• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, June 26, 2018

It makes sense to assume that folks prefer apps they find on their own, compared to those marketers pay to put under their noses. 

Yet, at least in the gaming sector, retention rates are nearly identical across paid and organic installs. 

That’s according to a new report from mobile attribution provider Adjust, which notes that the finding is unusual, given the expectation that organic performs better than paid.

However, while the average mobile gamer indulges in two-to-three sessions per day, there appears to be a difference between paid and organic installers over time.

Specifically, “paid” users show a gradual rise in sessions over time, while organic users tend to remain fairly stable.

U.S. mobile developers should be happy to know that they enjoy the second-highest app retention rates of any country. Japan currently has the highest rates.

In fact, relative to consumers in other regions, Japanese users play games more than anywhere else, per day, and stick around the longest. Also of note, Adjust finds that Android users perform far more in-app “events” than iOS users.

Among regions, users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa perform the most events, with U.S. consumers once again coming in second place.

Of course, mobile gaming is a massive business.

In 2017, games represented nearly 80% of total worldwide consumer spending for the combined iOS and Google Play app stores. That’s despite the fact that games only accounted for 35% of total worldwide downloads, last year.

As such, Adjust suggests that mobile marketers should focus on app monetization, in addition to user acquisition.