According to the recently publushed Pushwoosh study, Up Your Game: Growth Guide for Gaming Apps, 57 per cent of Android users uninstall the game on the same day they download it, and 75.4 per cent do so after 30 days.

The report also suggests that smaller apps struggle to retain users on Android devices, while larger apps struggle on Apple devices.

The analysis states that iOS games maintain a consistent churn rate until they exceed one million installs, at which the churn rate tends to increase.

In contrast, Android game apps experience low short-term retention on both small apps and grown apps.

Android users exceed iOS for push notifications

The analysis does suggest, however, that despite the high churn rate and low engagement, few users are uninstalling their games, with iOS and Android losing only 0.23 per cent and 2.4 per cent of their respective markets monthly. Should an app include opt-in permission for player engagement, this can make a promising target audience.

The push notification opt-in rate of Android (83.2 per cent) and iOS game apps (29.98 per cent) are the lowest of any industries that Pushwoosh has analysed.

Pushwoosh's analysis purports to does show, however, that the share of push notification subscribers decreases as the app’s user base grows, with those who opt-out of push notifications also scale back their in-game activity. The lack of engaging push notifications has also been identified as an issue, with the report suggesting only 1.54 per cent of iOS users and 3.42 per cent of Android users have opened at least one push.