Downloads Jump By 33% In October Following iPhone 5 Launch, Fiksu Says

Downloads on the iOS platform jumped by about 33 percent after the iPhone 5 launched in late September, according to Fiksu, a Boston-based app marketing startup that helps developers use lots of different channels to get users.

The seasonal bump up is actually pretty typical. App makers usually see a boost in downloads after Apple releases a new generation of devices. Around this time, buyers test out apps on their new phones, just like they do during the very lucrative Christmas season.

With app downloads up, the cost of paying for loyal users dropped by about 6 percent in October to $1.06 from $1.13 the month before. Fiksu defines a loyal user as one that opens an app three times. In fact, the iPhone 5 release helped push app marketing costs to their lowest since at least March. Lower marketing costs would mean higher profit margins for developers. It’s not uncommon for the bigger game developers to pay a few million dollars per month in marketing costs.

Fiksu said that the average number of downloads for the top 200 apps rose to 5.4 million per day in October, up 33 percent from September. A similar spike was visible around the same time the year before, when traffic for the top 200 apps jumped 29 percent with the launch of the iPhone 4S.

Fiksu helps developers find the most cost-effective channels to get users between display ads, video ads, incentivized installs and more. The company’s picked up about 55.6 billion app actions including launches, registrations and in-app purchases. Fiksu has raised more than $16 million in two rounds from Qualcomm and Charles River Ventures.

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