Analyst Report Venturebeat Mobile-App-Analytics PDF

| INSIGHT
Mobile App Analytics:

What Winning Mobile
Developers Use
By John Koetsier
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SECTIONS
Executive Summary......................................................................................4
What You’ll Get In This Report....................................................................... 4
Introduction...........................................................................................................6
About This Report......................................................................... 6
Using This Report.......................................................................... 7
Big Picture: Market Share Vs. Market Leaders....... 8

Google Analytics: Monopoly Power On Android....................... 9
Flurry: Dominance On iOS......................................................... 12
But ... 2 Out Of 3 Mobile Developers Use More Than
One Analytics Tool...................................................................... 14
And: The Most Successful Developer Use Multiple Tools...... 15
Only 30% Of Developers Say Google Is Their Primary
Analytics Choice.......................................................................... 17
The Contenders: 8 Mighty Mites............................ 18

Amazon: Shockingly Good......................................................... 19
Tune: Tiny ... And Powerful........................................................ 20
Localytics: Users Love It............................................................. 21
Mixpanel: Jack Of All, Master Of One........................................ 23
Crashlytics: Never Stop Improving............................................ 24
Kochava: The Ratings King......................................................... 25
Appsflyer: 1 Sdk To Rule Them All............................................ 26
Apsalar: A Tale Of 2 Platforms................................................... 27
Quantitative Ranking: The Top 15 Analytics

Solutions................................................................... 28
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SECTIONS
(CONTINUED)
iOS.............................................................................. 29
iOS By Market Share................................................................... 30
iOS By Ratings.............................................................................. 31
iOS By Install/Uninstall Ratio And Ratings............................... 32
iOS By Big App Market Share..................................................... 34
iOS By Uninstall Ratio................................................................. 35
Google Play............................................................... 37
Google Play By Market Share.................................................... 38
Google Play By Ratings............................................................... 39
Google Play By Install/Uninstall Ratio And Ratings................. 41
Google Play By Big App Market Share...................................... 42
Google Play By Uninstall Ratio.................................................. 44
Qualitative Ranking: The Top 10 Analytics

Solutions................................................................... 45
KPIS That Matter......................................................................... 47
KPIS That Don’t Matter............................................................... 48
Key Characteristics...................................................................... 48
Global Rankings By Developer Users....................................... 49
Conclusion: Recommended Solutions................... 52

Can’t Miss First Choice: Google Or Flurry................................. 52
Google Play Top Picks................................................................. 53
iOS Top Picks............................................................................... 53
Big Media, Enterprise Solution.................................................. 54
A Note On Pricing........................................................................ 55
Extra: Additional Developer Insights..................... 57

Most-Overlooked App Analytics Methods............................... 57
What Developers Want Most..................................................... 57
Platform Insights......................................................................... 59

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
What you’ll get in this report:

1. The top 15 analytics solutions ranked and rated on each platform
a. market share
b. ratings of apps using each solution
c. big app market share
d. installs per publisher
e. a combination score that takes into account both user ratings
and install/uninstall ratio
2. Even more detail on the top 5 beside Google and Flurry on both
iOS and Android: what we call the “mighty mites”
3. The best analytics solutions when you take out market share and
only focus on ratings and install/uninstall ratiOS
4. Developer insights
a. Most overlooked app analytics methods
b. What developers want most from analytics
c. The most important features of app analytics solutions
d. Why some analytics solutions are churning and losing
developer share
e. Developers and data: yes, they care
f. Speed matters ... and developers switch solutions for more of it
5. KPIs that matter, and KPIs that don’t
6. Most important features in analytics solutions

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Building a great app is step one.
Acquiring users is step two.
Engaging and monetizing users is step three.
But how can you engage and monetize when you don’t know what’s
going on?
App analytics solutions are the answer. Or, more accurately, the hundreds
of answers ... since there are many, many options for mobile developers
to consider. But which ones are going to deliver the kind of value that will
allow you to properly engage the users you acquire, understand
what they’re doing, provide the value they’re seeking, and enable you
to monetize your app?
250 million users

To answer this question, we asked 230 app developers with 250 million
currently active users how they track app data, what works best for them,
and what doesn’t work.
1.8 million apps

We also partnered with MixRank to get access to SDK, ratings, and
download data for over 1.8 million apps on Google Play and the iOS App
Store.
What we’ve learned:

• Google Analytics is essentially a monopoly on Google Play ... but it
probably isn’t the best solution
• Flurry owns iOS ... and has its own challenges
• Most developers use more than one analytics solution
• Some solutions are studs on one platform, and duds on another
• Twitter is deep; Facebook is broad
• At a certain scale, some developers prefer to roll their own
• Some of the best solutions are provided by the smallest competitors

INTRODUCTION
The mobile app ecosystem is the fastest-paced, most competitive

marketplace in history. Millions of apps are competing for hundreds
of millions of users, mostly monetizing via freemium offerings and
advertising. The market shifts weekly, if not daily, and smart developers
making the most money are both constantly updating their apps and
constantly learning from their users to build engagement, increase
retention, and kickstart monetization.
One of the key tools in a publisher’s arsenal?
A top-notch app analytics engine, which helps you know how many active
users you have, what they’re doing, how long they’re spending with your
app, what your retention rate is, and many other key pieces of data you
need to manage your mobile business... including lifetime value of a user,
and perhaps, even the reason why your users left.
The problem is that there are literally scores of analytics solutions. This
report will help you pick the right analytics solution for your apps... which
in turn will help you increase engagement, increase retention, and
increase monetization.
About this report
To study this massive ecosystem, we used two widely different approaches.

You might anecdotally call them small data and big data.
“Small data”
We asked 230 mobile developers with an aggregate of over 250 million
active users about 40 of the key solutions on the market: how they work,
what they provide, what they’re good at, and what they’re not so good at.
“Big data”
Then we also studied aggregated data on over 1.8 million apps on iOS and
Android thanks to MixRank’s analysis of SDKs embedded within millions
of apps on the app store and on Google Play stores. That helped us
objectively review the top 31 analytics solutions on the iOS app store and
the top 43 on Google Play, and gave us significant amounts of data that are
relevant to quality:
• install/uninstall ratio
• average rating of apps with the solution
• average number of apps/publisher with the SDK
• sheer popularity, or market share
• market share among big apps; those with more than 100 million users

INTRODUCTION
The result
From that data, we’ve highlighted the top 15 solutions on each platform,
and we present the top 5 in additional detail.
It’s clear that there are small solutions that work extremely well, and it’s
also clear that there are giants in the ecosystem that, at least in Google’s
case, essentially have a monopoly.
It’s also clear that there is a lot of wisdom in the crowd

about what matters most in analytics, and which
solutions are worth considering.
Using this report

This report is long, and there is a lot of data here. But
don’t read it all.
To get the most out of this report, use the linked table
of contents on pages 2-3 to bounce around to areas of
key interest.
First:
Read the table of contents as if it was the report itself. That will tell you
a story in and of itself. Make mental notes for sections you want to go
deeper on.
Second:
Click on and read the sections you’re most interested in first. Then, go
back and surf around, adding bits and pieces of the overall picture.
For you, the ratings section might be most important. For others, the
more general overviews of market share and market leaders — or key
“mighty mite” contenders — might be critical. Read either section first or
second or fifth, as this report is designed to be used however you wish
and in whatever order you wish.
What you will find, whatever order you read it in, is that each section
reinforces and builds on data and insights in the other
sections. And, we trust, that the full view of the app analytics space we
present will help you make the right choices for your app’s success.

