Basics
Content Category: App Usage
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Aurora Mobile’s iApp product offers usage and other detailed information on the top 1,000 mobile apps in China, allowing users to determine which apps will be short- and long-term winners and losers. The iApp product includes the install base, active user base, time spent, times opened, retention rates, and new user counts. This data is sourced from Aurora’s leading position in developer services, where it provides software development kits (SDKs) to over 1.5 million apps, allowing access to over 1.3 billion unique devices per month.
Three packages are available through Open:FactSet that include the top 1,000, 300, or 100 apps in China according to penetration rate. This ranking list is based on an install base within the overall China mobile applications universe, as of three days prior to the current date. Of the top 1,000 apps, 96% are tied to their parent company and 16% of those companies are public and linked to their respective tickers.
Data Overview
Asset Class: Mobile Apps, Public and Private Companies
Data Frequency: Daily
Delivery Frequency: Daily
History: Data available back to 2016
Data Methodology
The iApp data is sourced from Aurora’s self-owned SDKs and used by over 1.5 million mobile applications. Aurora’s most common SDK is for push notifications, where developers use its platforms to send messages to their users. Aurora also offers other SDKs, such as SMS, verifications, instant messaging, and others.
When an application using one of Aurora’s SDKs is active, Aurora can access and collect certain non-personal metadata on that device. While Aurora cannot see who the users are, or what they are doing within each application, they have enough information on a sample size comprising the vast majority of all mobile users in China to capture trends in installations and usage on each individual app in the universe of covered devices.
Through this process, Aurora collects and delivers over 15 key app usage metrics (e.g., penetration rate, daily active users, number of installs) for the top 1,000 apps, which are linked to the private and public companies that own them.
Use Cases
Company Analysis
- Drill into the facts of app penetration and usage that offer leading indicators for company performance. This data can be used to understand the success of apps that may be included in an investment portfolio, as well as the relative success of competing apps.
- For example, the iApp data tells the story of the fall and rebound of Weibo stock, owner of the largest social platform in China prior to the growth of Tik Tok. The iApp data shows the deterioration of the Weibo user base as Tik Tok became more popular, which coincided with a 60% stock price fall between Q1 2018 and August 2019. More recently, Weibo’s stock rebounded when users returned to the level before Tik Tok (Douyin)’s spike.
- The linkages between apps and the companies that own them offer transparency into the app portfolios of public and private companies.
- This information can be aggregated to uncover industry trends and anticipate bubbles or hidden risks.
Consumer Trends
- Capture consumer behavior that impacts certain industries and the broader market.
- For instance, as China reopens following the coronavirus pandemic, iApp users can start to understand whether people are starting to go out to restaurants, movie theaters, or other entertainment by looking at the usage of Dianping. Alternatively, apps like Eleme, which offers food delivery services, can capture a potential lag between China reopening and consumers leaving their homes by deciding to order in instead.
The details provided above are as of July 2020.
If you have any questions or would like to learn more about any of the content mentioned above, please contact us at sales@factset.com.
Please visit the product page on the Open:FactSet Marketplace for more information: Aurora Mobile iApp.
