July 4th in the App Store

Independence Day as nationwide US holiday should affect your sales in the US. Why not take a look at the numbers and see what exactly happens?

Here is how it affected my sales, first graph is US only and the second is all stores including US. Both are for the past two weeks.

As you can see, the 4th was a overall normal day, in the US a bit lower, but on the 5th I felt it by -35% on that day :-)

I made similar observations on some soccer nations the last days, while the soccer world championships.

Very involved nations had low sales while playing (and a day after that). I wonder if someone had the time and access to numbers to analyse this further?

Published on 2010/07/07 20:01.
Filed under: Unsorted Tags: , ,

App Sales, What’s Hot – What’s Not – #2: New & Noteworthy in an iTunes Category

This post continues my analysis of some App Store conditions.

The first post can be found here: App Sales, What’s Hot – What’s Not – #1: Category Featured


#2 – New & Noteworthy in iTunes

When you release a new App you get a chance of getting listed in the New & Noteworthy section on the iTunes within your category.

These aren’t hand picked and so it is very easy to get in there if your first day downloads are high enough. I had two App releases where I could watch what happens if you get into that list.


Looking New & Noteworthy

Here are two screenshots, showing both Apps on top of their categories in iTunes in two different countries:



The Apps are Analytics for iPad (iPad only) and Webshot (Universal).

The duration of the listing is very short and depends very much on how many new releases are published into that category. From what I have seen, you get listed for about 1-2 days.


How to analyse this position

I will compare them with two other releases which were iPad only and Universal – both never listed in this prominent spot.

Because these are new releases, there are no previous sale statistics that could increase. Therefor I will compare the first four weeks of sales after release.
The sales will be compared with sales made in the same country they were listed New & Noteworthy.


Sales numbers – iPad App only

First the one that was New & Noteworthy:

The graph is not exactly four weeks because the App is not that old yet, but the trend is visible.

You can see a spike on the first day and sales going down very fast to a constant level.


And one that wasn’t New & Noteworthy:

No spike in the beginning but a slowly growing number of sales over time.


Sales numbers – Universal App


Again, first the New & Noteworthy one:

Again: You can see a spike on the first day and sales going down very fast. Later they start growing again, very slowly.


And the one which was not:

No spike in the beginning. No growth visible in that country.

On a side note: Most sales for Universal Apps seem to be iPhone based, iPad users still seem to have problems finding Apps.
Originally these Universal Apps were meant for the iPad and made iPhone compatible to reach a bigger audience.


Conclusion

These numbers are very tough to read because the event is so short and the numbers are not that high.

But a trend can be found and looks promising. If you get listed in the New & Noteworthy listing on iTunes you seem to get a good and very visible spot to kick off your new App.

In contrast to not being listed, you will find the sales trends going down instead of up in the following weeks because there is a huge spike in the beginning that you can not repeat without other marketing or promotions.

Thats why this seems to be a worthy spot to claim.

But how can you improve your chances?
I will try to use promo codes. Getting all available promo codes into user hands and get them to purchase my App within the first hours after its release may be worth a try.

Published on 2010/07/03 13:10.
Filed under: Unsorted Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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