The future of mobile market intelligence

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I had an interesting chat with Max Samorukov, the CEO of mobile apps market intelligence platform AppMagic, this week regarding the company’s $3 million Series A funding round. Eight years after it was founded, it finds itself in an interesting position on two fronts.

Earlier this year, Sensor Tower acquired its chief rival, data.ai, for an undisclosed fee, bringing together the two largest players in the space. For some context - Sensor Tower also previously raised $45 million to fuel its growth, while data.ai raised as much as $157m, according to Tracxn. That’s not to mention the acquisitions that they’ve made over the years, including the likes of Pathmatics and Libring.

Price wars

Discussing potential competition concerns, Sensor Tower COO Tom Cui previously told PocketGamer.biz that while the combined business is of course much larger (minus the staff it laid off post-acquisition), he felt there were still plenty of other mobile app intelligence providers.

One of those is AppMagic. I asked Samorukov how it can realistically compete with Sensor Tower ($200m vs approximately $3m raised), and while he said the company now has a plan to do just that with a host of new features in the pipeline - including ad revenue estimates - he seemed to suggest the firm would be targeting the position as the market’s second largest provider. 

Interestingly, he said Sensor Tower’s acquisition of its fierce rival could perhaps be good for them. “Their price war has ended … they went down a lot during the last five years because of that,” he claimed. He believes that leaves an opportunity for customers looking for alternatives.

Data visibility

The other challenge faced by AppMagic, Sensor Tower and others is how they can maintain accuracy. Platforms such as AppMagic provide estimates for apps and games on the App Store and Google Play, with no visibility on third-party Android stores, such as the highly lucrative marketplaces in China.

Meanwhile, a move to web shops, third-party payments opening up, more third-party marketplaces launching in the West, and a shift to cross-platform all create holes in data gathering. For example, if a publisher shifts 20% of its revenue to a direct-to-consumer platform, could that come across as a decline in player spending, according to App Store and Google Play estimates?

It’s a challenging future for these companies as they lose that visibility on player spending. Ad revenue has already proven a challenge for years, and now industry shifts are coming for IAP estimates too.

It’ll be interesting to see how market intelligence providers will face these challenges. Cui previously said Sensor Tower is looking into how it could provide data for other platforms, and Samorukov said that’s on AppMagic’s agenda too.

So there’s no doubt they are all taking these challenges seriously. Time will tell how they overcome them.

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