Shopping apps like Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, and Shein saw a notable uptake during the Covid years, reaching more users than ever. Still, the global interest in using them hasn’t waned even three years after the lockdowns, pushing the entire market`s revenue and downloads to all-time highs.
According to data presented by OnlyAccounts.io, shopping apps have grossed more than $100bn and hit 4.6 billion downloads in the past five years.
2023 Brought Record Revenue and Downloads
The last five years have seen a surge in mobile shopping, fuelled by the growing number of companies that embraced a mobile-centric approach. Also, shopping apps have come a long way from what they used to be, providing users with a unique shopping experience and bringing an extensive range of features, including daily or hourly deals, member rewards programs, buy-now-pay-later options, and curated shopping content.
The surging number of people choosing mobile shopping instead of brick-and-mortar stores has helped shopping apps to double their revenue in the past five years, most of which came from advertising special deals and promotions.
According to Statista Market Insight, back in 2019, shopping apps grossed roughly $14bn in revenue. By the end of 2021, this figure jumped to over $20bn. The impressive growth continued last year, with revenue rising by 20% year-over-year and reaching $24.1bn. However, Statista expects shopping apps to gross a record $29bn in 2023, 20% more than last year, pushing their five-year revenue to a whopping $102bn.
The number of downloads has also more than doubled in this period, rising from 530 million in 2019 to an expected 1.27 billion in 2023, the highest figure in the market`s history. Overall, shopping apps hit more than 4.6 billion downloads in the past five years. Statista expects the following years to see just as impressive growth rates, resulting in $46.2bn in revenue and more than 1.67 billion downloads by 2027.
More than 60% of Total Revenue Came from Only Three Countries
Although people worldwide spend billions of hours on shopping apps each year, most of the market revenue comes from only three countries. As the world`s largest market for mobile shopping, China generated nearly $35bn in revenue in the past five years or one-third of the world`s total.
The United States ranked as the second largest market for shopping apps, with a five-year revenue of $23.2bn. Far below, the United Kingdom ranked third with $6.7bn in revenue between 2019 and 2023. Statistics show the three countries generated $64.7bn in revenue in this period, or 64% of the world`s total.
