Interest in mobile gaming, cryptocurrency and user-generated content reached a new high in 2021, laying the bedrock for the Play-to-Earn industry. A record 3.8 trillion hours were spent on mobile devices in 2021, with the average user spending 4.8 hours per day on mobile. Mobile gaming was in high demand — to the tune of 83 billion downloads, an increase off the back of an already record-breaking 2020. Cryptocurrency apps Coinbase, Crypto.com and Binance dominated the breakout Finance apps charts around the world
Barnes & Noble is making a comeback. Foot traffic to existing locations is booming, and the company has even opened several new stores in recent months to keep up with demand. How did Barnes & Noble do it? We dove into the location analytics to find out. Before COVID took center stage in every discussion on the future of retail, some legacy brands were already struggling to adapt to the millennial shifts in consumer behavior. One of the chains that had the most trouble finding its place in the new increasingly digital retail environment was Barnes & Noble.
Podcasting is still one of the youngest forms of media—but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great advertising investment. The number of podcasts is growing quickly, and people are taking notice. In 2006, only 22 percent of the adult population in the United States knew of podcasting, according to Statista. Last year, that number climbed to 78 percent. And it’s no surprise—listeners with any niche hobby or learning interest can find something to enjoy.
Throughout the Leisure & Recreation Industry, entertainment businesses in both the US and UK have been seeing a strong start to 2022. Whether it’s hours-long lines for a popcorn bucket at a theme park or a Spidey-driven boost to the box office, growth seems extremely positive versus last year. But how quickly we forget – how does this growth stack up when compared to two years ago?
Food delivery app growth and engagement declined and stagnated in 2021. A worrying trend line for the market that ended 2020 with multiple billion-dollar acquisitions and DoorDash’s $60.2B public market debut. The top six players in U.S. food delivery are DoorDash and Caviar, GrubHub and Seamless, Uber Eats and Postmates. 2020 was a banner year with Apptopia data showing a 12% lift in total sessions, comparing January with December. During that time, GrubHub was acquired for $7.3B by European food delivery company Just Eat Takeaway, and Uber Eats bought Postmates for $2.65B.
Department stores showed signs of sales recovery during the recent holiday season. Consumer transaction data reveals that 2021 holiday sales at several major U.S. department store parent companies approached pre-pandemic levels, and a few companies such as Dillard’s (NYSE: DDS) and Hudson’s Bay Company even exceeded holiday sales before the pandemic. At the same time, U.S. consumers who shopped at department store companies spent more on average in November and December 2021 than they did during the same months in 2019.
January 21, 2022
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Business
QSR Q4 Recap
After recovering from Delta’s effects in October, nationwide dining visits promptly fell once more as the Omicron variant gained ground. Yet, it looks like the impact of each successive wave becomes more and more short-lived, because by December 2021 – as the United States continues to battle its fifth COVID wave – dining foot traffic rose once again to near-2019 levels. So, how are the dining fluctuations affecting QSR visits? We dove into the data for major burger and chicken fast-food chains to find out.
The financial industry is increasingly concerned with social sustainability, which has resulted in huge interest in Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) roles in this sector. And these positions have been growing most within private equity, where ESG has outpaced growth of other roles since 2020. ESG Hiring Rates have been growing steadily in the last decade. Most notably, hiring rates appear to spike in the aftermath of major social movements.
Total construction starts were flat in December with a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $879.3 billion, according to Dodge Construction Network. Residential construction starts gained 4% in December 2021, while nonresidential building starts improved by 3%. Nonbuilding starts, however, declined 12%. Across 2021, total construction starts rose by 12% compared to 2020. Residential starts moved 20% higher, and nonresidential buildings increased 12%. Nonbuilding starts were flat in 2021.
The New Year usually brings with it a slew of diet and fitness resolutions. Along with new workout routines often comes new workout wear and gear. In today’s Insight Flash, we take advantage of the basket-level detail provided by our CE Receipt data to examine how January online sales for companies selling these products usually compare to the rest of the year, and how January-to-date is tracking so far.
