Mobile Shopping App Downloads Have Soared – But Amazon Isn’t the Most Popular Choice for Consumers

Mobile Shopping App Downloads Have Soared – But Amazon Isn’t the Most Popular Choice for Consumers

With consumers relying on e-commerce for their purchases, digital sales channels have seen a steady uptick in revenue, and mobile is no exception. In addition to retailers’ mobile sites, a new report from financial media brand Learn Bonds has found that shopping smartphone apps have surged in popularity, with the top five apps accounting for 26.9 million downloads in March alone.

Of those downloads, 90% were attributed to Android users. The most popular shopping app on the Google Play Store was e-commerce unicorn Wish, followed by AliExpress, Lazada and Club Factory, with Amazon Shopping in fifth place. However, across all smartphone apps, Amazon came in third place with 5.1 million downloads in March, ranking behind Wish and AliExpress.

These download figures reflect the continual shifts of the e-commerce marketplace. In 2019, Wish was the fourth most-popular shopping app, accounting for 11% of market share. It is known for offering low price points but long delivery times, as items are frequently shipped from countries such as China, Myanmar and Indonesia. After 7.38 million downloads in March, according to the Learn Bonds report, it now counts over 500 million users.

AliExpress, the e-commerce arm of Chinese retail giant Alibaba, also saw significant download numbers in March. In second place overall, it was particularly popular among Android users, with 5.4 million of its total 6.5 million downloads coming from the Google Play Store.

The company’s e-commerce site saw similarly high traffic numbers in March, with 532 million unique visitors, according to Statista and SEMrush data. Prior to the pandemic, AliExpress was particularly known for its cross-border purchases, holding 20% market share, but the move of average shoppers to e-commerce created growth across its other verticals.

Despite the lower positioning for Amazon, the retailer still tops the list of most-used shopping platforms globally, across channels. In March, Amazon reported 4 billion unique visitors — higher than the combined figures of competitors eBay, Apple, Walmart, Rakuten, Samsung.com and Apple.com.

China Caught Up With the US on E-Commerce — Then Blew Past It

When it comes to e-commerce sales, no country even comes close to China.

According to a recent eMarketer report, online sales in China are expected to reach $1.935 trillion in 2019 — more than triple the projected $586.92 billion in sales for the U.S., the world’s No. 2 e-comm market. On its own, China represents more than half (54.7%) of worldwide internet sales. The figure is especially impressive given that the nation only overtook the U.S. as e-comm’s worldwide leader six years ago.

Chinese consumers are ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to shopping via their cell phones, both in terms of buying on mobile and in using mobile payment apps for online/in-store purchases. Four in five Chinese e-comm dollars (80%) are spent using a mobile device, compared to just 64.4% worldwide. Meanwhile, mobile payment apps are used by 81% of Chinese shoppers, while only 27% of Americans pay using this method.

eMarketer projects the worldwide e-commerce market to hit $3.535 trillion in 2019, a 20.7% rise over last year. Global infrastructure improvements could mean more cross-border e-comm, the report notes, with demand for luxury goods, including designer apparel, driving the trend in China.

It’s not just in China that e-comm spending is soaring; the rest of the Asia-Pacific region is shopping online more than ever, too. India and the Philippines both have seen 30%-plus increases in growth this year, with gains above 20% in China, Malaysia and Indonesia.

The ongoing strength in its e-commerce business is good news for China, which has been involved in a yearlong trade dispute with the U.S. This May, President Donald Trump ordered a tariff increase from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports — the third tranche of tariffs since the dispute ramped up last year — and also threatened to hike levies on another $300 billion worth of products. Beijing retaliated with duties of 5% to 25% on $60 billion in U.S. goods. A proposed 25% levy on the fourth tranche of tariffs, which would have impacted footwear, apparel and other accessories, was suspended at the end of June. But companies like Steve Madden, Walmart, Macy’s and JCPenney have all cautioned that new tariffs could hurt their business. Meanwhile, scores of footwear and apparel brands say they’re looking to move their production out of China and into alternative sourcing hot spots like Vietnam and Mexico, moves that could have negative implications for China’s economy.

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6 Things to Know About Jack Ma’s Alibaba Resignation

Jack Ma is stepping down as chairman of The Alibaba Group, the Chinese e-commerce giant he co-founded 19 years ago and helped build into a $420 billion company, Ma announced on Monday.

He will resign from the role in 2019 at age 55, he said, and will be succeeded by CEO Daniel Zhang. The timeline gives the leadership a year to execute the transition — Ma will remain as executive chairman until 2020, after which he will continue to be a part of the Alibaba Partnership, a group of executives with influence over the company’s board.

The departure will cap off a tenure during which the former English teacher grew the company from a single web page run out of his apartment to a global technology conglomerate that’s often held up as Amazon’s Eastern rival. (He also became China’s richest man in the process.)

Here are six important things to know about Ma’s exit: