Liftoff: Women make in-app purchases at a 79% higher rate than men
iOS user acquisition more expensive, but also more lucrative than Android
In terms of actually making purchases in mobile games, women are proving to be a lucrative audience. According to a Liftoff report, women's install-to-app-purchase rate over the last year 79% higher than men's.
The report examined 15 million app installs across 350 mobile games from June 2017 through May 2018. From that data, Liftoff also found that user acquisition for women costs 20.2% less than it does for men.
Across both men and women, it costs an average of $3.75 to acquire a user install, $6.88 to get that user from installation to registration, and $28.05 to get the installed user to make an in-app purchase. Those costs have been on the decline, with install-to-register cost down from $8.94 last year and install-to-purchase cost per user down from a whopping $50.69.
Liftoff also found that it costs an average of $5.31 to acquire a user install on iOS--60.4% more expensive than Android acquisition at $3.31 per user. However, the install-to- in app purchase rate reverses the situation. Android users cost $30.79 at that level, while iOS users cost only $25.30.
Then, iOS users prove far more profitable. The conversion rate from installation to in-app purchasing on iOS is 21%, which is almost double Android's rate of 10.8%.
Android users are far more likely to "register" when prompted, which allows for easier user data gathering. Installation-to-registration rate on Android is 52%, while iOS sees a rate of 43.6%.
By region, the report states that North America's cost-per-install continues to increase and has reached a rate of $4.66, while Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and the Asia-Pacific region (APAC) sit considerably lower at $2.63 and $2.62, respectively. However, Liftoff says EMEA is narrowing the gap as Russia's mobile gaming market expands, lead by Android users.
Finally, Liftoff looked at session times across the year, noting that the post-holiday season in January and February was an ideal time for mobile user acquisition. Low cost to acquire paying users ($18.13 per user) works in tandem with high engagement rates (22.4%) as players pick up their phones after a holiday to make it an efficient time to market new games.