Flutter app updated by only 10% of all users (Android)

Question

I own an Android app with about 300K users.

This app was initially an Android app only that I converted to flutter in order to release an iOS version as well. When I released the first update developed using Flutter, I deployed only 5%, then updated to 10%, to be sure there was no major issue with this new version.

I then updated to deployment to 100%.

I have now released my third version of this new app based on flutter, setting a deployment of 100%, available in all countries.

But I only see about 10% of the users updating the app in the play console, after about 3 weeks.

I know flutter is not compatible with x86 phones, but those x86 represents only 1% of the Android phones. I also had to update the minSdkVersion from 19 to 20, but again this should not impact so much users.

I also read the app size could impact installations and updates, but the size was reduced using flutter.

I do not understand why my app is updated by only 10% of all users more than 3 weeks after the update. I'm seeing about 90% of my users in the play console still using the previous app version, and I double checked the deployment was set to 100% in all countries.

Thanks for any tip you can provide me.

Answer 1

so there are a few reason i can point out why this is happening :

• If you are using google analytics , there is a strong possibility that the stats might be old and not yet updated (sometimes analytics run behind )
• Your target sdk version might be too low and the majority of people might be using legacy play store version and it might cause an issue ( it's a long shot , it wont matter 99.9 % of the time)
• when you switch to deployment (100%) , then play store pushes it as a normal update and devices wait for wifi to update . countries like india,china and middle east don't have a good wifi coverage .
• If u switched app from kotlin or java to flutter , there will be some delay in it getting mainstreamed by play store.

To Avoid these issues , u can do a few things

• Make sure to have a version check inside app that checks for latest version and then prompts users if version!=latest_version && version< latest_version.

• Send a fcm to users where version < latest_version .

• try publishing another minor update within same version (0.1.1 to 0.1.2) and check it's stats (its probably the best way to update stats).

Hope it helps , let me know.