A lot of hard work, late nights and painstaking research can go into creating and launching your Android app or game. After all that, you want to make sure that your app gets the attention it deserves. It’s no good launching an Android app when users aren’t looking to try out new apps or games. Just like the old saying asks, does a falling tree make a noise if nobody is listening? According to a recent study from April this year, studying app trends from Q1 2015 reveals that the weekend is the best time of the week to launch your new app or game to the app stores. It’s probably unsurprising that this is the case, but what is surprising is just how much effect the weekend has on download numbers.
The study, from Sensor Tower, took a look at iOS revenue for a week. The data was estimated using the first three months of the year, and while it would be nice to see a similar study with figures from the Google Play Store, we can’t imagine the habits of iOS users being completely different from Android users. Where the ‘Entertainment’ category was concerned, revenues would rise by as much as 3-4%, Saturday was named the best day for app downloads, showing more activity than any other day of the week. This makes sense, as people generally have more time to play around with new games and new apps on a Saturday morning compared to say, a midweek morning.
The majority of categories on iOS, such as Education, Food & Drink and Games all exhibited extremely similar results. Revenue for apps grows sharply going into Saturday and starts to dip coming out of Sunday. The same is true of Downloads, with Saturday often proving a very, very busy day for new app downloads. Interestingly, the Business and Finance sectors gave the most interesting results. The business category saw an opposite effect on both Downloads and Revenue, with them both dropping sharply at the beginning of the weekend. The Finance category however, saw a steady rise in Revenue by about 2% over the course of a weekend compared to the week, but saw a decline in Downloads, with a steady decline from Thursday all the way through Friday and the weekend. The full study can be found down below.
It makes sense to launch an app during the weekend, perhaps on a Friday? After all, there’s less stress and pressure during the weekend, giving users time to read app reviews, download new games and generally just spend time with their devices for pleasure, rather than boring work stuff. If people are listening during the weekends, then you need to be talking to them.