Cost per loyal user index in December 2014.
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App downloads soared in December — but so did marketing costs

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

App downloads set a new record for the third consecutive month in December, but the cost of acquiring loyal users also rose 20 percent from a year ago, according to data collected by mobile marketing tech firm Fiksu.

The results show that people are increasing their appetite for free iOS apps, but brand marketers are driving up the costs of acquiring those individuals by spending heavily during the holiday season. But while spending on overall apps was up, the cost of advertising mobile games actually dropped.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.