Google Analytics SDK V2 for Android App: New users, returning users, active users, sessions are confusing me

Question

I have used Google Analytics to track my Android app for a while and it worked pretty well. Recently, I upgraded to the new SDK V2 for mobile app. However, I found something confusing me:

1. In real-time tracking, all the visitors are shown as new now. I tried to use my phone to open my own app and it keeps on showing myself as new user not returning user. In fact, I never saw a returning user showing up after the upgrade.

2. In the users report as shown in the picture, I can see 86 active users and 54 new sessions/users for the first day of my upgrade. On the website, it shows active users are users that have recently engaged with your app. Includes both new and returning users. Since it is the first day, I assume all the users should be new but it seems that the numbers are not equal.

Thank you for any comments!

Answer 1

The difference between the "Active Users" and the "New Sessions" is that Active Users are what you know as "Unique Visitors" from analytics V1 and "New Sessions" are "New Visits" - User vs. session.

For example if a new user opens your app once, and then open it again after a duration longer than what you set as visit (30 seconds is the default) it will count as another session, which means 1 active user, 2 sessions, 1 new session.

Also note that all users that upgrade from your old app with the V1 anlytics will count as new in the new analytics profile.