据美国手机应用分析公司Localytics最近公布的调查结果显示，容易对应用程序喜新厌旧，以及容易对其日久生情的手机用户比例是对等的，有26%的手机应用沦为一次性试用品，同时也有26%的用户最后会成为忠实追随者。

customer retention

游戏邦获悉，2010年第四季度，iPhone/iPad应用程序数量达到40万种，Android手机应用也达到20万种，智能手机用户总数也增长到了6150万人。由此可见，手机应用市场正以惊人的速度发展壮大。

Localytics的这项调查分析了成百上千款Android、iPhone、iPad、黑莓和Windows Phone 7应用程序，该调查报告的第一部分曾指出，有26%的用户下载手机应用后，仅使用一次就将其抛弃。而第二部分的调查结果则显示，有26%的用户尝试过新手机应用后，会转变为重复使用该产品的忠实用户。

不少开发商总是很重视应用程序的下载量，但下载量其实是一种容易让人误判市场形势的参数。如果用户尝试一次过后就将应用抛到一边，那么该产品的高下载量则必然充满水份。所以游戏邦认为，在这个应用数量急剧膨胀的年代，用户黏性的重要性绝不亚于下载量。

如果要保证用户留存率，让用户不断访问应用程序，那么开发商就得将培养用户忠实度视为第一要务。游戏邦获悉，有不少开发商已尝试通过应用内置付费功能、新内容订阅服务、信息推送功能以及推出更新版本，来提高用户访问率。在众多开发商正以内置付费功能、移动广告赞助模式创收的情况下，这些途径都是非常重要的选择。

乐观者看到这个杯子中还有26%的水，悲观者则仅看到26%的水。无论如何，这个消息至少说明，应用开发商获得潜在用户，以及被准用户抛弃的机会是均等的，唯一的出路就是想法增加用户黏性。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Mobile App Users Are Both Fickle And Loyal: Study

A study released by Massachusetts-based application analytics firm Localytics today confirms my suspicion that we both love — and are quickly bored by — our mobile applications. And, perhaps, that studies will confirm just about anything.

In part 1 of its study, Localytics analyzed thousands of Android, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 apps. Using its realtime app analytics service, they found that, while most smartphone users are willing to try new apps (as evidenced by the 10 billion downloads from the iTunes store), 26 percent of the time they download an app, use it once, never to use it again.

With 400,000 iPhone/iPad apps and 200,000 Android apps and the total number of smartphone users growing to 61.5 million in the fourth quarter, the appification of our mobile experience continues at a breakneck pace. And, as a result, it seems that many are hitting what fellow TechCruncher MG Siegler described as the “app wall”.

On the flip side of the coin, in part 2 of the study that was released today, Localytics found that 26 percent of app users become loyal, repeat customers, using a new application more than 10 times. Yup, the exact same percentage as the number of quitters. And many of those loyal users then go on to use the application hundreds of times.

While high download numbers always feel great to app developers, they can be misleading. If customers abandon an app after a single use, those high download numbers are really part of a high churn rate. Measuring user engagement, then, seems equally — if not more — important, especially as the number of mobile apps continues to grow exponentially.

What’s more, loyalty is precious, so encouraging user retention and getting users to return more than once has become (or should become) the top priority for developers. Many try to encourage repeat visits by using in-app purchases, subscriptions that deliver new content, notifications and updates. These methods are especially important considering how many developers make their money from in-app purchases and mobile advertising.

So, is the glass 26 percent empty, or 26 percent full? The good news is that it seems that there are as many potential loyal customers for app developers as there are those that are fickle. And here’s to developers finding them, wherever they may be.（source:techcrunch）