STUDY: Messaging Apps Get You Hooked, Keep You Coming Back for More

The main goal for mobile apps is to not only get that precious install, but to keep you tapping on that app often. One particular kind of app achieves this regularly, with retention rates of greater than 60 percent a year after install — messaging apps.

While you might bemoan that your Facebook messages are now largely bound to Facebook’s Messenger app, many people keep visiting regularly. Flurry, part of Yahoo, tracked the retention rate of Messenger and other messaging apps, finding that retention rates were 5.6 times better than the average app after 12 months.

Simon Khalaf, Yahoo’s VP of Flurry Products, documented the findings in a blog post:

Research we released in early 2014 suggested last year would be a crucial year for messaging apps that would determine whether they would remain independent, yet highly frequented applications, or become a platform for other mobile services. At that time, the jury was still out. Now, a little more than a year later, it is safe to say that messaging apps have made the leap to become the platform for many services, starting with payments and most likely ending with commerce.

Here’s a look at retention rates of messaging apps compared with the average throughout a 12-month period.

But this isn’t just checking in on the app every now and then; Flurry found that the daily frequency of the use of messaging app outpaced the average app by 4.7X.

This is great news for Facebook, which recently opened up Messenger as a platform and is now pushing for brands to use Messenger (not email) to communicate with customers about purchases.

Readers: How often do you check your messaging app of choice?

Top image courtesy of Shutterstock.