How App Publishers Can Win Big Across the Year’s Most Competitive Window

The festive period is the mobile app industry’s golden quarter, and Moloco's latest analysis of mobile app performance across the 2024/2025 holiday season confirms this. The interactive report, drawing from insights from Moloco's internal database and Sensor Tower, reveals that between 23 December 2024 and 5 January 2025, UK gaming apps saw 37 million installs across iOS and Android combined. Non-gaming consumer apps – such as social, utility, and productivity – also surged, with downloads hitting 35 million in the week of 30 December 2024 alone.

But the holiday period is more than a single moment. Successful marketers treat it as a sequence of distinct opportunities, each with its own user behaviour and performance profiles. That means looking beyond a December spend surge to time campaigns to peak engagement windows, factor in iOS versus Android dynamics, and leverage AI to keep new players active well into the new year.

Key download peaks

Christmas drives the biggest download lift, with gaming app installs reaching 37 million across the two-week Christmas and New Year period last year. This surge is driven by a unique mix of factors – new devices coming online, time off work, and users exploring new content during the holiday break.

Advertisers invest heavily in ads during the peak holiday period because they anticipate higher consumer activity on apps and increased installs. Competition for user attention is also at its highest, but users are more active and willing to download and engage with apps, so conversion rates (installs, sign-ups, purchases) hit their peak, as well.

Likewise, because ad costs and competition are high, brands need to be very strategic with targeting, bidding, and creative optimisation to ensure they attract the most valuable users who are likely to spend or stay engaged long-term.

Differences in iOS and Android user behaviour

Compared with the first half of December 2024, gaming app downloads jumped by 49% on iOS and 26% on Android, making this the clear peak moment for player acquisition. The sharper iOS uplift highlights the importance of platform-specific planning.

iOS and Android audiences behave differently, and marketing strategies need to reflect that. UK users spent 371.2 million hours in gaming apps during the holidays (23 December 2024 – 5 January 2025.) But despite Android users clocking 43% more total playtime, iOS still led in monetisation, generating $10 million (£7.5 million) more in in-app revenue – a 35% gap.

Android has broader reach and longer playtime, while iOS delivers more revenue, despite having a smaller global install base. This means creative, pricing, and bidding strategies should be tailored to how each platform's audience behaves and how they spend.

Don't go dark after Christmas

Holiday gaming revenue reached $69 million (£52 million) last year, showing that festive play quickly turns into spend. This momentum carried into Q5, with the first week of January still showing high engagement and revenue.

Yet, after the holiday rush, advertisers typically reduce spending, which causes acquisition costs to drop. Scaling back campaigns during this time can be a costly mistake, as it’s actually the most cost-efficient time to acquire high-value users. Moloco's data shows the final week of the year delivered the highest efficiency, with return on ad spend up 75.7% on iOS and 15.7% on Android compared to early December. That efficiency doesn't vanish on 1 January. It extends through the first week as users continue to engage with their new apps and devices. The ‘post holiday’ period creates a longer runway for marketers to keep users active as they settle into new routines.

Role of AI in finding and retaining high-value players

As the industry heads into 2026, the difference between good performance and great performance will increasingly come down to how effectively marketers deploy AI in their user acquisition and retention strategies.

Traditional campaigns rely on broad targeting and hoping for the best. AI enables something far more powerful – identifying which users are likely to become high-value players before they've even made their first purchase, then optimising bids in real-time to acquire them.

AI-driven platforms can process millions of signals per second – including device type, engagement patterns, time of day, and creative performance – to find users who match a game's best players' profiles.

This predictive capability becomes especially powerful in the new year, when marketers are targeting new players with varying intent levels. Some downloaded because they got a new phone. Others are genuinely interested but overwhelmed by choice. AI helps segment and message each group appropriately, turning casual installers into committed players.

The path to incremental growth

The lessons from UK gaming apps extend far beyond a single vertical. The same dynamics – platform-specific user behaviour, extended engagement windows, and AI-driven optimisation – apply equally to non-gaming apps.

What gaming apps demonstrate is that Christmas is indeed the industry's golden quarter, but only if marketers maximise the opportunities. Timing matters. Platform differences matter. And the technology used to find and retain users matters more than ever.