Thanks in part to the launch of Penn Sports Interactive’s newest sportsbook app, Barstool Sportsbook, sportsbook apps hit their all-time high for downloads in a single day on September 20th. Downloads jumped 209% from 2017 to 2018 and then 224% from 2018 to 2019. The US federal ban on sports betting was lifted In May 2018, spurring this growth.
Movie theaters were struggling before the pandemic and now they’re on life support. After Disney had delayed the March 2020 launch of Mulan three times, it decided to take a shot at earning back the $200M spent on the movie’s creation via a digital launch. On September 4th, Mulan launched on Disney+. This is a one-time purchase that enables users to watch the movie for as long as they have access to the streaming service. To be clear, you cannot purchase the movie without also purchasing or already having a Disney+ subscription.
Everyone's talking about crypto again and I refuse to be left out (FOMO is a killer). In July, the top 10 crypto wallet apps increased net new installs approximately 81.4% YoY. July is the best performing month on record for this market, and August has the potential to beat it.
Yesterday, August 13, the Zillow ($ZG) app achieved its highest number of daily active users (DAU) in its lifetime with 2.17 million. The app also saw a record number of app sessions (just under 6 million), and its daily downloads were the highest they've been since 2017 (about 54,000). This comes just after Zillow reported an impressive Q2 and exceeded earnings expectations.
When we received stay-at-home orders back in March, the app market, and social media in particular, got a huge boost. Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter all broke their respective records for time spent in-app, globally, in March 2020. I, for one, spent too many hours scrolling through TikTok– I even made it to "beanTok" (if you know, you know). Anyway, more people than ever were tuning in to watch the latest trends, AND more people than ever were contributing to the content. How do I know?
TikTok is a big deal in business and in pop culture. You already know that it, along with 59+ other Chinese published apps, has been banned in India and that a ban or sale of TikTok is likely to take place in the United States. The reasons why this is all taking place can be as complicated or as simple as you want them to be depending on who you talk to, but that’s not what this blog covers. We cover data trends, market shares, etc.
COVID-19 and quarantining forced most people to alter their fitness routine. While some mobile fitness apps managed to get traction with consumers, the reality is that commitment to a new habit is difficult, as illustrated by the data. Based on a sample of 11 popular mobile fitness apps, data from Apptopia show that COVID-19 had a significant impact on their rate of downloads. In January there was a 60% increase in downloads, totaling 3.37 million in just one month.
People are rediscovering the great outdoors with a new enthusiasm that we did not see in our data last summer. Why? Entertainment options may be closed for now but you can’t close the great outdoors. It’s giving people something to do while they can’t do anything.
I used to eat fast food nearly everyday growing up. Luckily, I turned out okay, and now I only indulge once in a while. But when the quarantine first hit, you better believe I got in the McDonald's drive-thru line and risked it all for a McFlurry. Mobile app data, thankfully, reassured me that I wasn't alone. In March, at the start of quarantine, the top fast-food apps in the U.S. took a very small hit, with app downloads declining almost 9% month-over-month.
With the COVID-19 pandemic and persistent social injustices Americans have been consuming more news. Prior to COVID-19, mobile app usage of traditional news providers was in a state of decline and only worsening. From last July through January of this year Fox News and CNN average app usage was down 18.6% and 2.5% YoY, respectively. For the same period, The New York Times averaged growth of 1.3%, however was trending significantly negative.
The travel market, including OTAs and vacation rental apps, took a nose dive at the start of the pandemic, as countries put strict travel bans and social distancing orders in place. In the past month or so, some of those restrictions have lifted, and it looks like people are itching to get out of the house. Vrbo Vacation Rentals by Homeaway.com has increased daily net new installs 113% over the past two months.
Shopping category downloads in Latin America grew 43% year-over-year for the month of May, mostly on the shoulders of Brazil and Mexico, who are the leaders in both absolute numbers and YoY percentage gain.
When COVID initially hit there was an enormous shift in consumer behavior across the economy. Online video services like Zoom saw user counts explode from 10M to over 200M users. Similar growth was seen across online workouts, online video, ecommerce and online events. One form of online interaction that didn’t see this boost was online dating.
Using mobile app data from Apptopia we can see the number of downloads and sessions for these apps both within the United States and internationally.
According to data from mobile app data provider Apptopia, daily usage of mobile applications for major international hotel brands has recovered half of its COVID-19 loss. Shortly after China began locking down citizens, usage of mobile applications from companies such as Marriott, Hilton and Intercontinental dropped by nearly 20%. As of data as recent as May 17th it appears that these applications have recovered half of their lost usage.
Americans have surprised the world with much of their behavior during the worst pandemic in the last hundred years. In the initial stages of the COVID outbreak things seemed to make more sense. At first it was masks and cleaning supplies that were in short supply. After that it was toilet paper, web cams and in-home workout equipment. Now the object of America’s desire is burgers.
We're looking at apps like Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, Apartments.com and more. Interest in shopping for homes and apartments took a hit when social distancing started. As states announce plans to open back up and as people have had time to purchase face masks and hand sanitizer, we're getting back into business.
After months of being closed, Disney announced that it would reopen its Shanghai park with added social distancing precautions. Tickets for the May 11th opening went on sale the previous Friday and sold out almost immediately. Disney limited the number of visitors to the park to 30% of its normal capacity based on requirements from the Chinese government.
This week, News Break and SmartNews, two news aggregation apps that allow you to easily access both your local and national news, have reached all-time highs for daily downloads.
SmartNews and News Break first broke their existing records on March 14 and 15, respectively. Each day since then, the apps have continued to beat their previous numbers. Yesterday (March 17), their biggest day so far, News Break was installed 225K times while SmartNews was installed 142K times. If you compare these numbers to their average daily downloads in February, News Break’s downloads are up 214% and SmartNews’s are up 222%.
Amwell, a Boston-based Telehealth provider, recently announced that they are taking steps to combat their sudden increase in users, which temporarily destabilized their systems and created extremely long wait times for patients. Telehealth providers and their companion apps virtually connect patients to healthcare services, so you can get a diagnosis and prescription without ever leaving your home.