BIG PICTURE:
MARKET SHARE VS. MARKET LEADERS
As you’ll see in this report, Google’s

market share in Android with its
Mobile App Analytics product is
incredibly dominant. And its ability
to provide you with a customizable
and flexible solution — if you’re
willing to work to enable it — is
impressive, to say the least.
Meanwhile, Flurry’s market share

in iOS, although not quite as
dominant, highlights that it is the
top competitor in Apple’s space.
However, there are a number of

much smaller companies offering
solutions that may provide better
intel for your specific app. And there
are at least 5 solutions on Android and 11 on iOS that, across all the
apps that use them, appear to result in higher average app ratings than
Google Analytics.
That’s correlation, not causation, but it’s across literally millions of apps,
so it’s worth looking at.
To tease out the data that will help you make an informed decision, we’ll
rank the top 15 solutions on each of Android and iOS multiple ways, each
time prioritizing different variables:
• market share
• big app market share (big apps = apps with more than 5M users)
• install/uninstall ratiOS
• ratings of apps using the app analytics solution
• and a combination score that takes into account both user ratings
and install/uninstall ratio
And then we’ll delve into the strengths and weaknesses of the key
solutions. Google and/or Flurry might be right for you...but there are
many, many top publishers and developers who are specifically not using
them, and there are good reasons for that.

BIG PICTURE:
Google Analytics: Monopoly Power On Android

Google’s Mobile App Analytics is not just dominant in Google Play, it’s
Godzilla to almost all the other Android analytics solutions. 1.5 million
apps use its SDK on Android, (out of our sample size of just under 1.6
million apps on Google Play that use app analytics).
In chart form, it’s almost laughable.
While on iOS there are four companies with double-digit market share
— and Apple didn’t have the foresight (or the technology) to ensure that
it was one of them — only two solutions other than Google’s have even
single-digit share on Google Play.
There are reasons for that, as competitor Peter Hamilton, CEO of Tune
(HasOffers) told VB Insight.
“Google Analytics IS damn good,” he said in response to my question. In

addition, he said that “GA is a free and easy solution to get started quickly
and it is obviously very in sync with
both Android app development and Adwords.”

BIG PICTURE:
Here’s the market share data for Google Play apps that use analytics, with
full details.
On iOS, Google Analytics does very well indeed, with just under 30%
market share, but nowhere near as high as on Android.
That share isn’t an accident.

Google does some really basic Rank Company Market share
things extremely well. In fact, when
we asked developers who use 1 Google Analytics 91.58%
Google Analytics — and they
2 Flurry 4.81%
aren’t very hard to find — they
rated it significantly higher than 3 Umeng 1.11%
other players in terms of pure
analytics power. 4 Crashlytics 0.61%
In fact, 65% of them said Google 5 Localytics 0.34%

is either Very Good or Excellent at
pure mobile analytics, while rating 6 Mixpanel 0.30%
it significantly lower at building user
engagement, helping publishers 7 HockeyApp 0.23%
monetize, enabling marketing
integrations for user acquisition, 8 HasOffers/Tune 0.21%
and helping developers improve
user experience. 9 comScore 0.19%
10 Amazon 0.13%
11 TestFlight 0.14%
12 Omniture 0.12%
13 Adobe 0.12%
14 Apsalar 0.07%
15 Quantcast 0.05%
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BIG PICTURE:
That ties in very nicely with the quantitative data that we studied, which
shows that Google’s install-versus-uninstall ratio is massive, especially on
Android. For every 19.37 installs on Android, developers have uninstalled
Google’s mobile app analytics SDK just once. That’s extremely impressive,
and it conveys just how much value Google offers mobile developers.
It’s important to note, however, that being the default choice does not
necessarily make Google’s Mobile App Analytics the preferred choice.
And being “damn good” doesn’t mean it is “best.” As you’ll see below,
Google Analytics only hits #6 when we ranked solutions by a key user
engagement and satisfaction metric: overall ratings of app that use it.
That’s on Google’s home turf, Android, and in its own app store, Google
Play. And it’s consistent with the qualitative measurements of developers
who are actually using the SDK.
In addition apps on iOS that have Google’s analytics SDK only rate .5%
higher than average ... and Google’s app analytics tool falls to the #12
spot for that metric.
As we’ll see, many smaller tools have much higher ratings, particularly
for critical capabilities related to monetization, app marketing, user
acquisition, and user engagement.
iOS is a much more level playing field for app analytics companies than
Google Play, so Flurry’s domination of iOS analytics isn’t nearly as hard
core as Google’s of Android. Still, Flurry has the most market share on
iOS, even if it falls shy of an absolute majority.

BIG PICTURE:
Flurry: Dominance On iOS

Dominant market share hasn’t helped Flurry to get the best possible
ratings for apps that use it, however. When ranked by analytics solutions
whose client apps rate the highest, Flurry is only at #9 on iOS... although it
hits #3 on Google Play.
And that hasn’t helped it retain developer share on Android. Ranked by

install vs uninstall ratio, Flurry is #11 on Google Play with a 2.91 score.
That compares to leaders on Google Play such as Crashlytics with a
5.54 — or the runaway leader (and massive outlier) Google Analytics,
with a 19.37.
On iOS however, Flurry’s home turf, the tool does much better, with a
class-leading install/uninstall ratio of 11.9. Essentially, Flurry is the default
choice on iOS just as Google Analytics is the default choice on Android,
although to a somewhat lesser degree.
Here’s the full market share data for apps on iOS that use analytics:

BIG PICTURE:
One concern from our panel of 230 mobile app developers? Speed.
According to one developer, “Flurry was too slow. We moved to Localytics

and then to Google Mobile Analytics.” That might be a bit unfair, since
giant apps like Temple Run, Angry Birds, and Subway Surfer use Flurry
on Android, and each of those solutions have easily 100 million+ users...
certainly requiring significant amounts of speed.
And clearly, with iOS-leading market share and second place on Google
Play, Flurry has a lot to offer developers.
In fact, Flurry ranked second — above Google — in overall scoring on

global capabilities as rated by developers who scored the tools they
actually use.
Developers ranked it third-highest

Rank Company Market Share for pure analytics data, second-
highest for the ability to help
1 Flurry 36.07% developers improve their apps’
user experience, and fourth-highest
2 Google Analytics 28.89%
for ability to aid in monetization.
3 Crashlytics 7.61% Overall, it’s second-ranked in total
score on those and other global app
4 TestFlight 7.84% analytics factors.
5 BugSense 3.93% That, combined with the fact that it’s

both available and strong on both
6 Localytics 2.63% major platforms, continues to keep
it a major contender.
7 HockeyApp 2.68%
8 Adobe 2.20%
9 HasOffers/Tune 1.99%
10 comScore 1.71%
11 Mixpanel 1.80%
12 AppsFlyer 0.91%
13 Apsalar 0.63%
14 Quantcast 0.62%
15 Kochava 0.47%

BIG PICTURE:
But ... 2 Out Of 3 Mobile Developers Use More

Than One Analytics Tool
Dominant market share or even monopoly-level market share, however,
can be misleading. While 35.6% of publishers use just one analytics tool in
their apps, almost two-thirds use two or more.
In other words, this is not a zero-sum game where when one vendor wins,
everyone else loses.
While there are outliers whose sanity is questionable in each of the

6-10, 11-15, and 15+ buckets, significant numbers of developers use 3-5
analytics solutions to understand what is happening with their apps: 26.2
percent. And more than a third use two, with the average number of
SDKs at 2.2.
A typical scenario on Android is using Google Analytics plus another

solution, with Flurry partially taking Google’s place on iOS.

BIG PICTURE:
For example, while Supercell’s Clash of Clans uses Google’s mobile

analytics, the company also plugs in Tune (HasOffers) to get a more
complete picture of what’s happening in the app. Similarly, on iOS,
Supercell pairs Flurry with Tune.
This suggests that many and in fact most developers are not finding all of
their needs met in a single solution. It
also suggests that there is room for more than just the market leaders.
And, finally, it’s a good reason for you to not stop your app analytics
search at Google, or at Flurry. The best developers with the most popular
apps go farther.
And: The Most Successful Developers Use Multiple

Tools
(data courtesy of MixRank)
It’s not just the case that most developers use multiple tools. Much more
importantly — and more relevant for publishers who are looking to grow
— the most successful developers preferentially use multiple tools.
In fact, developers with more than 2 million active users are more likely to
use 3-5 analytics tools than they are to use either one or two tools.

