LONDON, January 17 2024 -- Pixalate, a leading global platform for ad fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics, today released the December 2024 Delisted Mobile Apps Report for the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, analyzing apps that were found to be delisted from these stores in December 2024.

The report identifies applications that are no longer available for download from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, according to Pixalate’s data. Delisted apps do not reflect the initiator of the delisting action, i.e., Apple or Google, or the app developer. While some apps are delisted for benign reasons, others are removed as a result of more nefarious behaviors, including ad fraud, and non-compliance with privacy regulations or app store policies, which may cause advertisers to be exposed to potential financial or legal risk as well. Because apps can be delisted for a variety of reasons, Pixalate is neither asserting nor assigning a reason for any delisting action. Additionally, the initiator of the delisting is not generally publicly-available information, so it is often not possible to know whether the removal was triggered by the app store or the developer.

Pixalate’s research focuses on app profile information and provides various insights observed in the programmatic advertising bid stream, such as the developer’s country of registry, the level of app abandonment, and the number of delisted apps with advertising (an app-ads.txt file).

Key Findings:

Google Play Store

• Millions of Apps Delisted: 2.1M total delisted in 2024
  • 63,803 apps delisted in December 2024
  • 383,102 apps delisted had open programmatic advertising in 2024 (i.e., an app-ads.txt file)
  • 13,051 apps with app-ads.txt were removed in December 2024
• Ghost Apps: 81% of apps delisted from the Google Play Store in December 2024 had no listed country of registration
  • 3.2k+ delisted apps were registered in North America 
  • 4.6k apps delisted in December 2024 were registered in Asia-Pacific (APAC), the most among global regions
  • United States-registered apps had the highest number of delistings in the Google Play Store (3k+), followed by India (1.3k)

Apple App Store:

• Apple App Store Exodus: 336.5k apps delisted in December 2024, representing 68% of all apps delisted in 2024
  • Q4 2024 saw the most apps delisted from the Apple App Store (337k) since Q2 2022 (439k)
  • 40k apps delisted had open programmatic advertising in 2024 (app-ads.txt)
  • 27k apps with apps-ads.txt were removed in December 2024
• Ghost Apps: 89% of apps delisted from the Apple App Store in December 2024 had no listed country of registration
  • 12.6k apps delisted in December 2024 were registered in North America (NA), the most among global regions
  • United States-registered apps had the highest number of delistings in the Apple App Store Store (11.4k+), followed by China with (4.4k)

Top 10 Apps Delisted From Apple App Store in December 2024, as measured by Pixalate

Top 10 Apps Delisted From Google Play Store in December 2024, as measured by Pixalate

Download the full report

Download and explore a complimentary copy of the December 2024 Delisted Mobile Apps Reports, which includes a list of the top 100 delisted apps by store with programmatic advertising (based on the presence of an app-ads.txt file).

About Pixalate

Pixalate is a global platform specializing in privacy compliance, ad fraud prevention, and digital ad supply chain data intelligence. Founded in 2012, Pixalate is trusted by regulators, data researchers, advertisers, publishers, ad tech platforms, and financial analysts across the Connected TV (CTV), mobile app, and website ecosystems. Pixalate is accredited by the MRC for the detection and filtration of Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT). pixalate.com

Disclaimer

The content of this press release, and the Delisted Mobile Apps Report (the Report), reflect Pixalate's opinions with respect to factors that Pixalate believes may  be useful to the digital media industry. Any data shared is grounded in Pixalate’s proprietary technology and analytics, which Pixalate is continuously evaluating and updating. Any references to outside sources should not be construed as endorsements.  Pixalate's opinions are just that, opinions, which means that they are neither facts nor guarantees. Pixalate is sharing this data not to impugn the standing or reputation of any entity, person or app, but, instead, to report findings and trends pertaining to programmatic advertising activity across mobile apps in the time period studied.