Sales trends in the Apple App Store

After being live on the App Store for several years now and constantly monitoring my sales, it has become clear that there are certainly sales trends in the App Store. That is to say that there are particular times when you can expect a rise in sales / downloads and times when you can expect a slump. I’d even go so far as to say that there are ‘Seasons’, or collections of months in which you can expect to be generating strong revenue.

Below I will try to describe my own findings and analysis of these trends. These are based on sales and downloads of all of my apps, but most specifically from ‘Phrase Party’ and ‘Inventory Tracker’ on the app store.

The obvious ‘Weekend Trend’
I’ll first state the obvious, most commonly occuring trend which is simply that apps are downloaded far more on weekends. You can usually expect 2-3x your weekday sales on friday and 3-5x weekday sales on saturday and maybe 2-2.5x your weekday sales on sunday.

Holdays
On holdays you can pretty much always expect a spike in sales. These are days that people are out of school and work and doing stuff with friends. Apparently, they are also looking for entertainment and downloading apps.

Summer Time App Season
During the summer is a big time for app downloads. This is the first ‘Season’ during which you should experience above average sales and lasts from about Memorial Day weekend in late May until the first week in Septemeber. All of memorial day weekend and 4th of July weekend are strong sales periods.

September Slump
Starting around September and lasting through mid Novemeber, you can expect to hit a bit of a slump in your sales. Just keep looking forward to the Holiday Season starting…

The Holiday Jump
The Holiday Season is the second and strongest ‘App Season’, during which you should experience high sales volume. This increase in sales should start mid-november and continue through early february. You should experience your peak sales of the year between Christmas eve and the first of January.

Spring Slump
After the holidays, from around March until Memorial day, you should expect a slump in your sales. This can be pretty disappointing because the holiday jump can leave you feeling increasingly positive about your app sales and the future of your company. After a few months of extremely strong sales and ad revenue, you think “If this keeps up, I’ll be a happy man.” and then the slump starts. Don’t worry, it’s a normal trend.

Hope this helps!