According to a new report from mobile analytics firm AppsFlyer, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) update caused a 35 per cent decline in in-app mobile games purchase revenue.
In its State of Gaming App Marketing report, AppsFlyer analysed the effects of Apple’s new privacy features that require developers to ask users for permission to collect their data.
In comparison, Android figures remained consistent and increased by 10 per cent by the end of 2021. Furthermore, AppsFlyer reported that in-app ad revenue increased 55 per cent on Android devices, driven by hypercasual and hardcore mobile games. This is comapred with a two per cent fall for iOS.
Privacy by-product
Another outcome from Apple’s privacy changes is that iOS user acquisition (UA) spend suffered a fall of 13 per cent, whereas Android UA spend jumped 35 per cent, leading to an 18 per cent rise overall. AppsFlyer noted that 10 per cent of user acquisition budgets shifted from iOS and Android.
Furthermore, the total number of mobile games installed on iOS fell 6 per cent in 2021, compared with the previous year. AppsFlyer stated that this may be due to the limited data available to scale and optimise “marketing-driven” instals, which it stated contributes a “key portion” of mobile games downloads.
In line with the current findings, a new report from NPD Group indicated that the total number of mobile gamers in the US and Canada fell 4 per cent in 2021 to around 228 million.
