I grew distrustful of the Console download figures in mid June and
began keeping track of all the numbers I could lay my hands on for my
apps. I was sort of collecting data to get a handle on what was wrong,
so that I could share it with other devs, when Google admitted they
had a problem - and corrected it (http://tinyurl.com/3xvj76o).
Since then, my total downloads and my Checkout payments have tracked
each other quite well, within about +/-5%. It's hard to be more
precise than that because, although the Console data is clearly
delayed, it's not clear by how much. But generally, they are pretty
close.
As for active percentage (the original topic of this thread), I've
come to believe that it's ALWAYS going to trend downward over time.
This is natural, as very few users keep apps, even paid ones,
installed forever. So attrition will always take its toll, and the
active user count - as a percentage of users who have EVER installed
your app - will always tend downward. As a result, the active % is
almost more of just a measure of how long your app has been released
than it is a measure of user satisfaction.
Supporting this thesis, here is my own data. I have 4 paid apps in the
Market, all in the $1-$2 range, all with 4.5* ratings. Here are their
active percentages, along with their original release dates:
55%: Aug 2009
70%: Feb 2010
70%: Mar 2010
79%: May 2010
Bottom line: don't worry about active percentage.
String
On Aug 16, 8:05 am, Zsolt Vasvari <zvasv...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I noticed the same thing. Let me share a few stats for my app.
>
> The active rate from 40% to a 32%, but at the same time the overall
> rating has gone up a little bit, from about 4.22 to 4.33 as shown by
> AppBrain, so the overall rating is more 5 stars than 4.
>
> There isn't a single bad comment posted, literally everything is >= 4
> stars since the early problematic days when I had a few FC bugs. I
> get one rating for about 1 in 36 downloads and one comment in probably
> 1 in 100.
>
> So it's either that 2 out of 3 people download my app and they don't
> like it and uninstall it, but don't bother giving it a low rating or
> comment, or that the install count is shown to be too high.
>
> As I have mentioned it previously, as I am having a problem with my
> app buried so deep into cr*p on the Android Market, that I actually
> very surprised that as many people would "discover" it daily as they
> do. My app is doing much better on AppBrain placement-wise and it's
> actually one of the top apps in its category and would most likely be
> evaluated by people who are doing comparission shopping in this
> category.
>
> My gut feeling is that the download numbers on the Android Market are
> probably twice of the true number for whatever reason. I just cannot
> believe that 2 out of 3 users thought the app was bad enough where
> even the free version was not worth keeping, but do not reflect this
> in their rating. While, obviously, I am a bit biased, I still think
> the app is extremely good and does exactly what it promises in its
> description.
>
> If you are curious about my app, I'd be happy to tell you its name in
> a private e-mail, as I don't want to use this forum as marketing tool.
>
> On Aug 15, 8:13 am, "{ Devdroid }" <webnet.andr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 15 August 2010 09:40, Mark Carter <mjc1...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Back to the original question... yes, I've also noticed a bit of a dip
> > > in the active install % for my paid apps, though can't be sure exactly
> > > when this happened. I also find it hard to believe that so many people
> > > buy the app, don't cancel/refund, and then uninstall.
>
> > I did some checks on our stats and I tend to admit there's something
> > wrong with that counter. I see downloads increasing on regular
> > rate but installs go up smaller, at the same time i see no negative
> > comments nor anything that would indicate app failures that could
> > lead to mass uninstall.
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