Today's app development landscape is competitive and expensive. Thousands of apps are released each month, and user acquisition and retention are costing app developers millions. User abandonment is one of the main battles of every app developer — as every lost user means another wasted investment.
What do these investments look like today? The cost for each install facing app developers averages $2.00. The cost per loyal user, on the other hand, defined as users who have opened an app more than three times since downloading, ranges from $2.50 to more than $4.00 at times.
According to a recent QualiTest survey, 88 percent of app users abandon apps due to finding bugs and glitches. If we consider the cost per install, an app with 500,000 users means an investment of $1 million — and it also means a potential loss of $880,000 plus future revenue from those users, all because of bugs not found during the development phase.
The recent survey also revealed that users notice bugs in their apps constantly, and are willing to stop using an app the moment they experience a bug, as well as altogether when their user experience is affected negatively.
■ Nearly 8 in every 10 users notice glitches and bugs in the apps that they use.
■ Over 50 percent of users indicated that they would abandon an app completely if they experienced one or more bugs per day.
■ Nearly 40 percent of users indicated that they were likely to close out of an app if they experience a bug.
Here are some more insights found in QualiTest's App Abandonment Survey that will help app developers maximize daily active users, prevent avoidable lost ones, and minimize the part of their investment gone to waste:
■ Only 12 percent of respondents indicated that they would not abandon an app altogether based on bugs or glitches.
■ 51 percent of users indicated that they would abandon an app completely if they experienced one or more bugs per day, and the group most willing to abandon an app completely, men between the ages of 25 and 44, indicated that 63% of them would completely abandon an app if they experienced a few glitches each month.
■ Nearly 40 percent of users indicated that they were likely or extremely likely to close out of an app the moment they experience a bug. Developers of apps with older user bases should also note that respondents between the ages of 35 and 54 were more likely to close out of an app after experiencing a bug than younger respondents, those between 18 and 34.
■ Nearly 8 in every 10 users notice glitches and bugs in the apps that they use, and 3 in 10 indicated that they notice glitches and bugs one or more times each week.
The survey, conducted in April 2017, was jointly carried out with Google Consumer Surveys based on a representative sample of more than 1,000 respondents from the United States between the ages of 18 and 54.