BIG PICTURE:
Here’s another way of looking at the same data, which shows that
publishers with over 2 million monthly users are more likely to use 2-5
analytics solutions (with 2-3 being the most common). It also shows that
relatively unsuccessful publishers
are not only using fewer solutions
in a lot of cases, but also that some
of them are flailing wildly with huge
numbers of analytics solutions —
8, 10, 12 — in a vain attempt to
discover the silver bullet that will
lead to success.
In other words, you can try

too hard.
This effect is particularly noticeable

when you remove some of the
biggest apps in existence such as
Facebook, Gmail, Google+, the
Google app itself, or other major
apps built by huge companies
from the dataset. These companies
typically have their own analytics solutions in-app or serverside, and
would never allow an outside vendor access to their critical user data —
especially a competitor in other arenas.
For example, none of these massive 500 million+ user apps from
Google include any analytics solution besides Google’s own.
You, sadly, are not a Google or a Facebook — although your goal might
be to get there.
To do that, most successful developers are integrating multiple analytics

SDKs into their apps to eek every ounce of insight
they possible can out of their users’ activities, and to ensure that they
have all angles covered: not just pure analytics
power, not just monetization, not just engagement ... but all of them
together.
(data courtesy of MixRank)

BIG PICTURE:
Only 30% Of Developers Say Google Is Their

Primary Analytics Choice
Given that the majority of developers prefer to use multiple mobile
app analytics solutions, vendors will be particularly interested in which
solutions publishers consider their primary app analytics software.
While Google is by far the leader in installed base, this data shows that its
position may not be as strong as that would suggest.
Two hundred-four of the 230 publishers we talked to had what they

referred to as a primary app analytics platform ... suggesting that 26 of
them didn’t consider any of their platforms primary. Of those who did,
64 said Google’s mobile analytics tool was their primary tool, and 7 more
answered Google’s Universal Analytics, for a total of 71.
Flurry was the next highest, at 18, followed by Mixpanel and Localytics at
11, then Amazon and Adobe at 8.
But the biggest surprise was that 79 people answered various

combinations of “other,” including Upsight, IBM Analytics, Crashlytics,
comScore, Clicktale, AppSee, Apsalar, Amplitude, and more. The clear
implication: mobile developers and publishers use a wide range of tools
to analyze and understand what is happening inside their apps, and while
Google is by far the leader, it’s not the only important player in the space.
In fact, about 70 percent of the developers we talked to do NOT consider

Google to be their primary mobile analytics solution provider.
It’s there, it’s free, and it’s easy to integrate (especially on Android)... but
it’s not the only game in town.
So let’s take a look at some of the top contenders.

THE CONTENDERS: 8 MIGHTY MITES
Given that most developers use multiple solutions, the most successful
developers preferentially use multiple analytics engines, and only some
30% of mobile publishers actually consider Google analytics their primary
data source on what users are doing, the differentiators are likely to be
the second tier of analytics providers.
They don’t have majority market share, they (mostly) don’t have
hundreds of thousands of apps in their stables of clients, but they do
provide significant developer advantages in terms of user
experience improvement.
While Google and Flurry are the 800-pound gorillas, there are easily eight
mighty mites — 5 on each of Google Play and iOS, with some overlap
between the platforms — that are worth your consideration.
On Google Play, those are: On iOS, those are:

• Mixpanel • Kochava
• Tune (HasOffers) • AppsFlyer
• Amazon • Apsalar
• Localytics • Mixpanel
• Crashlytics • Tune (HasOffers)
It’s true that these mighty mites have nowhere near the market share of a
Google or a Flurry.
For example, Google Analytics has something like 300 times Mixpanel’s
market share on Android. And on iOS, Flurry has an even higher multiple
of Kochava’s tiny 288 publishers and 642 apps.
But the 1,200 publishers with 5,000 apps using Mixpanel’s SDK on
Android have generated almost 50% higher user ratings for their apps.
And apps using Kochava on iOS are rated an astonishing 12 times higher
than apps using Flurry.
We’ll list all the details in the ratings sections, but suffice it to say for now:
these companies should be on your radar, and perhaps on your short list.

Amazon: Shockingly Good

Perhaps it should not be a surprise that a company that specializes in the
biggest of big data and has its own Androidbased app store has a top-
notch analytics solution. But it was.
For Android only, Amazon has a shockingly good mobile app analytics
solution, Amazon Insights.
While its market share on the Amazon Appstore for Android is almost
certainly higher, on Google Play Amazon has only about a .13% market
share, good for 10th place on the charts. That’s not insignificant, however,
as it comprises 937 app publishers and 2141 apps in our sample.
The key factor here is that with its own “Appstore for Android,” interest in
mobile, interest in advertising, competition with Google, big data chops,
and leading cloud expertise, Amazon has all the motivation and all the
ingredients it needs to be a top-notch solution even as a niche player.
That’s clear when you see that it ranks fourth when judged by overall
ratings of apps that use Amazon Insights, third in our overall ranking,
third when we prioritized big app market share, and second when we
prioritized both market share and ratings and install/uninstall ratio.
In addition, Amazon ranked second when we ignored market share and

simply prioritized the install/uninstall ratio and ratings.
In our qualitative studies, Amazon doesn’t stand out overall, but does
shine in two specific areas: monetization and user engagement.
When publishers rated the tools they use themselves, Amazon ranked
third at monetization, with 36% saying it was either Excellent or Very
Good, and fourth at helping enhance user engagement, with 31% rating it
with the same score.
Imangi’s Temple Run 2 uses Amazon Insights, and multiple apps from
Disney and GameLoft also use Insights.

Tune: Tiny ... And Powerful

From an overall market share standpoint, Tune (HasOffers) doesn’t
seem significant.
The company has about a .21% share of the Android app analytics
market, at least for apps on Google Play, and a more significant but still
small 2% market share on iOS.
But overall market share isn’t everything.
On Google Play, Tune consistently ranks near the top of every measure
we checked, besides market share. The company is fourth in our overall
rankings, third when we prioritize market share, third when we prioritize
install/uninstall ratiOS and ratings of apps that include the SDK, and
second when we simply look at the overall ratings boosts apps that use
the SDK enjoy.
We ranked analytics apps 7 different ways, weighting different factors

each time. The actual scores will be listed in the ranking sections below,
but here’s just a quick overview of where Tune/HasOffers landed.
On iOS, the company is not quite as dominant.
But on Google Play, few companies can match its share of global-sized
apps (100 million+ users), as well as its share in the 50-100 million user
app category and the 5-50 million bucket. Three apps with 100 million+
users, nine apps with 50-100 million users, and 107 apps with 5-50 million
users use Tune for app analytics.

(See the full details below in the rankings section.)
Outside of Flurry and Google, you simply do not see this kind of scale
anywhere else. And only Mixpanel seems to result in apps with a higher
average user rating.
Major apps using Tune include Supercell’s Hay Day and Clash of Clans,
Plants vs. Zombies, Bible, the Talking Tom (Cat) series by Outfit 7,
and more.
Localytics: Users Love It

Localytics didn’t hit the heights in many of our quantitative rankings
below, generally showing up in the middle of the pack in most categories.
But most of those stats don’t take full account of how developers who are
actually using each SDK feel about it.
It’s when you look here that Localytics really shines, with the highest
overall score of any analytics solution.
We asked the 230 developers we surveyed to rate the tools they

currently use on how well they work for five global factors that are
critical in building great apps with high numbers of users and good levels
of monetization:
• Pure analytics
• Building engagement
• Monetization
• Marketing integration
• Improving user experience
The leader? Localytics.

