How Many Downloads Does an App Need to Reach The Top of The Free Charts on iOS?
It’s a question we often get from developers: how many downloads does it take to make it to the top?
App tracking company Distimo has revealed data for top apps on a country-by-country basis for the biggest markets. According to the analytics company, the number that top-ranked apps get per day varies widely in different countries.
- United States – Top 10: 80,000; Top 25: 45,000; Top 50: 25,000
- China — Top 10: 30,000; Top 25: 15,000; Top 50: 10,000
- Canada – Top 10: 9,000; Top 25: 4,000; Top 50: 2,000
- Japan – Top 10: 20,000; Top 25: 9,000; Top 50: 6,000
- South Korea – Top 10: 20,000; Top 25: 9,000; Top 50: 5,000
- United Kingdom – Top 10: 18,000; Top 25: 8,000; Top 50: 5,000
- Germany – Top 10: 12,000; Top 25: 5,000; Top 50: 3,000
- France – Top 10: 10,000; Top 25: 5,000; Top 50: 3,000
- Italy – Top 10: 8,000; Top 25: 4,000; Top 50: 2,000
- Australia – Top 10: 8,000; Top 25: 4,000; Top 50: 2,000
The 10 biggest countries in terms of download volume for free apps were: the U.S., China, Japan, South Korea, the U.K., Germany, France, Canada, Italy and Australia, with the U.S. accounting for the highest volume of free app downloads. These numbers are in line with previous reports that have pegged the U.S. and China as the biggest markets for Apple’s App Store, especially with Apple’s new chief executive Tim Cook saying China is now number 2 behind the U.S. in terms of raw revenue.
By comparison, according to new numbers from Google, the countries that downloaded the most Android apps per capita were South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the US, Singapore, Sweden, Israel, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway. (Keep in mind that this is a very different statistic though. This is apps per capita, not raw total app installs.)
While the the Android marketplace and Apple’s App Store may have different user bases, both Distimo and Google show that the busiest time for app downloads is the weekend. On iOS, Saturday and Sunday account for a third of the week’s total app store downloads, making the weekend the best time to market products. But that also means it’s also the hardest time to break into the charts, as an app will require more downloads at that time to rank. The most popular time for users to download Android apps is Sunday at 9:00 pm.
December 13th, 2011 at 12:33 am
Thanks for featuring our blogpost (http://www.distimo.com/blog/2011_12_quora-answering-series-download-volume-needed-to-hit-the-top-charts/) on your website! Unfortunately, as we understood from various people, it was not very clear. Normally we only refer to brackets instead of individual ranks. In this case the figures were the aggregated volume of five applications (e.g. ranks 6- 10). We did not state this in the blogpost, which caused the confusion. We now updated the figures (divided all by 5).
Could you please update your article accordingly? We are sorry for the confusion. If you have any questions, please let me know.
December 13th, 2011 at 7:35 am
it looks more like the volume of downloads you get ONCE you are in the ranking vs the number of downloads required to actually get to the rankings. this is different because the algorithm require some sort of download acceleration which is inferior to the number of total downloads you get once in the ranking spot (where you get an extra boost naturally)
It would be helpful to make the difference between both. For example in our case our app required much less than 25k downloads to get in the top 25
December 13th, 2011 at 10:18 am
“Markets like Italy and Australia are easier to crack”. I’d think this is not true. 2,000 downloads are harder to achieve with smaller populations (22 million in Australia, 60 million in Italy).
December 13th, 2011 at 10:23 am
And what about paid apps?
Thank you for great article.
December 13th, 2011 at 11:04 am
Must be nice to talk about 10,000s per day. Most of us are lucky to see 100′s. The problem is today there are so many apps released every day that making the top 100 is mostly limited to large publishers and the occasionally lucky break. People simply won’t ever see your app unless you get reviews on popular sites and those are mostly reserved for people with large marketing budgets. Of course if you do somehow make it into a top list somewhere you tend to stay there which makes it doubly tough for any future apps.
December 13th, 2011 at 11:37 am
[...] A empresa Distimo analisou quantos downloads são necessários para que um aplicativo atinja a lista dos mais populares da App Store, loja de aplicativos da Apple. De acordo com a empresa, esse número varia bastante de um país para outro. A empresa revelou dados dos dez principais mercados de aplicativos da Apple. Os dados foram divulgados pelo site Inside Mobile Apps. [...]
December 13th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
[...] Australia – Top 10: 8,000; Top 25: 4,000; Top 50: 2,000 [via Inside Mobile Apps] [...]
December 13th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Hi Ladik, I’m the editor of the site. The rule of thumb I’ve consistently heard is that paid apps generally get about one-tenth the numer of downloads that free apps do.
December 13th, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Agreed. Thanks for your point, Ouriel. We’ll reword the story a little bit to make that clear. To be fair though, the number of downloads to reach a certain rank varies widely depending on the day of the week and if you’re coming out at an especially sensitive time like the end of the quarter when there are lots of game launches or right after a new iOS device launch.
December 13th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
[...] ensures that you’ll always have someone on the internet to square off against. [Distimo via Inside Mobile Apps] iphone appsapps Discuss Share Tweet Email More [...]
December 13th, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Can someone tell me the relation between number of ratings and number of downloads ?
December 13th, 2011 at 11:05 pm
[...] Inside Mobile Apps hat die Zahlen für alle untersuchten Länder zusammengefasst: United States – Top 10: 80,000; Top 25: 45,000; Top 50: 25,000 China — Top 10: 30,000; Top 25: 15,000; Top 50: 10,000 Canada – Top 10: 9,000; Top 25: 4,000; Top 50: 2,000 Japan – Top 10: 20,000; Top 25: 9,000; Top 50: 6,000 South Korea – Top 10: 20,000; Top 25: 9,000; Top 50: 5,000 United Kingdom – Top 10: 18,000; Top 25: 8,000; Top 50: 5,000 Germany – Top 10: 12,000; Top 25: 5,000; Top 50: 3,000 France – Top 10: 10,000; Top 25: 5,000; Top 50: 3,000 Italy – Top 10: 8,000; Top 25: 4,000; Top 50: 2,000 Australia – Top 10: 8,000; Top 25: 4,000; Top 50: 2,000 [...]
December 13th, 2011 at 11:48 pm
It’s a mildly positive relationship. There’s a lot of noise, however, as developers can bump their volume of ratings up by prompting users to review their app.
December 14th, 2011 at 12:09 am
[...] 请输入关键词… 回车搜索 首页快报创业公司信息图评论推荐36氪开放日 /*0){$('#t_sina_btn').html('');$('#author_weibo').html('');$('#weibo_cmtbox').html('');}});/*]]>*/ 发表评论单日下载量达到多少才能让一个免费的iOS应用进入App Store排行榜？我想应用开发者经常会有这样的疑问——我的iOS应用要经过多少次下载才能进入App Store排行榜呢？应用数据统计公司Distimo对进入前10、前25、前50的排行榜所需下载次数做了统计后发布了以下一组数据（对不同国家进行了分类）：美国—— 前 10：80,000； 前 25：45,000； 前 50：25,000中国—— 前 10：30,000； 前 25：15,000； 前 50：10,000日本—— 前 10：20000； 前 25： 9,000； 前 50：6,000韩国—— 前 10：20000； 前 25： 9,000； 前 50：5,000英国—— 前 10：18,000； 前 25： 8,000； 前 50：5,000德国—— 前 10：12,000； 前 25： 5,000； 前 50：3,000法国—— 前 10：10,000； 前 25： 5,000； 前 50：3,000加拿大—— 前 10：9,000； 前 25：4,000； 前 50：2,000意大利—— 前 10：8,000； 前 25：4,000； 前 50：2,000澳大利亚—— 前 10：8,000； 前 25：4,000； 前 50：2,000从上表中可以看出：在中国地区，一个应用需要单日下载量达到3万才能进入中国App Store免费应用排行榜前10，单日下载量达到1万5才能进入到前25。不同的国家由于应用下载总量不同，进入排行榜所需下载量也会不同。比如美国由于应用下载量大，一款应用进入前10则每日至少需要被下载8万次。另外在调取Android Market的数据后，他们还发现了一个有趣的现象。人均应用下载量排名上，韩国居首，香港其次，随后的排名则依次为台湾 、美国 、新加坡 、瑞典 、以色列 、丹麦 、荷兰 、挪威。最后，应用的下载在时间分布上也会有很明显的特征。iOS和Android应用一样都在周末表现出最高的下载量。比如对于iOS应用，其周六和周日的下载总量会占到一周下载总量的三分之一。Android出现下载峰值则是在周日晚上9：00。这种现象也就意味着周末想要进入排行榜比平时会更难。当然，如果你的应用足够优秀，这个时候也是你推销自己的应用的最好的时机。via insidemobileapps [...]
December 14th, 2011 at 10:01 am
Thanks for your reply. But what would be the ratio of downloads vs number of ratings ? Any rough estimate based on your experience.
December 14th, 2011 at 11:13 am
[...] time, however, was just how awesome Apple’s iPhone numbers really were. For instance, this report claims that if you want to hit the top ten app downloads in Apple’s App Store, you’ll [...]
December 17th, 2011 at 11:47 am
[...] $1M-plus into an anti-Groupon: Belly The Facebook Resisters How Many Downloads Does an App Need to Reach The Top of The Free Charts on iOS? Tags appleFacebook. MicrosoftSocial [...]
December 19th, 2011 at 9:10 am
[...] （via Distimo） （via Inside Mobile Apps） [...]
December 19th, 2011 at 6:06 pm
[...] How Many Downloads Does an App Need to Reach The Top of The Free Charts on iOS? [...]
December 19th, 2011 at 6:08 pm
[...] How Many Downloads Does an App Need…? [...]
December 31st, 2011 at 4:15 pm
[...] How Many Downloads Does an App Need to Reach The Top of The Free Charts on iOS? via AppAdvice [...]
January 29th, 2012 at 8:57 pm
[...] 美国和中国已经成为苹果AppStore最大的两个市场，苹果新任CEO蒂姆·库克更是直言不讳地指出中国是继美国之后AppStore营收第二高的国家。每一个移动开发者都希望自己的应用能够在和两大市场收获不错的排名，那么一个免费应用需要多少下载量才有可能进入AppStore的Top排行呢？ 移动应用数据分析机构Distimo在博文中讨论了App Store的冲榜问题。并综合分析了手头数据之后得出了自己的见解： 首先，不同地区AppStore Top排行对下载量的要求是不相同的。Distimo给出了下载量最大的十个国家和地区的免费应用冲榜要求。 十个国家和地区的免费应用冲榜 不同地区进入Appstore排行免费应用需要的每日平均下载次数 第二，不同时间（工作日/周末）AppStore Top排行对下载量的要求也是不相同的。周末的下载量比工作日的多，约占到一周下载总量的三分之一，因此工作日冲榜需要的下载量也会少一些。 InsideMobileApps在援引这篇博文时也谈到了Android平台的相关数据。Android应用下载量最大的国家和地区与AppStore大相庭径：韩国、香港、台湾、美国、新加坡、瑞典、以色列、丹麦、荷兰以及挪威。但是Android平台下载量的高峰同样也出现在周末：星期天上午9点。 [...]
February 7th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
[...] now taking around 100,000 downloads to break into the top 25 free apps in the U.S. Previously, developers only needed to break the 100,000 mark if they wanted placement in the top 10. (Apple also warned developers not to game rankings this [...]
March 23rd, 2012 at 10:36 am
[...] on numbers given by Distimo back in December, roughly 25,000 downloads in a day will get you into the US top 50 Overall Free Charts, and about 80,000 will get you into the top 10. [...]
May 16th, 2012 at 10:33 am
[...] is down significantly from from what Distimo reported in December, where it took an average of 45,000 downloads a day to to reach the top 25 on the free apps chart in the U.S. It’s likely the number has [...]
October 3rd, 2012 at 10:51 am
[...] readers may remember that last December Distimo reported it took over 80,000 downloads to crack the top 10 of the free app charts in the U.S. — a significantly higher figure that was being driven up [...]
January 22nd, 2013 at 5:31 pm
[...] surprisingly, those same numbers aren’t constant country to country. Check out the stats (via Inside Mobile Apps): United States – Top 10: 80,000; Top 25: 45,000; Top 50: 25,000 China — Top 10: 30,000; Top [...]