Did the AWS outage dent App Store performance? (What the data showed)
A credited summary of ConsultMyApp’s analysis of the Oct 2025 AWS outage impact on brand search, organic downloads, and grossing ranks, plus how to use store data as a ‘resilience’ sanity check.
Original article (source): ConsultMyApp - “Did the AWS Outage Really Dent App Store Performance? What the App Store Data Tells Us” (Oct 22, 2025)
What they tested (and why it’s a useful idea)
ConsultMyApp looked at the Oct 20, 2025 AWS US-East-1 outage and asked a simple question: did anything show up in app store demand and performance signals?
They pulled roughly a month of US iOS data for a shortlist of apps widely reported as impacted (e.g., Snapchat, Reddit, Venmo, Roblox, Fortnite), then compared three store-side views:
- Brand search interest (keyword impressions as a proxy for demand)
- Organic download estimates
- Grossing rank (as a monetisation proxy)
The meta-point: even if your in-app analytics went sideways during an outage, store signals can act as a parallel “sanity check” for whether the incident created a visible demand shock.
Their finding: basically no sustained store-level impact
The headline is intentionally boring: they didn’t see a meaningful, sustained drop across the three signals.
- Brand search looked “normal” for most apps, with typical weekday/weekend patterns.
- Organic downloads didn’t show multi-day cliffs.
- Grossing ranks stayed broadly stable.
A reasonable interpretation is that users mostly waited it out rather than switching apps in a way that would register as a store demand swing.
How to use this without over-claiming
The analysis is directionally helpful, but it’s not a causal proof.
Where it’s practical:
- Incident comms: “Did this outage cause demand to fall?” is different from “Did our service fail?” Store signals help answer the first.
- Competitive paranoia: If you think competitors “won” during your downtime, you can check whether there’s any demand substitution visible in store trends.
- Resilience planning: If your app is more outage-sensitive than theirs (e.g., time-critical workflows), you can run the same method on your own brand terms.
Tiny win
Write a one-page outage playbook for marketing + product:
- Pick 5 brand keywords you’ll monitor (per market).
- Define what “real demand shock” looks like (e.g., >15% dip for 48 hours).
- Decide who gets pinged when those thresholds trigger.
That way, the next incident doesn’t turn into a Slack argument about vibes.
Read the original: https://www.consultmyapp.com/blog/did-the-aws-outage-really-dent-app-store-performance-what-app-data-tells-us
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