The reports in Active Insights are great tools to both explore the possession and usage metrics of your apps and to compare them against others. However, they require you to know which other apps you wish to study in advance. App Universe assists with this initial step by helping you to identify apps of interest that are related to your own. It’s available now, under the 'App Explorer/App Universe' tab.
App Universe allows you to find the apps that exist within the same context as any app you choose. For example, if ‘app B’ shows up in your report when ‘app A’ is selected, this means that ‘app B’ is often used at the same time than apps often used with ‘app A’, even though they might not necessarily be competitors (although App Universe also has this functionality should you require it).
The App Universe report is displayed as an app cloud, with the selected app in the center of the chart and the ‘universe’ of apps floating around it in bubbles. Universe apps are ranked according to a context score, which quantifies the similarities with the selected app in terms of usage patterns. The higher this score is, the bigger the app bubble appears in the chart. Currently, App Universe shows the top 30 apps with the highest context score. The button in the top left of the report allows you to hide your own apps from the display in order to focus on those outside of your network. When clicked, the report will display the top 30 apps in order of context score.
This report allows you to perform two key functions:
Discover your direct competitors within any given market. App Universe’s algorithm enables you to find other players, even within an exclusive market where clients only own and use one app.
The example above is for Zara (US), showing the company’s direct competitors (including H&M Urban Outfitters, Asos, Carter's).
Discover apps used at the same time as yours, even if they are not direct competitors. This can enable you to create a persona of your users, identify in which situations your app is often used, or even give you an idea of potential partners for future advertisement campaigns.
The above example shows the results for French pub recommendation app, MisterGoodBeer. What this graph shows us is that the public audience of "Mistergoodbeer" may also be interested in travel, since it has the city mapper application, which is used to find its way around town, and Hostelword, which allows you to book a hotel room anywhere in the world.This kind of information can be used to create a persona of MisterGoodBeer audience.
App Universe reports can be used for a specific country, or globally. Our recommendation is to use in it country mode, as country-specific insights can often get lost in worldwide reports.