iStrip Download Numbers
If you follow us on Twitter, you will know by now that iStrip has really taken off in some countries when we made it free just over a week ago. In fact, iStrip has even reached a Number 1 spot in Lebanon. The app has not received any coverage by anyone, except for an article on KRAPPS.com (thanks!), despite our best efforts. After the “iFart affair”, nobody wants to touch it and the name turns many people off.
We find it all this data very interesting and wanted to share some of it with other developers and interested folks. Here is a list of countries where iStrip is doing exceptionally well (as of today) in the charts.
| Country | Entertainment | Top 100 Free |
|---|---|---|
| Lebanon | 1 | 1 |
| New Zealand | 2 | 6 |
| Hungary | 3 | 14 |
| Australia | 4 | 10 |
| Finland | 9 | 26 |
| Canada | 17 | 74 |
Of course, some of these countries are pretty small. Tiny in fact. It does not take a lot to get to number one in Lebanon. But Australia and Canada are a slightly different story.
One thing that really surprised us is how similar the growth curves in all of these countries were. No matter how big or small they are, our most important learning is:
When successful, growth is exponential!
Let’s look at some details (charts from AppViz)
Growth was fast and steep
An almost perfect curve
At least 10x of New Zealand, but also explosive growth
These are some of the positive examples of how an app can shoot to the top, if only it gets enough exposure in the App Store. Making it into the Top 100 of your category is the most important step to this. If you don’t get there, no chance. Here is what happens…
Despite big initial numbers, never made it into Category Top 100
The US market is very big. We think at least as big as all the other markets combined. iStrip didn’t quite make it into the Entertainment Top 100 in the first couple of days and so it remained mostly obscure.
So what are the inflection points that give your app more exposure in the App Store (excluding being featured in some way by Apple, which is only ever going to happen for a handful of apps)?
| Level | Description |
|---|---|
| Category Top 100 | This is the first level to get any long term exposure in the store |
| Category Top 75 | Gets you to the 3rd page on the iPhone App Store |
| Category Top 50 | Gets you to the 2nd page on the iPhone App Store |
| Category Top 25 | Gets you to the 1st page on the iPhone App Store in your category |
| Category Top 20 | Puts you on the front page of your category in iTunes |
| Top 100 Free or Paid | Now you are getting into the big league: permanent two click access from the iTunes front page to your app. |
| Top 50 Free or Paid | Now people can find you from the iPhone App Store app on the Top 25 tab, by choosing “Load Top 50″ |
| Top 25 Free or Paid | Now people can find you from the iPhone App Store app on the Top 25 tab |
| Category Number 1 | Now your app’s icon is displayed on the category home page! |
| Top 10 Free or Paid | Jackpot, you are now featured on the App Store home page, and depending on the country, also on the iTunes front page! |
| Number 1 Free or Paid | Your app’s icon is featured on the iTunes homepage, the App Store homepage |
There you have it, what fun it is to be making iPhone apps. We will post some more as we gather more data.
