Did your old company adjust for selection bias?
It seems to me the category of people who have gone to the length to install an app is perhaps going to spend more time with the content compared to the full set of people interacting with the content.
Yes.
Engagement is measured across the entire subscriber cohort. consumer "councils" are made up of a selection of subscribers, so we can adequately get data from all sections.
We had a webapp, the users were very engaged. We replaced the webapp with a native app, we got way more people who very engaged, we also got loads more people who were mildly engaged. The overall effect was more engagement from a wider base of subscribers.
Lowering the bar to entry, proper offline caching of content, faster loading, just a better more seamless experience.
Its important to say that it was a choice, there was no full page banner or bouncer that forced people to install the webapp, it was entirely optional.
If, however you are saying that people only click on it because there is an icon on their phone, then you are making possibly the biggest argument for keeping apps (although its perfectly possible to have webapps on the homescreen with icons)