SDK intelligence refers to data about mobile software development kits (SDK) and the broader SDK landscape.
In this blog post, we go over the following (click the links below to jump to the relevant sections):
- What Is SDK Intelligence?
- How to Find SDK Intelligence for Any iOS or Android App
- Access iOS and Android SDK Intelligence With the 42matters SDK Explorer
- Top SDKs per Category
- Subscribe to the 42matters SDK Explorer
What Is SDK Intelligence?
SDK intelligence refers to data about software development kits (SDKs) and the mobile apps and games that integrate them. They provide valuable insight into the success of individual SDK developers, as well as the SDK landscape and mobile app economy more broadly.
Typical SDK intelligence metrics include the number of apps that integrate them, how many downloads these apps generate, their market share per app category / genre, publisher insights, etc. Indeed, SDK intelligence is commonly used for market research, competitor analysis, competitor benchmarking, lead generation, and more.
How to Find SDK Intelligence for Any iOS or Android App
At 42matters, we provide a number of solutions that you can use to access SDK intelligence. For example, the 42matters Explorer enables you to see which SDKs have been added to or removed from any app available on Google Play or the Apple App Store. Here’s a list of added / removed SDKs for the Android version of Instagram:
Likewise, you can use the Explorer to search for all app publishers that have integrated a specified SDK into one of their apps. This is especially handy for Ad Tech companies or SDK developers that want to generate app publisher leads.
For instance, if you’ve built an Ad Network SDK and want to find customers who are a good match for your product, you can use the Explorer to generate a list of apps that have integrated your biggest competitors. To find all publishers that use Google Ads AdMob, simply apply the SDK Integrations filter:
Then enter the Google Ads AdMob SDK into the search bar and click APPLY.
This will automatically generate a list of all Android apps that use Google Ads AdMob. For a similar list of iOS apps, simply change the platform by clicking the toggle button below the App Store icon in the upper left-hand corner and repeat the same steps outlined above.
As you can see, the publisher name for each app appears in the third column and the publisher addresses are in the sixth column.
If you’d like to refine your search even further, you can add additional filters, like country availability, language, downloads, monthly active users (MAU), etc.
Once you’ve narrowed your search, you can export the resulting list of apps, along with the publisher contact details and physical addresses, as leads. To do so, click the Export Apps button at the top of the dashboard and fill out the pop up according to your requirements:
Once this is complete, simply click EXPORT and you will receive your leads via email in a .CSV file.
Want to learn about the top Android SDKs by SDK category? Check out our rankings here!
Accessing iOS and Android SDK Intelligence With the 42matters SDK Explorer
If you’re after more SDK-specific insights, we also offer the 42matters SDK Explorer. It’s a web-based SDK research tool that enables you to browse SDK developer details and metadata, identify an SDK’s market share by app category, see which apps integrate each SDK, track new installations and removals, and more. It also offers keyword search capabilities and category-specific filters. We’ll go over each of these capabilities one by one.
SDK Metadata
The SDK Explorer offers a variety of developer and metadata insights, including SDK ID, developer website, SDK category, operating system compatibility (iOS or Android), and SDK description. To access these insights, simply click on an SDK of interest and a pop-up will appear. This data will fall under the section titled DETAILS. See here:
The Top Apps That Integrate Each SDK
The SDK Explorer also offers integration insights for each SDK. This includes how many apps on Google Play and the Apple App Store use them and five of the most popular apps that have integrated them into their tech stacks:
What’s more, by clicking the ‘Show all Apps’ button, you will be directed to the Explorer, where you will find a list of all apps that integrate the SDK in question:
SDK Market Share by Category
Next up, market share by category. This feature reveals the percentage of apps that integrate a particular SDK divided by category:
For example, as you can see in the image above, 26.81% of Trivia apps on Google Play leverage Google Analytics, as do 23.53% of Lifestyle apps and 21.80% of apps in the News & Magazines category. And, of course, clicking the ‘Show more’ button reveals a complete list of categories.
New Installations and Removals History
Suffice it to say, app developers are constantly revising their apps’ techstacks. So, while an SDK may be integrated in 10,000 apps today, that number may rise or fall according to the popularity of the SDK. The SDK Explorer’s ‘New Installations and Removals History’ feature enables you to track the number of apps that have added and removed a particular SDK by month:
So, in the case above, Google Analytics was installed in 4,986 new Android apps in December 2021. Likewise, it was removed from 2,340 Android apps in the same month. In addition, over a six month period, it was installed by 28,215 apps and removed by 15,710.
Estimated App Downloads
The SDK Explorer also reveals how many daily downloads have been generated by apps that integrate an SDK. In the chart below, you can see how many times apps that integrate Google Analytics have been downloaded per day:
In total, the 364,501 Android apps that use Google Analytics have been downloaded a whopping 11,737,562,572 times over the last six months. Not too shabby.
Top SDKs per Category
Finally, if you’d like to get better acquainted with our SDK Intelligence, we leveraged our data to rank the top Android SDKs by category. These include the top Ad Network, Analytics, Attribution, Commerce, Communication, Marketing Intelligence, Data Intelligence, Backend, CRM, and Social SDKs.
Here’s a screenshot of the Google Ads AdMob entry from the list of Top Ad Network SDKs:
As you can see, for each entry, we show the percentage of apps that integrate the SDK, the total number of apps and games currently using it, its share of global downloads, and total number of app and game downloads.
Subscribe to the 42matters SDK Explorer
At 42matters, we provide app and SDK insights, data, and analytics via a host of useful APIs, file dumps, and web-based app intelligence platforms, like the App Watchlist, the 42matters Explorer, and the 42matters SDK Explorer.
The SDK Explorer, which is free for 14-days, is a web-based research tool that provides rich SDK intelligence. This includes in-depth, visual insight into publisher details, metadata, app integrations and removals, market share statistics, downloads, and more. You can also download this data as CSV and leverage it however you like — in your own algorithms, analyses, products, studies, etc.
To learn more about SDK intelligence from 42matters, schedule a free demo with one of our experts. We’ll show you how they can improve your business!
