Remember when widgets were new and mega hot? When Widgetsmith earned $3M per month?? Well, that was back in 2020. Downloads and revenue of widgets declined over time and mostly went unnoticed.
This week I noticed an "oldie" rising to the top of the US App Store.
And it wasn't Widgetsmith.
Widgetable is now the #5 most downloaded app in the US App Store, having risen consistently over the last month, which started in position #82.
According to our App Intelligence, downloads grew from a daily average of 35K in June to a peak of 152K two weeks ago. Downloads dropped a bit and then rose, again, to 149K this Tuesday.
Since the growth sprout started, which seems to be around July 5th, Widgetable saw 356K downloads. That's a little more than half of all downloads Widgetable got in all of 2023 before the sprout started.
The interesting thing here is that this growth isn't a result of a new Apple Search Ads campaign and isn't limited to the App Store, which is what we normally see. Although the App Store is responsible for 77% of the downloads, the trends across both the App Store and Google Play look fairly similar in terms of growth.
But here's the big question - what about revenue?
It tripled!
In June, Widgetable was earning about $7k/day, according to our estimates. And that's net, which means the amount after Apple and Google deduct their fees. As downloads rose, so did revenue. The trend was a lot more tame, but the results are substantial. This week, Widgetable's daily net revenue peaked at $22K.
Here the distribution between the App Store and Google Play is very different. Most of this net revenue - $21K of it, came from the App Store. Google Play was responsible for just a few hundred dollars.
App developers that aren't focused on growing - what are you waiting for???
ChatGPT has crossed an estimated $5B in mobile consumer spending faster than the other non-game apps that have reached the milestone since 2017.
Instagram's new Instants app shows Meta can still turn a social feature into a multi-million-download app launch, but Snapchat's camera habit is harder to copy.