Amazon has made its GameCircle social platform and Whispersync backup technology available for iOS, hoping to extend its reach beyond its existing Android base.

With developers working with multiple platforms, Amazon’s Peter Heinrich wrote on the company’s mobile app distribution blog that iOS support had been a frequent user request.

GameCircle offers a number of services, such as achievements and leaderboards, that developers can integrate with their apps via APIs. The platform was first launched in July 2012 for Amazon’s Android-powered Kindle Fire tablet.

Whispersync allows users to sync their game progress and associated data to the cloud, meaning they can resume games from the point they finished on a range of devices. Both services are based on Amazon Web Services cloud infrastructure.

By bringing the services to iOS, Amazon is enabling players to save their progress across Android and iOS devices they own. For example, they could play a game on their Kindle Fire tablet and switch to their iPhone to continue.

GameCircle also provides direct support for Apple’s Game Center, meaning users can also submit scores and achievements to the Apple system.

Integration of GameCircle also provides access to new Achievement Reports which are designed to help developers gain a better understanding of how players interact with games. The update also adds a guest mode, which allows players to play games and track their achievements without having to sign in.

Amazon has found that games using GameCircle produce higher user retention rates and revenue than those that don’t. Stats released in February showed that games using GameCircle produced 38 per cent higher conversion rates and 33 per cent more in-app purchases per paying customers.

According to the company, combining the impact of both variables means that GameCircle-enabled games earned on average 83 per cent more ARPU than other titles.

A related study conducted in January 2013 found that, on average, games using GameCircle over-indexed on the number of player sessions by 32 per cent when compared to the average for the entire games category.