Since the pandemic's onset, numerous TV and video streaming services have battled for consumers' attention, touting exclusive content and competitive pricing to drive new users to their app. We've seen this play out with apps like HBO Max, which hit a lifetime high for daily downloads with 225k just three days after its debut in May 2020. The biggest appeal to subscribe to HBO Max as of late is that its content is coming to the platform the same day that it's released in theaters.
Most people (me, I am most people) now use multiple devices to stream content across all of them throughout the week, or even on a given day. In fact, 71% of streaming viewers in the U.S. say that, on average, they watch streaming video on at least 2 devices each day. This presents a huge opportunity for streaming video and entertainment providers to differentiate themselves from competitors by elevating their offering, and giving the people what they want: good content.
Shopee, headquartered Singapore, has become the top shopping app in Latin America. Shopee originally launched in Southeast Asia but in October 2019, brought its mobile app to Brazil. Now the country is its largest market as judged by monthly active users, overtaking Indonesia. Latin America and Southeast Asia are both emerging growth markets and Shopee's app is the largest ecommerce app in both of them.
Parking app performance is popping. Both downloads (new installs) and monthly active users of the top parking apps are above pre-pandemic levels. Parking apps help users locate garages and lots in areas near their destinations, showing them the availability of spots and associated prices. The apps facilitate payment for the spot and in many cases allow users to reserve spots.
Mobile games making use of ASMR are on the rise! The number of games ranking across iOS and Google Play with the word “ASMR” in title and/or description have been rising for 13 straight quarters. Q2 2021 ended with 405 games, an increase of 72.3% year-over-year. For the uninitiated, ASMR stands for autonomous sensory meridian response. It’s when your body responds to audio stimuli by giving you a tingling sensation and/or pleasant chills. Many people find this sensation to be calming and relaxing. ASMR can be used to relieve stress and anxiety.
Cash App was the most downloaded P2P payment app in the United States in the first half of 2021. Globally, it was the fifth most downloaded. See who took the #1 spot on the worldwide list here: Top 10 Most Downloaded P2P Payment Apps in the World in H1 2021. As a market, the top 10 P2P payment apps in the US increased downloads approximately 38.7% YoY to more than 90M. This total represents a 66.8% increase from H1 2019— a significant two-year gain. As mentioned in our global analysis, the United States is the leader in downloads for the P2P payment app market.
PayPal was the most downloaded P2P payment app in the world in the first half of 2021. P2P stands for “peer-to-peer,” and sometimes “person-to-person.” Either way, P2P describes the transfer of funds between two individuals. If you’ve ever split a restaurant bill, you’ve likely participated in a P2P payment, and understand how helpful P2P payment apps are. Many of the top P2P payment apps offer financial services beyond P2P payments (think: merchant services for SMBs), but we consider a P2P payment app to be any app that offers and is known for having a P2P feature.
Since December 1 2020, cumulative downloads of the top vaccine passport apps have grown to over 10 million globally. This post and the image below will be updated every Monday with new data. The apps above provide digital proof of identity and select health records. The vast majority of countries are not requiring people to be vaccinated for them to visit, which is why uptake has been low. Still, these apps can register COVID-19 test results which the majority of countries will require before entering their borders.
Two weeks ago, McDonald’s rolled out its latest celebrity meal in collaboration with K-pop sensation BTS. In addition to a BTS-branded 10-pc Chicken McNugget meal, the partnership promises to provide exclusive content throughout the month, which can be accessed through its mobile app. The campaign will run through June 20th and will be available in nearly 50 countries. This partnership comes after two previous celebrity meals with Travis Scott and J Balvin.
SHEIN, a women's clothing brand based in China, has taken the digital fashion world by storm. For the past several years, its app has ranked as the top performing fast fashion app of the market. Given its current performance, its reign is unlikely to be cut short.
Last week, Coinbase (COIN) IPO’d. This highly anticipated event exceeded expectations, as Coinbase’s valuation reached over $80 billion after its first day of public trading. It also marked a turning point for cryptocurrency, which is now well on its way to wide acceptance. In its first week as a public company, Coinbase’s four main apps were downloaded about 2.7M times total, 2.3M of which were for its Coinbase - Buy & Sell Bitcoin app. All of its apps, except Coinbase Card, broke their lifetime records for single-day downloads and daily active users (DAU).
Everyone’s talking about non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. Whether this craze is a flash in the pan or a major shift for the blockchain economy, one thing is certain: NFTs, and NFT enthusiasts, are going mobile. Investment, trading, and crypto apps received a lot of attention over the past few months as crypto prices soared and investors like Roaring Kitty made trading more interesting. In fact, Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, Webull and more broke their lifetime records for engagement during the Game Stop saga.
Puzzle and Strategy were the two highest grossing games categories in the US in 2020. Puzzle performed better on iOS, while Strategy performed better on Google Play. As we navigate the post-IDFA world, we expect both of these categories to continue to bring in the biggest bucks. However, Puzzle games, with their slightly simpler gameplay, may have the potential to overtake Strategy in 2021.
Paramount+ launched on March 4th in a similar fashion to how HBO Max launched in May 2020, in that it took an existing app (CBS // HBO NOW) and simply transitioned it into a new product. This certainly lends itself to a lower number of downloads than a true new app launch would have as there are a number of existing users who will continue to use the service but do not require a new install.
The mobile game Top War caught my eye as I watched it begin to rise up the grossing charts. On the surface, what stood out most to me was that it's not owned by one of the major players I’m used to seeing in the top charts. In fact the publisher is simply named 'Topwar Studio' after the game's namesake. After doing some light googling, I didn’t come across much on the game besides a few gameplay review videos on YouTube. Let’s poke and prod a little bit and get into what the game is, it’s performance thus far, and how it's faired against its competition.
Superstores and wholesale retailers saw strong growth in downloads and engagement in 2020. We attribute this to consumers being especially focused on affordability and bulk buying this year. You can learn more about this consumer trend, and all the retail performers who benefited, in our joint analysis with Semrush.
The digitization of money and banking was inevitable. The pandemic merely accelerated its adoption. 2020 forced us to finally download our bank's app (if we hadn't already) and take all of our transactions online. As a result, finance apps hit record highs for both downloads and user sessions in Q4. To unpack the recent growth of the fintech space, we sat down with mobile and banking experts from Adjust, MoEngage, Visa, Current and Kredivo. Together, we identified the key trends and success strategies of the past year.
January is well-known to be the biggest month for health and fitness app activity, so let's take the data out for a spin and see what we can determine. We'll start high level and then drill down into the performance of several Health & Fitness subcategories for the United States.
The US version of Discovery Plus officially launched one month ago. Since then, the mobile app has been downloaded about 3.3 million times total across iOS and Google Play. Discovery+ labels itself as “the only streaming service with the greatest real-life entertainment from your favorite TV brands— including HGTV, Food Network, TLC, ID, Animal Planet, Discovery Channel.”
What an interesting discussion wallstreetbets and GameStop have provided for us. I can’t imagine too many people reading this article are unaware of the situation with the wallstreetbets Reddit thread and GameStop's stock price, but if you are, this is a wonderful explainer.
