According to statistics from Digital Budget, VK began to experience the consequences of its apps being removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, the world’s largest. The company itself rejected her findings, pointing to Mediascope data according to which their audience grew by 1-3%.
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According to Digital Budget calculations, the audience of some VK apps began to decline after they were removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play markets. In July alone, the VK service lost 1.35 million active viewers. The monthly active audience of the VKontakte app decreased by 1.1% quarter-on-quarter in July to 51.8 million people. Max Messenger maintained positive dynamics, but growth slowed to 0.2% over the same period, taking the app’s audience to 45.75 million people. VK Play, which had an audience of 14.6 million, immediately lost 27%; the VK Music streaming service lost 8% of its audience, reaching 3.48 million. The audiences of the Mail and VK Messenger services decreased by 6% and 3% respectively to 20.7 million and 9.7 million people. Other services have grown slightly.
Apple removed the Max Messenger app from the App Store in early June, and some VK apps at the end of the month. The apps disappeared from the Google Play Store on July 16. VK said the data given in the study was incorrect because the web version should be taken into account when calculating the app audience. “For many services such as VKontakte, Mail, VK Play, etc., the web version is the main one used.<..> Analyst data and internal VK data confirm that removing apps from the store has no impact and that audience metrics will grow. “the company recalled, adding that attendance in July was lower than in June “The norm for most digital services”and usually increase in August and September. To confirm its position, the company cited Mediascope statistics, according to which the audience of the VKontakte app grew by 1% to 75.94 million in July 2026, Max by 1% to 81.39 million and VK Video by 3% to 27.6 million.
Respondents suggested that differences in statistics were caused by differences in calculation methods”merchant» Experts: Digital budgeting considers people who log into an app at least once a month and perform some action in it, while Mediascope considers people who just open an app without thinking about those actions. VK Play’s performance growth at the end of last year was due to synchronization with Steam. As VK Play was removed from the App Store and Play Market, some users stopped receiving push notifications, thus reducing audience participation in game services.
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