The African mobile app market continues to show strong growth, with more people accessing goods and services online than ever before.
This is among the findings from the 2021 edition of AppsFlyer’s State of E-commerce App Marketing report, which analysed over 750-million app installs across 7 250 apps, and 3-billion remarketing conversions across EMEA.
This year, retail apps are already approaching peak usage levels from the 2020 holiday season, so the e-commerce industry is entering the last quarter of 2021 with an elevated baseline.
With e-commerce installs increasing 55% on Android and 32% on iOS in 2021, and consumer spend climbing 55% overall, the Q4 holiday season is expected to be record-breaking.
“With the holiday shopping season around the corner, retail brands should be prioritising mobile, and mobile apps, as part of their strategy,” says Daniel Junowicz, regional vice-president: EMEA and strategic projects at AppsFlyer. “Marketers should look at optimising the overall user experience, including the transition from mobile web to app. In addition, deep linking can be used to ensure customers reach their intended destination within a mobile app smoothly and contextually.
“If last year is anything to go by, marketers that get their mobile app strategy right will see significant revenue and acquisition growth.”
Key insights for the African market include:
* E-commerce installs remained steady throughout 2020 but have already risen by 16% in 2021 (Q1 versus Q2).
* iOS is showing particularly strong growth, with a 33% increase in the same time frame. By comparison, retail app installs on Android haven’t changed.
* Non-organic installs dropped 26% at the start of the pandemic: Marketers throughout the region were cautious when it came to spending budget at the start of the pandemic. Non-organic installs dropped by 26% between Q1 2020 (pre-pandemic) and Q2 2020 (as the pandemic hit). However, this level of cautiousness was short-lived, with non-organic installs rising by 18% in Q3. They’ve remained steady ever since.
* Remarketing: The 2020 holiday season saw heavy usage of remarketing as marketers looked to capitalise on key shopping periods. Between Q3 and Q4 2020 there was a 22% lift in remarketing conversion rates. This reached nearly 40% when comparing October to November.
* In many iOS dominant regions, remarketing took a hit following the loss of IDFA as part of Apple’s update to iOS 14, but given Android’s dominance in sub-Saharan Africa this hasn’t been felt.
* In-app purchases increase 55% over 2020: Consumer spend fell by 50% at the start of the pandemic – between March and April – likely due to economic uncertainty as a result of lockdowns. However, as it became clear that consumers would need to adapt to digital methods of shopping in the absence of physical stores, spending quickly recovered. Indeed, between April and May 2020 there was a 256% rise in overall spending in retail apps. Overall there was a 55% increase in consumer spending in apps in 2020.
* Unsurprisingly, spending in 2020 peaked in November, coinciding with Black Friday and the lead-up to Christmas. As a result, between Q3 and Q4 there was a 60% uplift. This increase in spend has carried through to 2021. If we compare H1 2020 with H1 2021 we see a 65% increase in spending.