The Mobile Download Index is a great way to understand consumption patterns for apps and games across countries and categories. We launched the index in early 2020 to measure the growth of downloads and revenue across stores, countries, and categories
FYI - It's free for app developers.
I looked over the index in Ukraine to see what's happening in the App Store in the months leading up to a war, something we haven't seen much of...
Here's the category with the most growth in downloads, and it makes a lot of sense.
In the last 30 days, the Mobile Download Index for the travel category grew by 80.38 points, a rise of 48.2%. This means twice as many people in Ukraine are downloading travel apps as compared to earlier in the year.
The Entertainment and Social Networking categories have also been on the rise in the last 30 days as both contain apps that enable communication, which is essential right now.
Trends like the rise of Signal and reliance on apps for possibly life-threatening situations are now becoming the norm. It was somewhat the case in 2014, when Russia was at it originally, but now we see it full-scale.
The same seven apps held the same seven download spots. Revenue told a different story, and a short-drama app from Singapore crashed the top 10.
MLB app downloads jumped 43% this February while revenue climbed to $3.5M, signaling a stronger season ahead for baseball on mobile.