Earlier this month, we reported on the Fiksu Indexes for the App Store in February. As a recap, January was an all time high for app downloads while February decreased. And the Cost per Loyal User Index rose from January’s $1.14 to February’s $1.31. Fiksu has just made their March numbers available to us.

The Fiksu App Store Competitive Index, which measures the volume of daily downloads of the Top 200 ranked free iPhone apps (U.S.), was down by almost two million downloads at 4.45 million. February had 6.35 million downloads and January had 6.79 million (a record high).

The Fiksu Cost per Loyal User Index, which tracks the cost of obtaining loyal users (users who open an app three times or more), remained steady between February and March. For March, the index was $1.30, slightly down from $1.31 in February. In January, it was cheaper at $1.14.

Fiksu CEO, Micah Adler, explained that the dip in downloads in March was to be expected,

“With the novelty factor of the iPhone 4S launch and the holidays well behind us, and no other events in March to spark discovery, March’s download dip was expected,”

He also believes a decline in robotic install tactics may be to blame,

“An unexpected contributing factor could be the decline in the use of robotic install tactics by app marketers responding to Apple’s new policy. The decline in competition and steady costs definitely presented app marketers with a ranking opportunity in March, driven largely through the cost-effective conversion of organic users into loyal users.”

Share