Localytics scored the highest percentage of developers who said that it

was Very Good or Excellent at those categories, with quite some distance
between the next contender, Flurry. Here are the actual totals:
Improving
Developer Pure Building Marketing
Monetization User Total
Rankings Analytics Engagement Integration
Experience
Localytics 55% 52% 49% 36% 21% 212%
Flurry 56% 30% 33% 20% 33% 172%
Google 65% 30% 30% 22% 23% 170%
Mixpanel 43% 31% 31% 23% 31% 160%
Facebook 29% 46% 26% 31% 14% 146%
Amazon 42% 31% 36% 16% 16% 140%
ComScore 61% 29% 26% 7% 13% 136%
Adobe 53% 20% 14% 26% 12% 124%
Apsalar 23% 27% 36% 23% 9% 118%
Crashlytics 22% 14% 28% 11% 39% 114%
That’s an impressive showing.
Developers who currently use Localytics rated it higher for helping

create user engagement than any other tool. They also rated it higher
than any other tool for integration of marketing tools. It’s fourth for pure
analytics behind leaders Google, comScore, and Flurry, and first again
for monetization.
Those are all impressive feats for a tool that is fifth on Google Play for
market share and sixth on iOS.

And all that developer love does show up in the quantitative analysis in at
least one score: install versus uninstall ratios, where Localytics ranks just
below category leaders Flurry and Google on iOS.
Major apps using Localytics on iOS include ESPN’s SportsCenter, eBay,

FOX Sports Mobile, and theScore, while on Google Play you have some of
the same apps, plus Amazon Kindle, popular fitness app RunKeeper, and
augmented reality tool Layar.
Mixpanel: Jack Of All, Master Of One

Mixpanel is just pretty good at pretty much everything, ranking in the
fours, fives and sixes in many of our quantitative rankings as well as many
of our qualitative rankings.
Everything’s solid, nothing’s spectacular.
Except user ratings.
Mixpanel is the leading app analytics solution on Google Play when you
rank it by the average ratings boost apps that use it generate. While the
average analytics package boosts the ratings of apps by 2.93 over all apps
in general, apps that use Mixpanel have an average ratings boost of 6.4%.
Perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise.
In our qualitative scores from developers who actually use the tools,
Mixpanel ranked second only to Localytics and Facebook in improving
user engagement, and second only to Crashlytics and Flurry in improving
user experience.

Thirty-one percent of developers using MIxpanel said it was either Very

Good or Excellent at helping generate higher app engagement, and
the same number said it was Very Good or Excellent at improving user
experience. Those numbers may not sound high, but developers can be
a tough crowd, and only two solutions out-scored Localytics in
those categories.
Crashlytics: Never Stop Improving

Twitter’s Crashlytics has impressive market share on Google Play and
IOS, ranking fourth on Google Play and third on iOS. And, somewhat like
Mixpanel, it’s generally middle of the pack on most of our ratings. That
in itself is in some sense amazing for a tool that was particularly focused
from the very beginning on crash reporting.
However, there are two places where Crashlytics stands out.
One is its uninstall ratio on Google Play, which is second only to Google
itself, at 5.54. (For every five and a half current installs, only one
developer has uninstalled the SDK.) This suggests that mobile publishers
find the tool extremely useful and, once installed, don’t remove it.

The other area Crashlytics particularly stands out in is perhaps not

surprising, given the first. That’s its high rating in helping developers
improve user experience in our qualitative study.
There, developers who actually use the tools rated Crashlytics highest of
all, above Google, above Flurry, above Amazon. That’s impressive, and it
makes sense: nothing hurts user experience more than a complete and
utter crash.
Thirty-nine percent of developers said that Crashlytics was Very Good

or Excellent in improving user experience. Again, that may not sound
like much, but developers are hard to please in some ways, and that
compares to scores of 33% for Flurry, 23% for Google, and 16% for
Amazon.
As the team has built the tool, Crashlytics offers much more than just
crash analysis, which it does supremely well, of course. That includes user
data, retention data, session length, and more.
Apps that use Crashlytics include Pandora and MySpace, as well as

Evernote and KakaoStory — and, of course, the Twitter app itself.
Kochava: The Ratings King

App ratings are critical to success, especially early in an app’s lifecycle.
They’re extremely important for organic growth as a factor that both

users check when considering an install, that app store managers review
before deciding whom to feature, and that factors in app store search
and ranking algorithms. A bad rating can kill an app; a good rating aids
your user acquisition efforts.
Later in an app’s lifecycle, they’re important too, as key metrics of user

satisfaction and user experience, both of which have massive impact on
monetization capability. And, of course, they’re a bit of a vanity metric as
well: who doesn’t want 5-star apps, and who wants 1 or 2-star apps?
Kochava barely made it onto our radar, with just half a percent of market
share on iOS and 650 or so installs in our sample size of 278,000 apps.

But it is clearly the ratings king.
Apps that use Kochava have an average user rating 14.2% higher than
other apps. That’s tops on iOS, followed closely by AppsFlyer and Apsalar.
By contrast, apps using market leaders Google and Flurry only see a .5%
and 1.2% bump in user ratings, respectively.
Kochava promises real-time measurement, attribution, and optimization,

all of which helps if you’re looking to improve user experience.
The biggest apps using its SDK include Domino’s Pizza,

Radio Disney, and Sega’s Sonic Dash, as well as Backflip
Studio’s DragonVale.
AppsFlyer: 1 SDK To Rule Them All

Another iOS-focused solution that helps developers build apps that
generate great user ratings is AppsFlyer. On iOS, apps with the AppsFlyer
SDK have ratings 13.5% higher than average.
That’s extremely impressive, and AppsFlyer is generating that boost on

about double the market share of Kochava, which makes it even more
impressive. That pushes AppsFlyer, which has about 1% market share
on iOS, way up the charts in our rankings that prioritize ratings as well as
install/uninstall ratio:
AppsFlyer has taken a very interesting tack in attacking the mobile space:
one SDK to rule them all. The single 40kB SDK includes capabilities for
analytics, for affiliate networks, for advertising-based monetization, for
user acquisition, campaign tracking, retargeting ads, attribution tracking,
and ROI analytics.
Big apps that use AppsFlyer include StumbleUpon and Foursquare, plus
Sega’s Sonic Dash and the iconic Flashlight app.

Apsalar: A Tale Of 2 Platforms

Apsalar is a poster child for why you need to approach analytics for
different platforms in different ways.
On Android, Apsalar has the unfortunate distinction of owning the single

worst install/uninstall ratio on any platform: .07. In other words, with
about 1,100 installs in our 1.6 million Google Play app sample size, more
than 14,000 apps have uninstalled the SDK.
On the surface, it looks like the company has had major issues, in spite of
the fact that apps with this SDK have middle-of-the-pack ratings boosts
over other apps, at 4.1% higher than average. But Apsalar CEO Michael
Oiknine told me that was due to a partnership with another SDK that saw
its installs skyrocket, but then drop after the partnership lapsed.
On iOS, Apsalar is a poster child for both getting high ratings and having
the fifth-best install/uninstall ratio.
In other words, it’s a completely different universe.
In terms of ratings, apps using the Apsalar SDK on iOS are rated 13.2%
higher than average apps — a massive boost only surpassed by Kochava
and AppsFlyer.
It’s important to note that Apsalar accomplishes this feat with about 50%
more market share than Kochava, which makes the achievement even
more impressive. (As SDKs are installed more and more widely, they
ratings for apps that use them tend to approach the average more and
more, simply as a function of size in the market.)
Big apps that use Apsalar include Zombie Life, Infinity Blade II, and
Sally’s Spa.

