For those who develop mobile applications is no longer enough to know how many users downloading it from the marketplace. To evaluate the success of an app and return on investment, it is now essential to check how many users, after downloading, actually use it and how.

Is not enough to look at the number of downloads. In the first instance you have to know how many times the installation is successful and also how many times the app was actually started for the first time.

ShinyStat App Analytics - Installation vs Download

The first metric to be considered, therefore, is that relating to “Installations”, which ShinyStat ™ App Analytics defines as the number of times that an app has been downloaded, completely installed and started up for the first time.

Often the first boot, in fact, doesn’t happen immediately, but a few days after the download  from the marketplace.
Note that an updated version can’t be considered as a new installation.

If your customer download a new version, the app analytics system doesn’t consider that update as a new installation.
Otherwise, if the user deletes the app and then reinstall, the system considers that download as a new installation.

And now try to compare the two data:  how many app are  installed? and how many of those downloaded?