The Apple App Store is celebrating its fourth birthday this week, and the company has quite a bit to celebrate.

Since its 2008 inception, the Apple App Store has grown from 500 third-party apps for iPhone and iPod Touch to more than 630,000 available apps and more than 30 billion app downloads. The App Store has experienced great success from the very start. In fact, in the first three days after the store went live, Apple recorded initial downloads upwards of 10 million—Steve Jobs deemed the opening a “grand slam.”

In March of this year, the App Store hit another major milestone: 25 billion app downloads. As a result, Chunli Fu Qingdao of China was awarded a $10,000 iTunes gift card for his free download of the app, “Where’s My Water.”  A month later, the App Store extended its reach to include the iPad. Today, more than 250,000 apps are available for the tablet device.  

App Store numbers continue to amaze us, and we look forward to whatever Apple has in store (literally) for the next four years! 

Our latest Fiksu Indexes are out – revealing a sharp drop in iPhone app downloads during the month of March. This dramatic decline returned app store competition to levels similar to those before the iPhone 4S launch last October.

Here’s a snapshot of the latest data:

• The Fiksu App Store Competitive Index (which measures the average aggregate daily download volume of the top 200 free U.S. iPhone apps) dropped by almost two million daily downloads to 4.45 million daily downloads, down from 6.35 million in February. 
• The Fiksu Cost per Loyal User Index was the steadiest observed, dropping by less than 1 percent in March to $1.30, from $1.31 in February. 

The trajectory the Fiksu Indexes has followed from October 2011 through to March 2012 reflects the hyper-demand for apps following the much- anticipated launch of the new iPhone and into the advertising frenzy of holiday season. As we moved out of this period of increased download activity and marketing spend, and with no other significant events in March to spark discovery, last month’s download dip was to be expected.

However, an unexpected contributing factor to March's app download plunge could be a move away from the use of robotic install tactics by app marketers responding to Apple’s new policy.

Kim-Mai Cutler of TechCrunch writes, “[Apple’s] crackdown has had huge implications for the types of apps that make it to the top of the charts. If you watched the charts like I did for well over a year, it was pretty common to see really strange, esoteric (and frankly, not very well-made) apps pop on the charts every single week. At the same time, very social, more utility-like apps like Instagram or Facebook would hover in the teens or twenties — or between #50 and 100.”

Cutler continues, saying, “The decline of download bots has made room for apps like Viddy, Socialcam, Instagram and Draw Something to move higher on the charts. Plus, because of the way the Apple app store is designed, once an app breaks above #25 or #10, it gets a huge increase in downloads per day.”

Despite the significant decline in downloads, our Indexes reflected a steady spending pattern among mobile marketers with costs maintaining a reasonable level. This presented marketers with valuable opportunities for cost-effectively converting organic users into loyal users.

Thanks to all who covered this month’s Index data, including Kathleen De Vere of Inside Mobile Apps,  Kevin Fitchard of GigaOm, Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat and Steve Smith of MediaPost.

How often do you think about your App Title, Landing Page and Meta Tags?  Maybe you review it every time there’s an app update, maybe less often. At the end of the day, it’s fairly difficult to tie landing page characteristics to search rank and downloads, so why bother?! Ahem, sorry, wrong answer! Especially when you’re talking about Android...

In a recent study of search rank on Android, Fiksu has revealed that search is the primary means of organic discovery on Android (more than browsing the charts) and that search rank & discovery can be heavily improved through a better understanding of the factors involved.

Search Matters

On the Android platform, about 75 percent of “organic” downloads come from search. And of these, about 50 percent come from searching for a brand title. What’s more, users who find your app are 50 percent more likely to become loyal app users in the long term. So stop focusing on your chart rank for browsers, and start focusing on your search rank for keywords.

App Title

The 32 characters of your App Title are the most important real estate you have on Android, so use it wisely. Inclusion of a keyword in your title can make 80-100 places difference to your search rank for that keyword. But don’t try putting the keyword more than once—unfortunately this makes no difference!

App Description & Promo Text

Within the app description, keywords should be included at least 5 times to make 10-20 places difference to your search rank. Similar keyword are grouped together (e.g. consulting & consultant are treated the same, but consult is considered less similar). Many other factors make no difference to your search rank at all (e.g. keyword stuffing > 5 times), total word count of description and placement of keyword in promo text vs description.

Summing it all up, here’s 10 Steps to Follow to improve your organic discovery from search on Android.

1.    Define keywords that are relevant to your app (Use Google AdWords Traffic Estimator to help you prioritize)

2.    Include top keywords in the App Title (and consider removing your App Name from the title, in order to make room for these).

3.    Include App Name + all other keywords at least 5 times in description

4.    Make developer and bundle name relevant to the app (these also contribute to search)

5.    Make app logo descriptive of App Name

6.    Parasitic: Consider using competitor keywords & app name

7.    Geo-specific: Consider putting city and country names if geographies are relevant to your app

8.    Measure search rank for all your keywords

9.    Measure traffic from search on keywords over the period of a week

10.  Change keyword mix in title and repeat steps 1 - 9!

Following January's sky-high download volumes available at rock-bottom prices, February presented a steadier and more normalized landscape for mobile app marketers.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the February Index data:

• App Store Competitive Index tracks the aggregate volume of downloads per day achieved by the top 200 ranked free iPhone apps in the U.S. In February, the Index decreased by six percent to 6.35 million daily downloads, down from January's record high of 6.79 million.
• Cost per Loyal User Index measures the cost of acquiring a loyal user for brands who proactively market their apps. For the purposes of the Index, loyal users are defined as people who open an app three times or more. In February, the cost per loyal user rose by 15 percent to $1.31, up from  January’s $1.14.

February revealed a decline in download activity; a contrast to January’s post-holiday download frenzy. Interestingly, even though Fiksu was not working with robotic install traffic sources, our Indexes may reflect early signs of the impact of Apple's emphatic stance against robotic install tactics, following the company's February 6 announcement to crack down on this particular marketing technique.

But while consumers took it easy, downloading fewer apps in February, mobile advertisers returned to action.

Having halting their marketing spend at the beginning of the year to focus on app upgrades and internal level-setting, many mobile marketers geared up for new campaigns in February, driving total marketing costs back up slightly. Yet, the Indexes show that February still presented a great opportunity for mobile app marketers, as volume was plentiful and costs remained at a reasonable level.

Thanks to Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat, Brian LaRue of Adotas, Kathleen DeVere of Inside Mobile Apps, and Keith Andrew of PocketGamer.biz for their reports on our latest Index data.