Top shopping app downloads jumped 16% on Black Friday

Brief:

Mobile shopping surged on Black Friday as many U.S. consumers avoided the lines at malls and big-box stores to grab online deals. Mobile devices were responsible for $2.1 billion in sales, or about 34% of the $6.22 billion total online haul, according to Adobe Analytics data cited by TechCrunch. That total marked a 23% gain from last year.
The top 10 shopping apps on Apple's App Store boosted their first-time downloads by 16.3% on Black Friday, adding about a half million new users, according to Sensor Tower research. Walmart's app installations jumped 39.7% to an estimated 95,000 first-time users that day, while Amazon added about 115,000 new users of its flagship app, up 11.7% from 2017.
Best Buy was the top specialty retailer in Sensor Tower's ranking with 39,000 new app installs, up 34.5% from a year earlier. Target, the third-most installed app overall, saw new app installs grow just 3.3% from the prior year to about 62,000.

Insight:

E-commerce growth increasingly is tied to mobile usage, demonstrating the importance of apps to the online success of both brick-and-mortar and online-only merchants. Consumers have shifted much of their media consumption to smartphones and tablets, which also means retailers need to be on the same platforms to lure new shoppers and engage repeat customers.

Mobile's share of e-commerce is likely to grow from the 34% seen on Black Friday this year as more consumers, especially tech-savvy younger adults, use their devices to shop. That was certainly true on Cyber Monday, as mobile transactions grew 55.6% to $2.2 billion, outpacing overall sales growth of 19.3%, according to data from Adobe Analytics cited by CNBC.

While Amazon had the highest number of app downloads from the App Store, second-place Walmart showed stronger growth from a year earlier. Amazon is expanding from a larger online user base than Walmart has, but the discount chain's faster growth rate shows that it's making inroads into Amazon's m-commerce turf. Amazon said it had record sales over the holiday weekend, including the biggest shopping day in company history on Cyber Monday.

As consumers continue turn to mobile and desktop devices to shop, foot traffic at some malls and stores declined 1% from a year earlier on Black Friday, according to researcher ShopperTrak. But brick-and-mortar stores still have a place in the mobile era. Click-and-collect orders, which let shoppers buy online and pick up at a store, surged 65% on Cyber Monday from the prior year, CNBC reported.