LONDON, June 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pixalate, the market-leading fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform for Connected TV (CTV) and Mobile Advertising, today released the Q1 2024 Delisted Mobile Apps Report - Google Play Store, analyzing Q1 2024 delisted apps. Delisted apps do not reflect the initiator of the delisting action, i.e., Google or the app developer.
Pixalate’s report analyzes apps delisted from the Google Play Store during the first quarter of 2024. 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:
- Q1 2024 marked the first time that there are more delisted apps (3.77M) than active apps in the Google Play Store (3.27M) since Pixalate’s initial Q1 2021 delisted apps research
- 409k apps delisted in Q1 2024
- 60% of apps delisted in Q1 2024 were abandoned (not updated in more than 2 years) prior to their removal
- 20% (80k) of apps delisted in Q1 2024 had detectable ads.txt files, indicating that they are advertising-enabled apps
- 627k apps with ads have been delisted since Q1 2022
- Over 10.6k "Wallpaper & Screensaver" apps were delisted from Google Play Store in Q1 2024; 61.5k "Wallpaper & Screensaver" apps have been removed since Q1 2023
- 12.6% (4.1k) of apps registered in Russia were delisted in Q1,
- 8.7% of apps registered in the U.S. were delisted
Top 10 Apps Delisted From Google Play Store in Q1 2024:
Here are the top 10 delisted mobile apps in the Google Play Store by number of downloads:
- Secure Folder – 1 billion
- Phone Master–Junk Clean Master – 500 million
- Voot, Bigg Boss 16, Colors TV – 100 million
- Helo - Discover, Share & Commu. – 100 million
- MP3 Downloader - Music Player. – 100 million
- Samsung Members v1 – 100 million
- XShare- Transfer & Share files – 100 million
- Deer Hunter 2018 – 50 million
- Muslim Muna: Quran Azkar Athan – 50 million
- Video downloader for FB – 50 million
Apps that violate app store policies, including those without a detected 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. Google regularly removes such apps from its app stores.
Download the full report
Download and explore a complimentary copy of the Q1 2024 Delisted Mobile Apps Report - Google Play 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).
Explore the Apple App Store version of the report 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.
