How Do Online Reviews Affect App Performance? From the Perspective of Sentiment Analysis

With the prevalence of mobile applications (Apps), it is of significance to investigate the critical factors affecting their performance among customers, such as their rankings in the App store. This research investigates the effects of online reviews’ sentiment (i.e., sentiment valence and intensity) on App performance. What makes this study unique is that we also consider the influence of App updates on the relationship between online review sentiment and App performance. With the data acquired from the App store, we test our research model. We found that the proportion of positive reviews has a negative correlation with App performance, while the proportion of negative reviews has an inverted U-shape relationship with App performance. In addition, for negative reviews with high sentiment intensity, we found that App updates mask the relationship between sentiment intensity and App performance. Theoretical contribution and managerial implications of this research are discussed.