Blog, 15 Oct 2021

App Annie predicts biggest mobile shopping season ever

Lexi Sydow shares latest app market data and estimates with poq for Apprising Fall 2021 The good news for retail, according to mobile app analytics and market data provider App Annie, is that this festive quarter is shaping up to be the biggest ever on record. Lexi Sydow, Head of Marketing Insights, App Annie shared […]

Marketing

Lexi Sydow shares latest app market data and estimates with poq for Apprising Fall 2021

The good news for retail, according to mobile app analytics and market data provider App Annie, is that this festive quarter is shaping up to be the biggest ever on record.

Lexi Sydow, Head of Marketing Insights, App Annie shared the prediction at the same time as revealing the fourth quarter (Q4)0 of 2021 builds on an already record-breaking Q3.

The researcher further revealed the trends that retailers and brands need to be aware of to capitalize on this exponential seasonal surge in growth during a recent Apprising Fall 2021 event session entitled, ‘The retail landscape: predictions for the holiday season.

Readying for Black Friday and beyond

“Q3 was a great indicator that we’re already at this really high level of mobile engagement, as we head into Q4,” said Sydow, “and we see that heading into Q4, mobile shopping is at its biggest level yet. We’re predicting some of the biggest mobile shopping periods that we’ve ever seen.”

Highlighting the growing in-app shopping trend, Sydow looked back to Black Friday 2020 in the UK as an example of the biggest appcommerce period to date, with 40% growth year-on-year. She added: “So, mobile shopping is 20%, higher, the amount of time people are spending in shopping apps is 20%, higher than pre-COVID levels.

“That’s a really good sign heading into the holiday season, which for us says that Black Friday 2021, and that week, is poised to be the biggest yet in the UK.” She also advised retailers to start optimizing their keyword, as well as paid ad and search, strategies for this period in late September to early October.

Appetites for in-app shopping grow

Putting the provider’s predictions into context, Sydow said that this year’s growth builds on the explosive increase in mobile appcommerce during the global lockdowns of 2020. Even as stores have reopened, consumers’ appetite for shopping apps have continued unabated.

“We all know last year, in Q3, we were coming off of a record-breaking Q2 for mobile apps following the first wave of pandemic lockdowns. We really saw people surging to the mobile app space, looking for ways to connect – you know, work from home, go to school from home, all of those things,” added Sydow.

“So, it’s really impressive that we’re even seeing stronger growth off of Q3 last year, which was already massive coming off of a really big Q2.” App Annie is also expecting over 900 million hours will be spent on shopping apps in the US on Android phones alone in Q4.

Seasonal peaks to reach new heights

Sydow shared research that showed the close correlation between time spent in shopping apps and total online retail sales: “Mobile is driving a significant portion, and influencing, many of those ecommerce sales, and we’re expecting to see over 145 million hours in shopping apps this season, and that would be up 45% from two years prior.”

She also called out Single’s Day, which has become a huge shopping holiday in the Asia-Pacific region, for the impact it also now has worldwide. In 2020, she said $54 billion was spent in-app within the first 30 minutes.

“This year, we expect it to be around 2x what we saw in 2019. So, this is really showing that overseas expansion, as well as the adoption by many different retailers, is prioritizing Singles Day as another key Shopping Festival in Q4,” she concluded.