iOS 11’s App Store Increases Featured Apps Downloads Up To 450%!

• A study done by Sensor Tower revealed that mobile games could experience a 450% increase in installs if they are featured in the Games Tab.
• Apps that are featured in the Apps Tab also experience up to a 141% increase in downloads if featured in the Apps tab.
• Hero banners were introduced in iOS 11, and they seem to have a big impact on the popularity of apps and games.

A recent study done by Sensor Tower revealed that mobile games and apps could see a significant increase in downloads if featured in hero banners. Dedicated apps and games tabs were introduced in the App Store to showcase curated lists of apps in iOS 11.

Sensor Tower completed their research and published the results on their website on how the curated lists in the App store impact games and apps. The research company is set to conduct similar research on the Google Play Store’s tabs as well.

Image Courtesy of Boy Genius Report

According to the report, apps experience up to a 141% increase in downloads if they are featured in the Apps tabs. Games experience up to a 450% increase if they are featured in the games tabs. Apple introduced two new tabs in with iOS 11 called “New Apps We Love” and “Best New Updates.”

It also seems like the smaller tabs can boost the prominence of apps much more than the standard tabs like Top Free Apps, Top Paid Apps and more. Apple’s curated lists are more likely to include apps that are not mainstream, leading to a spurt in their popularity as iPhone and iPad users discover them through the hero banners on the homepage.

Most of the top publishers who get featured are large and manage to make it to lists through their paid promotions with Apple. However, smaller companies have also been consistently making the cut in Apple’s features list proving that it is a fair playing field in the App Store. Apple mentioned that large publishers tend to dominate the Featured lists because they have multiple popular options while smaller developers have fewer successful apps because they do not publish as many apps.

All of the hero banners have positive impacts for both apps and games. The only exceptions in the research which showed apps declining in popularity were screenshot and video apps. These two categories saw a 6% decline.