There are 5 large mobile app trackers, also called MMPs. Those are AppsFlyer, Adjust (owned by AppLovin), Branch and Yandex AppMetrica. These mobile attribution companies track users data across many apps. For Android nearly 50% of all apps contain a mobile app tracker and for iOS a bit less at 1 in 4 apps. This number of course skews much higher for apps and games that spend money on advertising to gain users and thus rely on mobile app attribution.
A quick note on the methodology: These numbers are based on AppGoblin’s data for de-compiled Android and iOS apps which is currently around 40k. This is only a fraction of the ~2m active Android and iOS Apps on the App Stores but is ranked by the most popular apps.
AppsFlyer
AppsFlyer tracks nearly 3 billion installs a month based on SDK data from the top 40k apps, and the real number is likely much higher for iOS as some trackers are harder to find there. AppsFlyer is very popular in gaming with it’s largest category by number of apps Gaming Simulation.
Adjust
Coming in at less than 2 billion installs last month is Adjust, owned by AppLovin. Adjust historically has rivaled AppsFlyer but has fallen the past few years after it was acquired by AppLovin. Adjust similar to AppsFlyer is popular in gaming, with an even higher percentage of it’s clients being gaming companies.
Yandex Metrica / AppMetrica
Yandex’s Metrica, also known as AppMetica, is quite popular for developers based in India, China and Russia. These both part of the greater Yandex ecosystem. AppMetrica gets a huge boost from Tool apps like Mi Video the default XiaoMi video player.
Branch
Branch is the undisputed MMP king of fortune 500 apps like Starbucks, Walmart Sam’s Club, Wendy’s and many more common corporate companies. Branch has long had the strongest offering for deep links hence it’s largest category of apps are Shopping and Finance.
What about Open Source Alternatives?
Did you notice that the list on AppGoblin is pretty short? There are only around a dozen MMPs, and while some larger business tools also have some attribution tools, like Verizon, they are often used by so few clients I did not classify them as attribution services.
As of today, while there are some open source deep-linking tools, there are NO open source attribution companies. The only way for an app to effectively track it’s advertising spend is to send their private company data to a 3rd party for processing. The MMPs are locked into place by their business partnerships with the major ad networks like Google, Facebook and even Apple.
I am currently working on OpenAttribution, an open source attribution platform so that app developer can run track their own MMP data without sending data to a 3rd party tracker.
If you’d like to show support please star on GitHub or reach out on OpenAttribution’s Discord for more information.