, a mobile application analytics company owned by Yahoo!, released a new report about app retention. Unless your app usage is around “gambling”—with cards (game apps), with your money (finance apps), with whether or not to bring an umbrella (weather apps), or with your health (fitness apps)—user retention and re-engagement is often a steep wall to climb.

The research shows that top trends across Android and Apple apps are similar, but Android users appear to be a little more choosey when it comes to re-using an app: after 30 days, Android app retention clusters around 10%, compared to 14% for Apple.

Just to say that in more explicit, simple terms: Unless your app is game, finance, weather or health-related, only 10-14% of users will return to it within 30 days.

Flurry notes that one area where Android and Apple usage differs widely is sub-categories of games, where iOS has a stronger hold of more frequent usage, especially in action and family games.

Read more about Flurry’s App Matrix in their blog post and learn more about using “Pirate Metrics” to analyze and grow your mobile application’s audience from a recent DigitalGov workshop.