In 2021, the world adapted to an ongoing pandemic. New variants kept the world on COVID alert. Industries shifted, rebounded and re-emerged; working styles adapted and consumers doubled down on their mobile-first habits: choosing to spend more time on their mobile phones than watching TV. In this new normal, the app economy continued to prosper. In App Annie's State of Mobile 2022 Report, we reveal another astonishing year for app developers, with revenue, downloads and time spent all soaring to new levels.
Our latest white paper dives into the coffee space, which has been flourishing over the past six months despite the successive COVID waves and even as the wider dining category continues to struggle. We dove into the location analytics data to find out – Who is driving the growth? What brands are the main beneficiaries of this foot traffic increase? Are there any regional differences? And what business opportunities does foot traffic data uncover?
The end of 2021 marked the release of a huge batch of new games, including Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker on December 7, and the eagerly-awaited Halo Infinite, which dropped on December 8. In addition to new releases from AAA publishers, there was also a flurry of new games from indie studios, including Loop Hero from Four Quarters and Anvil: Vault Breakers from Action Square.
Thanks to the COVID-19 pet-boom, there are more furry-friends in our lives than ever before. In fact, the number of households in the U.S. that have at least one pet is at its all-time high – 70% according to the American Pet Products Association (APPA). It should come as no surprise then that total visits to the top 100 pet food websites jumped nearly 40% year-over-year (YoY) worldwide. Whether it’s because of ease, COVID-19 precautions, or personal preference, website traffic trends show a clear shift in consumer preference towards shopping for common goods online, pet supply brands included.
When many Americans sheltered in their homes early in the coronavirus pandemic, meal delivery sales reached new heights. Our data reveals that in December 2021, sales for meal delivery services grew 13 percent year-over-year, collectively. The ongoing pandemic may also be driving more Americans to make their first meal delivery purchase. In December 2021, 50 percent of U.S. consumers had ever ordered from one of the meal delivery services in our analysis, up from 45 percent a year ago.
When U.S. cities and states faced shelter-in-place orders to limit the spread of the coronavirus, Americans’ reduced mobility resulted in plummeting sales at rideshare companies. With the exception of a late 2020 dip, sales have been gradually recovering since April 2020. Uber sales were up 147 percent year-over-year and Lyft sales were up 117 percent year-over-year in December 2021. The breakdown of December 2021 sales between Uber and Lyft reveals that market share has remained stable, relative to prior months.
In South East Asia, Gojek and Grab remain to be the two biggest ride-hailing mobility players, just like Uber and Lyft in the US. A lot has happened to both companies in Southeast Asia in the past year: Gojek announced its merger with Tokopedia and became GoTo Group; Grab app just finished its bell-ringing ceremony at Nasdaq with the biggest SPAC deal (NASDAQ: GRAB).
In this Placer Bytes, we break down the impact of Omicron on the office recovery and check in on the comebacks of AMC and GameStop. When we last checked in on the office recovery in New York City, we discussed the new obstacle caused by the Omicron variant and rising case numbers. And, as expected, the variant did impact the recovery, driving an increased visit gap in December 2021 when comparing visits to the equivalent months in 2019: While visits were down just 35.1%, the gap did increase to 39.7% in December.
In the United States, mobile shopping leaders in 2021 slightly favored logistics heavyweights, but it’s wearing off. Amazon maintained its #1 position from 2020 and Shopify’s Shop app moved up one spot to #3 after a year of strategic partnerships essentially made the app a hub for tracking the transit of all your non-Amazon orders. You can find our full list of 2021 worldwide download leaders here, and compare them with 2020's most downloaded apps. If you need to fully understand what a download is and what it does/does not measure, we have that for you as well.
2022 is here, and it is time to give 2021 one last look before diving headlong into the new year. Whereas 2020 was a historic year for mostly undesirable reasons, 2021 will be a year multifamily industry participants reference and discuss for a long time to come. The story of 2021 was generational apartment demand and rent growth. Pent up demand from 2020, economic re-opening, stimulus efforts, population migration, changing renter preferences, and more fueled one of the most active years on record for the industry. As always, numbers will refer to properties of at least 50 units.
