Top Three Mobile App Stability Benchmarks You Need to Know

Stability is a critical factor in the success of every mobile application. 71% of app uninstalls are caused by app crashes and 80% of mobile app users say they will give a crashing app three tries or less.

As part of our commitment to providing valuable insights to mobile teams, we are thrilled to provide a glimpse into our upcoming report on the stability of mobile apps.

In this blog post, we will delve into the top three stability benchmarks from the report, focusing on the metrics that have the highest impact on the user experience, including crash-free rates, out-of-memory errors (OOMs), and application not responding errors (ANRs).

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Average crash-free session rate and breakdown by store rating

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The report presents a respectable average crash-free session rate across all apps at 99.58%. However, it's fascinating to see how this rate varies with app store ratings. The lowest-performing apps were those with a store rating between 0 and 3 stars, at an average crash-free rate of 99.33%. This demonstrates the clear link between an app’s stability and its store rating.

When we move up the rating scale, the crash-free rate improves for apps with a store rating between 3 and 4 stars, reaching 99.56%. It increases slightly to 99.62% for apps with a store rating between 4 and 4.5 stars suggesting diminishing returns past the 99.5% mark.

However, the champions in this category are the apps with a store rating of 4.5+ stars, boasting the highest crash-free rate of 99.8%. This shows that although the returns are diminished past 99.5%, if you want your app to be among the top-performing apps on the store, you need to break past the 99.7% threshold.

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Average ratio of OOM errors to crashes

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OOMs are common issues on iOS that have a highly disruptive effect on app performance and user experience. Our report unveils that the average ratio of OOMs to crashes is approximately 1:7. Simply put, on average, there is roughly one out-of-memory error for every 7 crashes. This sheds light on the frequency of memory-related issues that can go undetected without using the right tools.

From the perspective of your users, there is no difference between OOM errors and crashes. Mobile teams must give them the same priority as crashes and strive to gain full visibility over their occurrence and cause.

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Average ratio of ANR errors to crashes

Android ANR errors are another critical performance issue that completely disrupts your app’s user experience. According to our report, the average ratio of ANRs to crashes is slightly higher than OOMs at approximately 1:8. This translates to one ANR error for every 8 crashes that occur in your app.

Similar to iOS’s OOM errors, ANR errors pose a crucial stability issue that is easy to miss without a mobile-specific tool. Mobile teams need to make sure that their monitoring tools can capture the occurrence of these mobile-specific issues and provide them with the information to resolve them.

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Mobile app users have exacting expectations when it comes to app stability and mobile teams need to match them. Anything less than 99.5% crash-free session rate is very likely to lead to a store rating below 3 stars. Make sure your team has the appropriate tools and workflows in place to rapidly detect and fix crashes.

Furthermore, monitoring and eliminating app crashes is only the first step. Mobile-specific issues like OOM errors and ANR errors need to be treated with the same priority and urgency as crashes do. Make sure you consider your app’s stability from all aspects and are able to accurately monitor the user experience you deliver to your users.

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Stay tuned for the full report

Our upcoming report on mobile app stability offers detailed statistics —including their breakdown by industry and app store rating— to reveal the relationship between app stability and app store ratings. The data clearly demonstrates that app stability significantly influences app store ratings, with higher-rated apps generally achieving better stability metrics.

Understanding these benchmarks enables developers to focus on improving stability and delivering an exceptional user experience. This blog post has only scratched the surface of our upcoming report; stay tuned for the full publication, which will deliver a more in-depth analysis and further insights into mobile app stability and app store performance.