You may not know this, but there's a way to see which apps have been approved for release by Apple but have not been released yet. We call those "Coming soon" and show those in a new report we've recently soft launched, and you can see them all with Appfigures Explorer.
I was curious to see what's coming soon so I analyzed every app and game that have a future release date and here's what I found.
There are currently 880 apps and games slated for release in the future. I know what your next thought is: "it's all games", right? no. Not exactly.
52% of the "coming soon" group is made of games, where role playing, adventure, and simulation games are in the lead. Fun find: 8 new casino games are coming soon. I thought casino games was a saturated enough category.
On the apps side, utilities are by far the biggest category, having a 49% share of all apps coming soon. Business, lifestyle, and entertainment follow, but with much smaller numbers. And if you're curious, there are a few new AI apps coming soon, but they're not a big enough group.
The last item I was curious about is monetization, and if you're guessing most are not paid upfront you'd be wrong. None are paid upfront. In fact, most are completely free. We'll be able to tell if they monetize with ads after they become available in the App Store.
Subscriptions currently count for about 10% of the total and in-app purchases for 13%.
Why is this important? Knowing what's coming is incredibly helpful in understanding trends ahead of them actually happening. It's like knowing the future. It's also great for knowing if a competitor is about to release a new app or game to not be caught by surprise.
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