QUANTITATIVE RANKING:
THE TOP 15 ANALYTICS SOLUTIONS
As we’ve noted above, we ranked the top 15 mobile analytics solutions on

each of Google Play and the iOS app store in a variety of ways, each time
prioritizing slightly different aspects to provide a different view.
Here are the full details...
Note:
It’s important to not look simply at where a solution ranks, but also
check the other sections of this report that reveal the focus for each
analytics company and the results of our developer survey that highlight
where each solution is strong. All the data together will give you a good
sense of the correct analytics solution — as will our top picks at the end
of this report.
Recommended solutions:
To determine our Recommended Solutions at the bottom of this report,
we add this data to the qualitative data revealed below.

iOS
There are over 30 iOS-focused app analytics solutions.
We’ve ranked the top 15 by multiple factors below, but here are the top
31 ranked by market share. To give you some context, after the top 15,
solutions have less than 450 installs.
1. Flurry 17. Tapstream
2. Google Analytics 18. Distimo
3. Crashlytics 19. Ad-X
4. TestFlight 20. Kontagent

(now Upsight)
5. BugSense
21. GameAnalytics
6. Localytics
22. Amplitude
7. HockeyApp
23. Segment.io
8. Adobe Marketing
Cloud (Omniture) 24. Swrve
9. Tune/HasOffers 25. Apptimize
10. comScore 26. Leanplum
11. Mixpanel 27. Optimizely
12. AppsFlyer 28. Taplytics
13. Apsalar 29. Appsperse
14. Quantcast 30. Aditic
15. Kochava 31. adDash
16. Adeven Adjust.io

iOS
iOS By Market Share

As we’ve previously seen, Flurry and Google lead iOS app analytics
solutions in market share.
It’s important to note that not leading in market share is not necessarily
a bad thing: some solutions, such as Adobe, Quantcast, or comScore,
are aimed at the enterprise market, and will naturally therefore not be
present in the legions of tiny and unsuccessful apps on the market.
In addition, solutions such as Localytics, Tune, Mixpanel, and Kochava

are focused on huge mobile-first (and often mobile-only) apps. Again, the
long tail with the majority of all apps is not something that these players
are interested in.
Here are the full details with exact numbers.
Market Share Rank Company Percentage

1 Flurry 36.07%
3 Crashlytics 7.61%
4 TestFlight 7.84%
5 BugSense 3.93%
6 Localytics 2.63%
7 HockeyApp 2.68%
8 Adobe 2.20%
10 comScore 1.71%
11 Mixpanel 1.80%
12 AppsFlyer 0.91%
13 Apsalar 0.63%
14 Quantcast 0.62%
15 Kochava 0.47%

iOS
Publishers won’t necessarily go wrong when choosing a market-leading

solution. The only challenge is that market share is typically a trailing
indicator, not a leading indicator, and there can be up-and-coming
solutions that do a better job at specific aspects of app analytics.
And, in fact, that’s what you’ll see as we rank the solutions according to
different criteria.
iOS By Ratings
If you’re looking for an analytics solution that will help your team improve
your app, make it more friendly, and make it something that users want
to share, you’ll want to see which products tend to help produce the
highest quality apps.
On iOS, apps that use the little-known Kochava mobile app analytics
engine generate the highest overall boost in ratings. AppsFlyer is close
behind, as is Apsalar. Apps that use Mixpanel or Tune are not far away,
while apps that use comScore, BugSense, and Adobe are ignominiously
rated below the average app.
It’s important to take these numbers with a grain of salt.
This is correlation we’re seeing here, not causation. Choosing comScore

does not guarantee you bad ratings. There are certainly conflating
variables at play here, and one of them will be that enterprise focused
apps or apps from big old-school media companies are just not as likely
to be consumer-friendly, user-friendly, and loved by the average user as
consumerfirst apps from mobile-first or mobile-only companies.
That’s almost certainly what is happening in Adobe’s case.
In addition, an SDK like BugSense, with its focus on pinpointing problems

and discovering bugs is most likely to be used by developers while they
are in heavy ongoing development of their app and experiencing issues.
That’s going to be reflected in user experience, and it’s going to result in
apps using it being rated lower.

iOS
Still, for most solutions, it’s not a good indicator.
Ratings Rank Company Score

1 Kochava 14.2
2 AppsFlyer 13.5
3 Apsalar 13.2
4 Mixpanel 11.6
5 HasOffers/Tune 10.7
6 Quantcast 6.7
7 Crashlytics 6.2
8 Localytics 2
9 Flurry 1.2
10 HockeyApp 1.2
11 TestFlight 1
12 Google Analytics 0.5
13 comScore -1.4
14 BugSense -2.9
15 Adobe -4
App developers and publishers choose analytics solutions specifically so

that they know what users are doing in their apps. That data is insight
into whether users are enjoying their apps, and in many cases insight into
the problems they’re having. Developers use that insight to improve their
apps, improve engagement, and improve user experience.
Clearly, an analytics solution that doesn’t help you achieve those goals is
not going to be on the top of your go-to list.
iOS By Install/Uninstall Ratio And Ratings

We also ranked analytics products by a combination of two over-weighted
variables: install/uninstall ratio and ratings combined. The two together
are complementary ratings — one, user-side, and the other developer-
side — which should together provide holistic insight into product quality.
Apsalar, one of our five mighty mites on iOS, shines when you ignore
market share and simply prioritize install/uninstall ratiOS (which we

iOS
calculated by dividing how many current installs the company has by the
number of uninstalls that have happened) as well as ratings.
Appsflyer, Mixpanel, and Kochava also rank well, followed by a tight pack
of Tune, Flurry, Quantcast, and Crashlytics.
While you can’t read too much into install/uninstall ratiOS, as developers
are constantly testing new things, there are reasons why publishers stop
using one analytics solution in favor of another. And analytics solutions
that are good at retaining developer partners are clearly doing
something right.
Here’s the raw data.
Install/Uninstall
Rank Company Score
And Ratings
1 Apsalar 104
2 Appsflyer 70
3 Kochava 68
4 Mixpanel 64
5 HasOffers/Tune 51
6 Flurry 46
7 Quantcast 43
8 Crashlytics 43
9 Localytics 17
10 Google Analytics 10
11 comScore 8
12 Bugsense 7
13 Hockeyapp 7
14 TestFlight 5
15 Adobe 5

iOS
iOS By Big App Market Share

Market share by category of app download bracket is tricky on iOS, as
the app store doesn’t reveal the same amount of detail as Google Play.
However, by compiling a list of the major apps in significant categories,
it’s possible to get a good sense of the general terrain.
We define “big apps,” by the way, as apps with more than

5 million users.
It’s no shock that over-prioritizing big app market share appears to favor
Flurry and Google, the two major competitors in
iOS app analytics. If you have massively higher market share than your
competitors, you’re also likely to have at least
somewhat higher market share in the top end of the market.
Here’s the raw data when we prioritized big app market share.
Big App
Rank Company Score
Market Share
1 Flurry 122
3 Crashlytics 29
4 TestFlight 25
5 comScore 22
6 Adobe 21
7 Bugsense 16
8 Hockeyapp 13
9 Localytics 12
10 HasOffers/Tune 10
11 QuantCast 10
12 Mixpanel 8
13 Appsflyer 5
14 Apsalar 2
15 Kochava 1

iOS
An interesting reality, however, is revealed when we put market share

and big app market share side-by-side.
Here it’s clear that total market share is actually inversely related to big
app market share for some of the key players.
Localytics, comScore, Adobe, and Quantcast all have significantly more

share of the big app analytics market than they do of the overall app
analytics market, while Flurry and Google both have less.
Tune, Mixpanel, AppsFlyer, and HockeyApp are not pictured but exhibit
the same variance: they punch above their weight class when you look at
the most coveted segment of the market: large apps.
iOS By Uninstall Ratio

Developers uninstall SDKs for a variety of reasons.
In some cases, they need to make their apps faster. In other cases, there’s
a strategic conflict. In many cases, however, it’s because the app has
moved beyond the value offered by the SDK. In this case, developers
integrate with a new solution that provides more benefits.
We calculated the current installed base versus the number of uninstalls

for each of the top 15 solutions. The result?
Flurry leads, followed by Google, as the top two “sticky” SDKs. That
essentially means that publishers who install Flurry on iOS typically don’t
uninstall it, with the same true to a slightly lesser degree of Google.
Flurry is installed in 11.9 apps today for every one app that has
uninstalled it, while Google is just over 10. Localytics and comScore are
in the 8.3 to 8.5 range, while Apsalar (remember that name for the same
stats for Android) and BugSense are in the sevens.

iOS
It’s easy to read too much into this data. SDKs that are easy to install are
equally easy to uninstall, and mobile publishers are trying every angle for
that little extra edge which will make a difference. What is clear, however,
is that if your ratio is close to one, you’re in trouble. And if it’s below one,
developers have spoken: you just do not have a good product.
But an app like TestFlight is often installed simply to enable sending the
app to beta testers, its original and still primary claim to fame. So seeing
TestFlight lower in these scores should not be a shock.
Here’s the full data:
Uninstall
Rank Company Score
ratio
1 Flurry 11.9
3 Localytics 8.53
4 comScore 8.33
5 Apsalar 7.84
6 Bugsense 7.38
7 Crashlytics 6.99
8 QuantCast 6.41
9 Hockeyapp 5.64
10 Mixpanel 5.55
11 Adobe 5.5
12 Appsflyer 5.19
13 TestFlight 4.92
15 Kochava 4.76
Note: the average install-to-uninstall ratio on iOS is 6.92, which for

vendors means that if you do win the install, you typically stay inside
an app.

