iOS 18 is about to roll out to the public, and with it, an update to Apple Maps that brings topographic maps and trail networks. A welcome addition that rival Google Maps doesn't have. Also, a feature that AllTrails, which is currently the 59th highest-earning app in the US App Store, has perfected.
Can AllTrails weather this storm?
To answer that question I went back a few years and looked at our App Intelligence, which shows very strong seasonality for the app's revenue that's focused on the month of July. Revenue builds up to July and then slowly slopes down after. If you were curious when everyone goes hiking, now you know.
According to our estimates, AllTrails saw $2.3M of net revenue in July of 2020 from the App Store and Google Play. Net means what's left after Apple's and Google's fees.
Interestingly enough, at that time, Google Play was earning AllTrails more than the App Store. We don't see that often. But by 2021, that trend reversed.
Growth slowed down, and revenue dropped a bit, in 2021. That makes sense, unfortunately, but it rose every year since. 2024 marks AllTrails' best season to date, with an estimated haul of $9.1M of net revenue. This time, the App Store contributed the majority of the revenue - $7.3M.
But waaaait, what about downloads? When we talk about sherlocking it isn't revenue that's the problem but rather discovery.
So I looked at the trend of downloads, and to my surprise, it didn't exactly look like revenue.
AllTrail's downloads generally follow the same seasonality we see with revenue but not with the same precision. While 2024 followed the general trend, downloads early in the year were higher and July's peak wasn't as high as last year.
Revenue growing out of sync with downloads could be a good thing for a subscription app because it means it's able to turn existing free users into paying users (or get them to pay more).
Apple's addition of trail maps to its built-in app will likely hurt discovery and in turn decrease downloads or increase AllTrail's user acquisition cost. But seeing how it's able to turn free users into paying users, I think it will be able to weather this storm and there's even the potential for AllTrails to thrive as the "advanced" trails app that Apple didn't build.
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