The arrival of Apple’s iPhone 5 on 21 September saw free iOS app downloads increase by 33 percent in October compared to the previous month, according to app marketing company Fiksu.

The Fiksu App Store Competitive Index, which measures the average aggregate daily download volume of the top 200 free US iPhone apps, increased to 5.4 million downloads in October.

In addition, the cost of acquiring loyal app users declined by 6 percent in October. The Fiksu cost per loyal user index was US$1.06, down from US$1.13 in September.

The arrival of the iPhone increased organic searches and app discovery as owners of the new Apple smartphone downloaded apps for their devices. This pushed down acquisition costs and created a significant opportunity for app marketers to cost-efficiently acquire loyal users.

The pattern echoed that seen when the iPhone 4S was released in October 2011 when download traffic increased by a proportional 29 percent.