Want to Hit the App Store Top 5? You’ll Need 250,000 Downloads Per Day

Mobile apps are big business, and it goes without saying that if you are a developer with a great idea, there are mega-opportunities to be had. Look no further than Angry Birds developer Rovio. The folks there released what’s in all regards a simple game, but it’s been downloaded and played by hundreds of millions of people. Of course, it also has to be said that success like this isn’t easy. It requires a mixture of 5% quality app and 95% luck (give or take a few percentage points).

A dream of all mobile developers is to see their app hit the top list for their platform of choice, because if that happens, it means the app is doing well and is likely to do even better thanks to the increased recognition. But just how hard is it to get an free app to a top ten list? Well, at least on the Apple side, it requires an app to receive more than 30,000 downloads… per day. And that accounts for just the US – regional stores would have their own requirements. For a paid app to get into the top 25, an average of 50,000 downloads per day would need to be achieved.

Want to move further up the list? Then it will take about 75-150K downloads per day to break the top 10, and about 250K to break into the top five. That’s right… 250,000 per day – as in, 1 million downloads in four days. It’s a little hard to comprehend, isn’t it?

There doesn’t seem to be information like this available for Android and other competing app stores, but I am confident enough to believe that the number requirements would be at least half all of the above for the same accomplishment, if not even less.

While mobile apps are big business, it will take a lot of effort and luck to make it to the big leagues. However, that challenge, if reached, could reap huge rewards.