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Pixalate’s Q4 2023 Delisted Mobile Apps Report - Apple App Store: 77K Apps Delisted

Feb 29, 2024 8:00:00 AM

Pixalate research finds 1.4 million mobile apps removed from the Apple App Store in the last 24 months

LONDON, 29 February 2024 -- Pixalate, the market-leading fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform for Connected TV (CTV) and Mobile Advertising, today released the Q4 2023 Delisted Mobile Apps Report - Apple App Store, analyzing Q4 2023 delisted apps. Delisted apps do not reflect the initiator of the delisting action, i.e., Apple or the app developer.

Pixalate’s report analyzes apps delisted from the Apple App Store during the fourth quarter of 2023. The research focuses on profile information and various insights observed in the programmatic advertising bid stream, such as the developer’s country of registry, the level of app abandonment, and delisted apps with advertising (an app-ads.txt file).

Key Findings:

  • 77k apps were delisted in Q4 2023
    • From 2021-2023, approximately 1.4M mobile apps were delisted 
    • The current number of downloadable apps is 1.8M
  • 50% of apps delisted in Q4 2023 were abandoned (not updated in more than two years) before their removal
  • 8% (6k) of apps delisted in Q4 2023 had programmatic advertising (an app-ads.txt file detected)
    • 72k accumulated delisted apps with ads since 2021
  • 99% of delisted apps have less than 1,000 user ratings 
  • About 3% of apps registered in APAC, EMEA and North America were delisted

 

Top 10 Apps Delisted From Apple App Store in Q4 2023:

Here are the top 10 delisted mobile apps in the Apple App Store by number of user ratings:  

  1. Beat Blade: Music Games — 255.4K user ratings
  2. 方块迷宫  — 107.7K user ratings
  3. Modern Combat Versus — 86.0K user ratings
  4. 天天躲猫猫2 — 76.0K user ratings
  5. 脑洞小姐姐 (Girl Genius) — 70.7K user ratings
  6. ドラゴンクエスト ダイの大冒険 -魂の絆 – 59.4K user ratings
  7. MADFUT 23 — 58.0K user ratings
  8. 侦探小画家-官方正版 — 57.9K user ratings
  9. ソードアート・オンライン ヴァリアント・ショウダウン — 56.8K user ratings
  10. NBA 2K21 Arcade Edition — 54.9K user ratings

Apps that violate app store policies, including those that do not have a detectable privacy policy, may be delisted from the app stores. However, they can remain on a user’s mobile device, posing potential privacy and security risks. Advertisers who serve ads on such apps may expose themselves to compliance risks even after delisting them. 

The delisting of apps is a common practice among app stores to remove low-quality, non-compliant or malicious apps. Apple regularly removes such apps from its app stores.

Download the full report

Download and explore a complimentary copy of the Q4 2023 Delisted Mobile Apps Report - Apple App Store, 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).

Download Now

You can also check out the Google Play Store version here.

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. 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.

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