February 2nd, 2012 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Marketing Strategies | No Comments »
A couple of times a year, Dutch and Belgian iOS developers organize the AppEvent. A full month where a paid app goes for free for a whole day. Every time they organize the event, the impact is huge both in downloads and national media response (this unlike services that provide daily free apps on a regular basis).
Top Downloads
The most popular apps during the AppEvent were Snappr and Touch Rummy. That last one was free during the first AppEvent as well. During that time, the app generated 20.000 downloads in a day. This time the app generated 83.000 downloads in a single day. Snappr was for free for the first time and attracted 129.000 downloads.
App vs. Web Promotion
During the first editions of the AppEvent, the apps were solely promoted via de AppEvent website. Last year however, the team launched a dedicated app to promote the free apps. The launch of that app lead to a steep decline in visitors on the website (though those are slowly growing again during the 6th edition of the event). The AppEvent was pushing out 100.000 messages to iOS consumers on a daily basis, but the developers know not everybody had turned push messaging on for it. Another issue was that the app crashes on iOS 4.x. They are working on a new app for that.
Total Stats
All apps that went free in January have a combined cost of €49. In total, 210 different apps have been used in all editions of the AppEvent and together those are worth €300. This sets the average app pricing at €1,55. The most expensive app that has been for free was 100% Paris priced at €6,99. 26 apps were optimized for both iPhone and iPad and the average app rating is 3 stars.
