Apple's Sherlocking Again - Can These Apps Survive?

Apple released a dedicated app for sports scores in February and I've been watching it closely because it sherlocks a small but busy area of the App Store.

When Apple Sports came out I was sure it would crush the competition. After all, it's Apple, it's free, and it's native, right?

Now that we have a few weeks of download estimates, we can answer this question.

And the easy answer is... it didn't, and I know why.

Let's start with the numbers.

Apple Sports rolled out on February 22nd, which also happened to be its highest day of downloads peaking at 118K, according to our estimates. Compared to the daily average for similar apps, that's more than 1,311% higher.

But that didn't last long. Downloads dropped to 92K on Friday, 57K on Saturday, and by the following Monday, were at just 11K, about 1/10th of where they started.

Since launch, Apple Sports saw a total of 413K downloads, according to our App Intelligence. Most of those downloads came in during the first four days of its release.

Since the initial release, Apple Sports' downloads have dropped below the top competitors, which range between 4K and 10K, according to our estimates.

So, what's going on? Why is the biggest brand on the App Store losing?

Discovery!

Most downloads start with an ad or a search. When it comes to search, Apple Sports is barely visible.

Fotmob, a soccer scores app and one of the top competitors in this group, ranks organically in over 2,300 keywords and is the #1 result for nearly all combinations of soccer (and football) and scores.

Apple Sports doesn't rank in any.

On the surface, Apple Sports' metadata isn't terrible, but it's also not very specific. That's always a challenge when your app does many things, but there are quite a few ways to handle it - none of which Apple seems to be using.

It's also possible Apple is holding back for some reason, but I find that hard to believe.

At this point, App Store Optimization is not just a nice to have but rather a necessity. ASO isn't hard so make sure you spend some time on it.