GOOGLE PLAY
There are over 50 app analytics solutions on Google Play.
We’ve ranked the top 15 by multiple factors below, but here are the top
35 ranked by market share. To give you some context, after the top 15,
solutions have under 550 installs.
1. Google Analytics 18. Ad-X
2. Flurry 19. Distimo
3. Crashlytics (Twitter) 20. Apptentive
4. Umeng 21. Tapstream
5. HockeyApp 22. Splunk
6. Localytics 23. Appboy
7. Mixpanel 24. GameAnalytics
8. Tune/HasOffers 25. Rollbar
9. comScore 26. Segment.io
10. Amazon (Insights and 27. Adeven Adjust.io

A/B Testing)
28. Talking Data
11. TestFlight
29. Swrve
12. Adobe Marketing Cloud
(Omniture) 30. Moblin
13. Apsalar 31. Apptimize
14. Quantcast 32. Leanplum
15. Amplitude 33. Ensighten Mobile
16. vServ AppWrapper 34. Coremetrics
17. Baidu Mobile Statistics 35. Vessel

GOOGLE PLAY
Google Play By Market Share

Again, market share is typically a trailing indicator, not a leading indicator,
and there can be up-and-coming solutions that do a better job at specific
aspects of app analytics. However, market share does indicate that a
solution is meeting a wide swath of needs.
As we’ve previously seen, Google’s mobile analytics solution is the

runaway market share leader for apps on Google Play.
Here’s the data in tabular form, with all the details.
Market
Rank Company Percentage
Share
2 Flurry 4.81%
3 Umeng 1.11%
4 Crashlytics 0.61%
5 Localytics 0.34%
6 Mixpanel 0.30%
7 HockeyApp 0.23%
9 comScore 0.19%
10 Amazon 0.13%
11 TestFlight 0.14%
12 Omniture 0.12%
13 Adobe 0.12%
14 Apsalar 0.07%
15 Quantcast 0.05%
However, the story is considerably more complex when we take the data
and start to prioritize different elements to reveal more than just sheer
market share.

GOOGLE PLAY
In addition, the number of apps on Google Play is so vast that even at

just under 5% market share, Flurry has a current installed base of
just under 80,000 apps in the 1.6 million app sample we studied, and
Crashlytics’ sub-1% market share translates to just under 10,000 apps.
Which means, of course, that even the smaller players are working at
some level of scale.
It’s worth taking a closer look at the data without the big kahuna, Google,
hiding all the other players.
Without Google’s analytics for mobile, Flurry looks like the Google of the
category, followed by China’s Umeng and Twitter’s Crashlytics.
Google Play By Ratings

Certain analytics SDKs are associated with high-quality apps that generate
high user ratings in Google Play. That’s typically a good indicator to add to
the mix when selecting a new solution.
Android apps that use Mixpanel generate the highest overall boost in
ratings over the average of all apps. Tune is close behind, as are Flurry
and Amazon. Apps that use Omniture and Quantcast are unfortunately
rated below the average app.

GOOGLE PLAY
It’s important to take these numbers with a grain of salt.
This is correlation we’re seeing here, not causation. Choosing Quantcast

does not guarantee you bad ratings. There are certainly conflating
variables at play here, and one of them will be that enterprise focused
apps or apps from big old-school media companies are just not as likely
to be consumer-friendly, user-friendly, and loved by the average user as
consumer-first apps from mobile-first or mobile-only companies.
Still, it’s a good indicator highlighting where end-user value is

being created.
Ratings Rank Company Score

1 Mixpanel 6.4
3 Flurry 5.5
4 Amazon 5.1
5 Localytics 4.4
7 Apsalar 4.1
8 Crashlytics 3.4
9 Adobe 3.02
10 HockeyApp 2.2
11 comScore 2.2
12 Umeng 1.5
13 Testflight 1.4
14 Omniture -2
15 Quantcast -3.3
App developers and publishers choose analytics solutions specifically so

that they know what users are doing in their apps. That data is insight
into whether users are enjoying their apps, and in many cases insight into
problems they’re having. Developers use that insight to improve their
apps, improve engagement, and improve user experience.
Clearly, an analytics solution that doesn’t help you achieve those goals is
not going to be on the top of your go-to list.

GOOGLE PLAY
Google Play By Install/Uninstall Ratio And Ratings

When you prioritize install/uninstall ratio and ratings (but still include
installed base data) for all app analytics solutions on Google Play,
Google’s own mobile analytics solution still comes out smelling like roses.
That is, of course, to be expected — it’s difficult to overcome Google’s 92%

market share.
In addition, Google’s mobile app analytics SDK is seldom uninstalled, with

a current install to uninstalled ratio of 19.37. When mobile publishers
install GA for mobile, it’s generally there for good.
Clearly, however, we see that Amazon, Tune, and Twitter’s Crashlytics

rank high, and would be close to Google if they had the kind of market
share Google enjoys. Flurry and Mixpanel are not far behind as well.
Install/uninstall
Rank Company Score
and ratings
2 Amazon 24
3 HasOffers/Tune 22
4 Crashlytics 19
5 Flurry 16
6 Mixpanel 16
7 HockeyApp 12
8 Localytics 10
9 comScore 8
10 Testflight 5
11 Quantcast 4
12 Omniture 3
13 Adobe 3
14 Umeng 2
15 Apsalar 0

GOOGLE PLAY
Apsalar gets a zero here because of its horrific install/uninstall ratio

on Google Play. With just under 1,100 current installs, the SDK has
been uninstalled over 14,000 times ... a clear signal of a serious
issue on Android, even though the tool is solid and in some sense
exemplary on iOS.
Google Play By Big App Market Share

The picture looks similar when you isolate for big app market share,
which we defined for the purposes of this study as apps with more than 5
million users. This is possible to do cleanly and simply for apps on Google
Play because Google reveals more app download information than the
iOS app store.
For developers who want to scale, it’s important to know that an app
analytics solution will not only scale, but will continue to provide value
as you grow. The basic data needs you have when small grows into
sophisticated cohort analysis and engagement solutions ... and the need
to maintain speed at scale can be particularly challenging.
So you want to know which solutions scale well, especially for solutions
which require integration work.
Google has a massive lead here, and part of that is due to the fact that
the company eats its own dog food in its very successful mobile apps,
many of which have over 500 million downloads, and some of which are
over a billion.

GOOGLE PLAY
Big App
Rank Company Score
Market Share
2 Flurry 61
3 Amazon 49
4 HasOffers/Tune 47
5 Crashlytics 44
6 Mixpanel 34
7 HockeyApp 26
8 Localytics 21
9 comScore 18
10 Testflight 11
11 Quantcast 8.2
12 Umeng 7.8
13 Omniture 7.5
14 Adobe 6.7
15 Apsalar 1.2
Again, it’ll be easier to see what’s going on if you take the big fish out of
the pond. Google is almost a default choice, but most developers are
pairing it with something else that provides a different type of value.
Here, it’s clear that Flurry has a lead on Amazon and Tune, with
Crashlytics not far behind.

