Are App Bundles Living Up To The Hype?
App Bundles have been one of the most anticipated and important new features for the App Store with the release of iOS 8. Considered to be a vital new way to drive revenue, many have been speculating about the tangible effects they would bring for individual developers since they were announced, including us in our Road to iOS 8 post by Joe Cieplinski.
As of 10/21, there are 4,448 app bundles on the App Store.
Armed with a month’s worth of data, we’re starting to get a better picture of how app developers are utilizing app bundles. As of today, a total of 4,448 app bundles were created and made available for sale on the App Store which means about 130 new app bundles are released every day. It looks like developers are quick to use this new feature and seem to be experimenting. Roughly 20% of the bundles that were launched since September 17th have been removed from the App Store, which isn’t very surprising considering this is completely new. Given how new app bundles are, we’re expecting to see developers experimenting even more in the coming months as they try to figure out the best way to utilize them.
In this post we’ll be taking a look at app bundles that have seen success in the App Store. By success we mean app bundles that were either featured or ranked in the top charts in the last month.
Top Bundles
There are 1,461 app bundles that were featured or found themselves in the top ranks of a category. After an initial surge on launch day (Sept 17th), the growth of bundles that were featured or appearing in the top ranks has been pretty consistent at roughly 64 new bundles per day.
So far, 860 developers have seen at least one of their bundles climb the app store rankings.
Developers have seen varying degrees of success when rolling their apps into bundles. So far, 860 developers have seen at least one of their bundles climb the app store rankings. Of these 860 developers, 581 have seen only one bundle take-off, 141 have seen two of their bundles take-off, and 138 have seen three or more of their bundles find success in the app store rankings, meaning that success was definitely not evenly distributed.
Developers with the most ranked or featured app bundles include Barcelona Multimedia (9), Duck Duck Moose Inc. (9), Matchkin (8), Pea Pod Labs LLC (8), Pocket Prep LLC (8), and Smarty Ears (8).
What’s inside the bundle?
The bigger question for developers is to determine how many apps to include in a bundle? Even though Apple allows up to ten apps in a single bundle, most developers have chosen to keep the size of their bundles on the smaller side.
80% of bundles contain five or fewer apps
Just under 50% of the top bundles are composed of two or three apps, and 80% of bundles contain five or fewer apps. For consumers, however, the number of apps they purchase in a bundle is less important than the amount of money they ultimately save. Looking at savings in the aggregate, consumers can expect an average discount of $5.64 with a range of savings between a minimum of $0.95 and a maximum of $98.95.
Consumers can expect to save $5.64 on average
The vast majority of bundles yield a savings below $10.00. In fact, if lined up in ascending order, the middle 50% of savings fall between $1.97 and $5.98. When grouping savings by the size of the bundle, the general trend is that larger bundles lead to increased savings.
We’ll be keeping an eye on trends for bundled products and will continue providing you monetization strategies in the future so that you’re able to make even better decisions as more bundles hit the App Store.
Takeaways:
- There are currently 4,448 app bundles on the App Store
- 860 developers have seen at least one of their bundles climb the app store rankings
- 80% of bundles contain five or fewer apps
- Top bundles contain apps predominately from the Games, Education, and Health & Fitness categories
- The top bundles have a median of 4 apps
- The average savings per bundle is $5.64
- The largest savings for a featured or top ranked bundle is $98.95
Did you know you can track bundle sales, reviews, ranks, and even see when you’re featured with appFigures?
Since the release of iOS 8 and App Bundles we’ve seen about a 30% increase in sales. Even though it’s cheaper overall to buy a bundle rather than buy every app separate, developers really have to show their customers the value in purchasing it all upfront. Great article! http://www.pocket-prep.com
We’ve seen a 3% growth in sales since adding a 2 app bundle, when compared to the same period. The downside is because we’re seeing less sales in each app, they’re not ranking as highly in the store, the upside is our App Bundle is featured by Apple in the Food and Drink category. When our bundle is no longer featured, I’ll test removing it and then adding it again. So far inconclusive results!
Thanks for sharing! You raise valid questions about the future of bundles. Only time will tell whether bundles are “for everyone” or just for developers with really large titles.
We’ll be keeping an eye on this and are planning to follow up in the future.