Retail in Asia

In Trends

Mobile retail apps a hit with Indian shoppers

flipkart-mobile-app

A report on the rise of mobile retail in India by mobile analytics firm App Annie says that Indian smartphone users have been spending 11x more time on mobile retail apps in Q1 2016 compared to the same time period in 2014 – marking a significant shift from physical shopping to e-commerce in the country.

App Annie projects growth in India’s app stores downloads to balloon by 92 percent to 7.7 billion this year, reaching 20.1 billion by 2020.

The huge rise in app usage signals a higher smartphone adoption rate in the country, particularly among the rising middle classes, according to the report. The surge is also good news for India’s retail app market, as mobile e-commerce represented nearly 50 percent of online retail sales in 2015.

The retail app with the highest number of monthly active users on Android devices in the country is Bangalore-based Flipkart, followed by Amazon India – which indicates a preference for local marketplaces. Other most-used apps include Paytm, Snapdeal, and Myntra.

Despite the preference, foreign players like Amazon and Wish have made significant progress in the past couple of years. Amazon became the most-downloaded app from Apple and Google’s app stores in the first quarter of 2016.

(Source: Tech Wire Asia)