January is the Black Friday for Apps

Shoppers are on the hunt for gifts in countless moments throughout the holiday season. In between going to festive parties, sipping eggnog, and making the required visits to see extended family, millions of shoppers will be buying new mobile devices. In fact, Gartner reports that 30% of all smartphone sales worldwide happen in the last three months of the year.

As people unwrap those shiny new phones and tablets, you can bet that many of them will be downloading apps -- and not just one or two. Our research shows that the average smartphone user has 36 apps installed on their device. Games, messaging, news and shopping apps all rank highly as the first kinds of apps people download within a week of purchasing their phones. 

We looked at AdMob data from last year and found that ad impressions spiked across apps by nearly 30% between the months of October and January, with the largest spike occurring in January. This is perhaps due to people trying out their phones and downloading new apps with the added free time during the holidays. Developers should take advantage of the January Black Friday by promoting their apps, but also understand the monetization opportunities that lie beyond installation. 

Check out our new infographic, put together in collaboration with App Annie, which features strategies to help get your app ready for the holiday (and post-holiday) app explosion. Let us help you ‘deck the installs!’

For additional holiday app monetization tips, download our free Holiday App Performance Guide. It features data and tips tailored to several countries that do very well during the season–Brazil, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Also, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Twitter page.

^{1Gartner, Smartphone Sales Worldwide, Q1 2012 - Q2 2015}

^{2Google & Parks Associates, Global Apps Consumer Study, Q1 2014}