GOOGLE PLAY
Google Play By Uninstall Ratio

As we said earlier for the iOS data, developers uninstall SDKs for a variety
of reasons, and they aren’t always because a solution isn’t meeting their
needs. Still, the install/uninstall ratio is interesting data for publishers
who are looking for a new analytics partner.
We calculated the current installed base versus the number of uninstalls

for each of the top 15 solutions. The result?
Google’s Mobile App Analytics shines.
With a ratio of 19.37 current installs to every one uninstall, Google is

the runaway leader here. And, the company cements its position as the
default analytics SDK for Android apps. This is the solution that stays in
the app while developers experiment with alternate analytics engines.
Here’s the full data:
Uninstall Ratio Rank Company Score

2 Crashlytics 5.54
3 HockeyApp 5.29
4 Quantcast 3.87
6 Amazon 3.67
7 comScore 3.67
8 Omniture 3.5
9 Testflight 3.41
10 Adobe 3.02
11 Flurry 2.91
12 Mixpanel 2.53
13 Localytics 2.23
14 Umeng 1.63
15 Apsalar 0.07

QUALITATIVE RANKING:
We asked developers what KPIs matter most, and then applied them to
top solutions. The result is the top 10 solutions in our qualitative rankings.
First, we’ll look at KPIs that developers measure most — the frequency at
which they incorporate certain KPIs into their measurements. Then, we
look at which KPIs matter most to developers and publishers: the ones
they base decisions on.
We’ll also evaluate the characteristics of app analytics vendors that matter
most to them, and then finally showcase the top 10 solutions as ranked
by developers who actually use them.
The top 10 that we were able to evaluate via survey are:
1. Localytics 6. Amazon
2. Flurry 7. comScore
3. Google 8. Adobe
4. Mixpanel 9. Apsalar
5. Facebook 10. Crashlytics
Recommended solutions:
For our Recommended Solutions, we add this data to the
quantitative data.
Note:
Some of the top solutions in our quantitative rankings didn’t have sufficient
market share for us to evaluate them effectively via survey means and still
achieve statistical relevance.

KPIs That Matter

It’s clear from the developers we talked to that mobile publishers are
all using the basic KPIs: tracking active users, installs, retention, session
length, usage, and more.
Here’s the frequency data on what mobile developers are tracking most.
High-performing developers have a slight tendency to over-weight user

variables such as session length and number of sessions over app crash
data and upgrades. And developers with big apps tend to care more
about life-time value, average revenue per user, and detailed stats such
as cost per acquisition and cost per engagement.
So when we asked developers to rank the KPIs by importance, a different

picture emerges.

After the first 3 identical answers (active users, installs, and retention),
when top developers rank app KPIs by importance, the variable that are
most related to engagement and monetization rise to the top.
In place of app crashes, session length, and number of sessions, KPIs that
affect dollars hit the top 5: average revenue per user, lifetime value, and
conversions. Behavior flow, also critical to understanding what users are
doing and how you might be able to influence it, ranks next.
Why use analytics?

One other question we asked developers: what’s your most important
reason for using analytics? What do you want to achieve?
Here’s how they answered.
Most important, at almost 40%, is increasing user engagement, followed

by improving monetization at about 25%. Clearly, developers don’t want
analytics for the sake of analytics. They want analytics to make better
apps, and make more money.

KPIs That Don’t Matter

The least effective KPIs, developers say, are global distribution (not
nearly as relevant and regional distribution), launch time (as phones get
faster), and app crashes.
Key Characteristics
On a higher level than individual KPIs, mobile developers and
publishers look for a set of key characteristics in app analytics
solutions.
The most important, in order of importance, are:
1. reliability
2. performance
3. breadth of features
4. ease of use

Less important are features like vendor maturity, as big old companies
are frankly less likely to grok mobile. Flexibility is also less important
than sheer performance, as is the ability to view the data collected on
mobile devices.
The take-away for developers looking for a solution: find the best-in-
class from a relatively young, energetic company that can deliver on its
promises, like a Google, any of the mighty mites on the platforms they do
well, or a Flurry.
Global Rankings By Developer Users

As you’ve seen elsewhere in this report, we asked developers to rank the
tools they actually use, rather than asking them to rank every tool they
can think of. We wanted real data from developers with real (and current)
experience with each tool.
So the ratings below are based on how developers who use each tool feel
about its capabilities in each of 5 key metacharacteristics: pure analytics
power, helping app developers build user engagement, helping app
publishers monetize, enabling marketing integrations for user acquisition
and other purposes, and providing the data needed so developers can
improve their apps.
Here are the top 10 analytics solutions across both major platforms:
1. Localytics 6. Amazon
2. Flurry 7. comScore
3. Google 8. Adobe
4. Mixpanel 9. Apsalar
5. Facebook 10. Crashlytics

Visually, here’s the data. (Bigger chunks of color are better; smaller
chunks are worse.)
And here’s the raw data, so you can get the full details. In each row the
numbers are the percentage of developers who use the specific tool
who rate it either Excellent or Very Good in each category. (We’re not
terribly interested in solutions that are just OK.)

The full data:
Improving
Pure Building Marketing
Ranking Vendor Monetization User Total
Analytics Engagement Integration
Experience
1 Localytics 55% 52% 49% 36% 21% 212%
2 Flurry 56% 30% 33% 20% 33% 172%
3 Google 65% 30% 30% 22% 23% 170%
4 Mixpanel 43% 31% 31% 23% 31% 160%
5 Facebook 29% 46% 26% 31% 14% 146%
6 Amazon 42% 31% 36% 16% 16% 140%
7 ComScore 61% 29% 26% 7% 13% 136%
8 Adobe 53% 20% 14% 26% 12% 124%
9 Apsalar 23% 27% 36% 23% 9% 118%
10 Crashlytics 22% 14% 28% 11% 39% 114%
Some highlights:
• Localytics scored highest overall by its users
• Localytics also scored highest in engagement, monetization, and
marketing integration
• Platform leaders Flurry and Google come in second and
third, respectively
• Google was rated as the best at pure analytics by its users
• Crashlytics was rated as best at helping app developers improve
user experience
You’ll note that Facebook makes an appearance here, even though this
report hasn’t mentioned the company yet. That’s simply due to the
fact that Facebook does offer a mobile analytics solution (Facebook
App Insights) for developers that, although it’s tailored specifically for
monitoring and measuring “the health of your Facebook integrations”
does also provide the ability to measure app events, track cohorts
of users, and track other activities in your app. It’s a limited set of
capabilities, but Facebook does a good job at delivering on them.

CONCLUSION: RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS
Can’t Miss First Choice: Google Or Flurry

Almost every app that uses analytics on Google Play uses Google’s
solution. And more of the apps that use analytics on iOS use Flurry than
any other solution.
If you’re in a big old company and you’re simply looking to not get fired,
choose Google or Flurry.
But that’s not the only reason to pick these market leaders.
Major developers with hundreds of millions of users choose Google or

Flurry as a baseline — one of the 2 or 3 analytics solutions they’ll use
to make decisions on app changes. Google in particular has a huge
amount of customizability in mobile app tracking if you care enough to
embed tags in key events of your gameplay or app experience, and both
solutions are capable of handing the biggest and most demanding of
apps. On the other hand, Flurry is ranked higher by developers who
actually use it, and has top ranking on iOS.
VB Insight recommendation:
1. Google
If you have no competitive concerns vis-a-vis Google knowing too
much about your app
2. Flurry
If you and Google are frenemies
Important note:
Although you should choose solutions on iOS and Google Play separately,
as the platforms are different and the analytics solutions that are cross-
platform don’t perform the same way on both, we recommend that your
first-choice pick be first on both platforms, so that in at least one analytics
solution you can see all of your data across both major mobile platforms.

