App Downloads Set a New Record High for Third Consecutive Month, Reveals December Fiksu Index

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - Jan 26, 2015) - New data published today by Fiksu, Inc. (www.fiksu.com), developer of award-winning mobile marketing technologies, shows app downloads once again breaking all previous records. The Fiksu App Store Competitive Index, which tracks the average aggregate daily download volume of the top 200 free iOS apps, surged to 9.2 million in December, growing 14 percent since last month and a substantial 44 percent since last year. This is the third consecutive new high: October and November results (7.8 million and 8.1 million, respectively) had each been new records.

As predicted in last month's analysis, the Fiksu Cost Per Loyal User Index (CPLU) increased 33 percent from November to $2.10 in December, a 20 percent increase in costs year-over-year. While the holidays have never been a bargain time for app marketers, December is a busy and important time to acquire new users -- particularly new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus owners -- and advertiser demand pushed costs up despite the increase in ad inventory from the uptick in activity.

The December Cost Per Install Index (CPI), measuring the cost per app install directly attributed to advertising, showed a dramatic split between marketing cost trends on apps as compared to games. CPIs for iOS and Android apps increased by 42 percent and 47 percent respectively in December, while decreasing by 15 percent and 6 percent for iOS and Android games. This division points to increased competition among top-tier brands during the holiday period, as well as suggesting that some game publishers opted to limit their investment in the holiday battleground this year.

The Android Cost per Launch (CPL) Index, which tracks the cost to drive a mobile app engagement, increased by 32 percent since November. Year-over-year, however, Android CPLs have been steadily decreasing, down 30 percent since last December. Overall growth in the volume of devices and volume of downloads is causing an increase in advertising inventory, which has driven down costs. The month over month increase observed can be credited to the seasonal trends cited earlier. CPLs also reflected the games/apps split, with game CPLs staying essentially flat on both platforms and app CPLs shooting up 113 percent on Android and 57 percent on iOS.

"Reaching a new milestone of 9.2M app downloads -- up over a million from last month -- is an indicator of what we call the 'the new reality of apps,'" said Micah Adler, CEO of Fiksu. "Consumer demand across iOS and Android is rising, which draws significant attention from major brands who are putting cost pressure on the games and other mobile-first apps. We expect these factors will not only elevate costs for marketers, but also drive an evolution of marketing strategies. In 2015, just buying mobile ads won't be enough to drive usage -- app marketers will need robust strategies based on customer data and precision targeting to find the right users for their apps."

The Fiksu Indexes measure monthly fluctuations in competition for rank in the Apple App Store and the cost to acquire loyal users, helping mobile app marketers benchmark their performance against industry trends, remove complexity and guesswork and plan with more agility.

For Fiksu's full December analysis, visit http://www.fiksu.com/resources/fiksu-indexes#analysis.

About Fiksu
 Fiksu is the leading provider of mobile marketing products. A data-driven mobile ad tech company, the power of Fiksu is fueled by information assets from over 3.9 billion app installs and 7 trillion marketing events tracked across 2 billion devices. The company's patent-pending Programmatic Mobile Demand Platform applies intelligent technology to proprietary big data to master ALL the challenges of mobile advertising -- including tracking, optimization, media buying and integration. This cohesive approach spans the entire mobile ecosystem and ultimately delivers the best marketing performance. Additionally, Fiksu offers FreeMyApps®, the world's largest app discovery platform where users are rewarded. Based in Boston, Mass., Fiksu is venture-backed by Qualcomm Ventures and Charles River Ventures. More at www.fiksu.com, @Fiksu and on the Fiksu blog.