How big a deal is it to get featured by Apple? This big

Mobile game developers are used to hearing that being featured by Apple offers a big boost to their downloads and, ultimately, to their success. But how big?

Mobile analytics firm App Annie has released a new report showing that a game's downloads are boosted by nearly150 percent when featured by Apple. In South Korea, that boost rises to nearly 500 percent.

Elsewhere in the report -- which you can download for free, here -- the firm says that the effective boost from being featured is dropping over time, but that it remains significant all the same.

Interestingly, the boost effect is much higher for games than non-game apps; also, the recently diminished positive effect of being featured observed in the research is more pronounced for apps than games.

The analysis covers the period from June 2013 to March 2016, and the App Stores in the following five countries: Brazil, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Notably, the report excludes apps featured during their first 60 days on the store, because "downloads in these instances had not yet stabilized" enough to be sure if featuring was why they were being downloaded or not. 

It's also worth mentioning that the report covers only top-level featuring; category features are also relevant -- and often easier to get than a top-level feature slot.