ASO StudioWatch the App Store move
A category's size tells you where the money was. Its direction tells you where it is going. Build for the second one.
The short answer
A snapshot of a category shows how big it is today. It cannot show whether it is growing, flat or shrinking, and that is what decides how an app launched into it does. A rising category keeps bringing in people who have no favourite app yet. A falling one means fighting for a crowd that gets smaller every month. Market Trends reads every App Store category once a day, on audience, demand, difficulty, downloads, revenue and new entries, so the direction is a line you can read. We are building it out now.
Research a market todayWhy direction matters
Six signals worth watching.
Each one says something a single snapshot of the store never can.
- 01
Size is the past, direction is the future
A big category got big years ago. What decides how an app launched next month does is whether that category's audience is still growing when it arrives.
Each category's audience over 7, 30 and 90 days.
- 02
A growing crowd has no favourite yet
When a category's installed base grows, new people arrive without an app they are loyal to. That is the cheapest moment there is to win a download.
The categories on the rise and falling back, ranked by real moves.
- 03
New entries prove the door is open
Apps breaking into a category's top 100 grossing show that newcomers can still get in. A chart where the same names hold every place for months is a wall.
Every app that entered, left, climbed or slipped inside a category.
- 04
Easy searches do not stay easy
A term with room in it this quarter can fill with rivals by the next. Watching difficulty move tells you when to claim a search before the field closes.
Demand and difficulty, day by day, for every category.
- 05
Money follows the audience
A growing audience only matters if it turns into paying users. Downloads, revenue and subscription share side by side show whether a category is getting richer or just busier.
Downloads a day, revenue a month and subscription share, on one chart.
- 06
One reading is noise, a line is a signal
A single day can jump for a dozen reasons. Readings kept every day from the first one turn a blip into a trend you can act on.
A full history for every category, one reading a day.
What we are building
Market Trends, in ASO Studio for Mac.
Every App Store category, read once a day and kept. It sits beside Categories, Idea Lab and your keywords, so a trend leads straight to the searches and apps behind it.
- On the rise and falling back: the categories growing and shrinking fastest, over 7, 30 or 90 days.
- Audience, demand, difficulty, downloads, revenue, subscription share and new entries, plotted against each other.
- Inside a category: every app that entered, left, climbed or slipped in its top 100 grossing.
- The apps gaining users fastest, measured in ratings a day.
Market Trends in development, shown with sample data.
Start today
Pick your market with the data you have now.
Categories compares every App Store category on demand, difficulty, downloads and revenue, and Idea Lab weighs any idea against real searches before you build it.
Related questions
What people ask next.
What are App Store market trends?
App Store market trends are how each category changes over time: whether its audience is growing, whether its searches are getting harder to rank for, how its downloads and revenue move, and which apps are breaking into its top charts. A snapshot shows how big a category is today. A trend shows where it is heading, which is what matters for an app you have not shipped yet.
How do I know if an App Store category is growing?
Watch its audience: the combined lifetime ratings of the top apps in that category, read every day. Lifetime ratings pile up as people use those apps, so the speed they climb at tracks how fast the category's installed base grows. Compare that speed across categories over 30 or 90 days and the growing ones separate from the flat ones. ASO Studio's Market Trends is built to chart exactly this for every category.
Is it better to build in a growing category or a big one?
A growing one, if you have to pick. A big, flat category is held by apps with years of ratings, and new users there are rare. A growing category keeps bringing in people who have no favourite app yet, and the leaders have not locked them in. The best case is both: a large category whose audience is still climbing.
When is Market Trends available in ASO Studio?
We are building Market Trends out now in ASO Studio for Mac. Categories, keyword research, Idea Lab and competitor tracking are in the app today, and Categories already compares every App Store category on demand, difficulty, downloads and revenue.