65% of Apps Featured on the App Store Are More Than One Year Old—And Other Featuring Facts

As revealed in our recent analysis of featuring on the iOS 11 App Store, apps placed in the spotlight by Apple can see up to an 800 percent increase in downloads week-over-week. But what apps are being selected? Sensor Tower’s App Intelligence data revealed some never-before-seen facts.

Most Featured Apps Are Free

Looking at the characteristics of apps chosen for U.S. iOS11 App Store features by Apple since September 2017, we discovered that the overwhelming majority, 72 percent, were free—either outright or with in-app purchases. The remaining 28 percent were paid apps, such as premium games. That may seem like a small number, but it’s still considerably higher than the percentage of paid apps currently on the store, which currently sits at about 16 percent.

Most Are Also More Than a Year Old

These apps were also mostly older, with 65 percent of apps selected for featuring having been released at least one year before they were featured. Only 20 percent were between one month and one year old, while even fewer (13 percent) had been available on the store for less than a month. Additionally, we found that a tiny 2 percent of apps featured were not yet released, but we expect that this percentage may grow as more publishers choose the take Apple up on the ability to offer their apps for pre-order.

Most Are (Unsurprisingly) Highly Rated

Finally, our analysis showed that, perhaps unsurprisingly, apps selected for featuring were overwhelmingly liked by existing users. 82 percent of selected apps had average all-time ratings of four stars or higher (out of five). Only 18 percent had average all-time ratings of 3.5 stars or fewer.

We’ll share additional insights from our iOS 11 App Store featuring analysis soon, so be sure to follow Sensor Tower on Twitter to be the first to know when they’re published here.

Sensor Tower’s App Intelligence platform is an Enterprise level offering. Interested in learning more? Request a live demo with our team!