Google Play Top Picks

After your first pick, you need another solution to maximize your ability
to grow your app. All the best publishers, such as Supercell, have multiple
analytics partners.
Here, base your choice on what you need most in your app.
1. Tune (HasOffers)
If you’re prepping for massive user growth
2. Localytics
If you need to improve user experience and monetization
3. Mixpanel
If you need to engage users more deeply
4. Amazon
If you want to improve monetization
5. Crashlytics
If stability is a concern
iOS Top Picks

Since you’re a smart developer, you’re choosing solutions for each of your
app platforms independently. So you might have
different analytics vendors for iOS. Or, you might not.
Here, base your choice on what you need most in your app.

1. Localytics
If you need to improve user experience and monetization
2. Tune (HasOffers)
If you’re prepping for massive user growth
3. Mixpanel
If you need to engage users more deeply
4. Apsalar
If you want to drive higher ratings and engagement
5. AppsFlyer
If you’re building monetization with media partners
Honorable mention: Kochava.
If it had just a bit more market share penetration to test its promising
benefits on a wider selection of apps, we’d feel more comfortable about
making this a VB Insight recommendation too.
Big Media, Enterprise Solution

Many of the solutions we’ve focused on in this report are mobile-first,
and in some cases mobile only.
But there is a whole class of mobile applications that are mobile-and,

many of which are from major enterprises and big media companies.
Those solutions have suffered in comparison with the others because
quantitatively they don’t reach the same level of users as the major
mobile-first solutions, and qualitatively the apps are not always as
consumer-friendly as they could be.
But, if you’re looking to do integrated analytics between web and

mobile, you have Google as an option, but you also have comScore,
Adobe, and Quantcast.

If you’re looking to do basic analytics, chose solutions above. If you’re
looking to integrate online/offline/mobile marketing
campaigns, we recommend Adobe due to its tight integration into the
Adobe Marketing Cloud.
A Note On Pricing
Pricing should not be the determining factor for your analytics solution.
ROI should be.
If the solution you want or need to grow fast and monetize well is not
free, pay for it. It’s a small price to pay to grow your mobile business, and
nickel-and-diming here will cost you opportunity and revenue long term.
That said, there are plenty of free or almost-free solutions.

Here’s an overview:
• Adobe/Omniture
“Call sales”
• Amazon
Amazon is free for up to 100 million events, after which you pay $1 for
each million events
• Appsflyer
Most features free; non-organic installs range from $0.05 to $0.01 at
various volume levels
• Apsalar
$1,000/month and up
• BugSense/Splunk
Free to $750/month and up
• comScore
“Call sales”
• Crashlytics
Free
• Flurry
Free
• Google
Free (there is a premium version of the entire Google Analytics platform)
• HockeyApp
Starting at $10/month for 5 apps, up to $500/month
• Kochava
Monetizes on non-organic installs
• Localytics
Free to $3,400/month at various usage levels
• Mixpanel
Free to 200,000 data points, pricing from $150 to $2,000 thereafter
• Quantcast
The dreaded “call sales,” which usually means doesn’t fit on a
credit card
• TestFlight
Free for now; premium features in the future
• Tune/HasOffers
Free up to $50,000 attributions; graduated pricing starting at $0.002 per
attribution and going down with volume
• Umeng
Free

EXTRA: ADDITIONAL DEVELOPER INSIGHTS
We saw some consistent themes in developers’ responses. They don’t all

fit in the main body of this report, but can be of value to both developers/
publishers and app analytics vendors.
Most-Overlooked App Analytics Methods

What do most developers miss out on when looking at analytics? Where
could they improve?
• CPM calculations for various regions

• ARPD (average revenue per download)
• Cohort analysis: creating user targeting and funnels, segmenting
based on those cohorts, and creating unique offers for those cohorts
• Personalization
• Custom dimensions and custom metrics in Google’s
analytics solutions
What Developers Want Most

Analytics vendors are providing a lot of options. But they’re either not
meeting all developers’ needs, or not getting the message across in terms
of what they offer.

Here’s what developers want — and feel they can’t get:
• Predictive analytics so I can intervene when usage drops to prompt

re-engagement and renew loyalty
• A perfect flow funnel analysis: a flow chart of events and actions
relative to KPIs
• Answers: why the uninstall happened
• Feature effectiveness analysis
• Net promoter score
• Heatmaps of user activity
• Intelligent selection of key KPIs to track given your specific app (could
be a reason for analytics companies to focus on specific genres).
Looking for things that are more specific than the common data ... for
example, a game analytics system you could wrap to a specific type of
game mechanics
• Don’t just give me the metrics, tell me what they mean
• Suggest new features
Not all developers/publishers are perfectly ethical. Here’s one request

that isn’t likely to be fulfilled: turn on players’ microphones while using
app and recording!

Platform Insights
Some key patterns that emerged from the data:
1. Use different tools on different platforms

• Apsalar on iOS is great; on Android not so much
• Supercell’s Clash of Clans uses Google and Tune on Android, but
Flurry and Tune on iOS
2. At a certain scale, some big developers take analytics in-house. King,

for instance, doesn’t use any outside analytics. Other big apps that
completely depend on server-side processing and databases and
have little app-side datastore and intelligence (e.g., email apps, many
social apps) don’t use traditional app analytics, because their creators
can get any needed data serverside. Example: the Facebook app.
3. In mobile analytics, Twitter is deep where Facebook is broad.

• Crashlytics, owned by Twitter, has decent market share but deep
insights into apps
• Facebook’s APIs are very broadly spread throughout the app
ecosystem, touching far more apps (105,000 on Google Play;
67,000 on iOS), but mostly focusing on social integration and very
little on app analytics.
4. Most developers with web and mobile properties would prefer one
solution for both, rather than separate solutions for each. However,
Kissmetrics and Segment.io, two web solutions with some scale, have
almost no penetration on mobile, and the same is true with comScore
and Quantcast.

| www.insight.venturebeat.com

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| INSIGHT

Mobile App Analytics:

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Big Picture: Market Share Vs. Market Leaders....... 8

The Contenders: 8 Mighty Mites............................ 18

Quantitative Ranking: The Top 15 Analytics

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Qualitative Ranking: The Top 10 Analytics

Conclusion: Recommended Solutions................... 52

Extra: Additional Developer Insights..................... 57

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What you’ll get in this report:

5. KPIs that matter, and KPIs that don’t

6. Most important features in analytics solutions

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Building a great app is step one.

Acquiring users is step two.

Engaging and monetizing users is step three.

250 million users

1.8 million apps

What we’ve learned:

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The mobile app ecosystem is the fastest-paced, most competitive

One of the key tools in a publisher’s arsenal?

About this report

To study this massive ecosystem, we used two widely different approaches.

|6 BACK TO SECTION LISTING

It’s also clear that there is a lot of wisdom in the crowd

Using this report

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As you’ll see in this report, Google’s

Meanwhile, Flurry’s market share

However, there are a number of

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Google Analytics: Monopoly Power On Android

In chart form, it’s almost laughable.

“Google Analytics IS damn good,” he said in response to my question. In

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That share isn’t an accident.

In fact, 65% of them said Google 5 Localytics 0.34%

| 10 BACK TO SECTION LISTING

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Flurry: Dominance On iOS

And that hasn’t helped it retain developer share on Android. Ranked by

| 12 BACK TO SECTION LISTING

According to one developer, “Flurry was too slow. We moved to Localytics

In fact, Flurry ranked second — above Google — in overall scoring on

Developers ranked it third-highest

5 BugSense 3.93% That, combined with the fact that it’s

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But ... 2 Out Of 3 Mobile Developers Use More

While there are outliers whose sanity is questionable in each of the

A typical scenario on Android is using Google Analytics plus another

| 14 BACK TO SECTION LISTING

For example, while Supercell’s Clash of Clans uses Google’s mobile

And: The Most Successful Developers Use Multiple

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In other words, you can try

This effect is particularly noticeable

To do that, most successful developers are integrating multiple analytics

(data courtesy of MixRank)

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Only 30% Of Developers Say Google Is Their