Temu, a buying app from Chinese e-commerce large Pinduoduo, is having fairly the run because the No. 1 app on the U.S. app shops. The cell buying app hit the highest spot on the U.S. App Store in September and has continued to maintain a highly-ranked place within the months that adopted, together with because the No. 1 free app on Google Play since December 29, 2022. More just lately, Temu once more snagged the No. 1 place once more on the iOS App Store on January 3 and hasn’t dropped since — even outpacing competitor Shein’s every day installs within the U.S.
Offering low cost factory-to-consumer items, Temu gives entry to a variety of merchandise, together with quick style, and pushes customers to share the app with associates in trade totally free merchandise, which can account for a few of its development. However, the big majority of its new installs come from Temu’s advertising spend, it appears.
When TechCrunch lined Temu’s rise in November, the app had then seen somewhat greater than 5 million installs within the U.S., in accordance to knowledge from app intelligence agency Sensor Tower, making the U.S. its largest market. Now, the agency says the app has seen 5 million U.S. installs this January alone, up 19% from 4.2 million within the prior 22 days from December 10 via December 31.
According to Sensor Tower estimates, Temu has managed to obtain a complete of 19 million lifetime installs throughout the U.S. App Store and Google Play, greater than 18 million of which got here from the U.S.
The development now sees Temu outpacing rival Shein by way of every day installs. In October, Temu was averaging round 43,000 every day installs within the U.S., the agency stated, whereas Shein averaged about 62,000. In November, Temu’s common every day installs grew to 185,000 whereas Shein’s climbed to 70,000 and final month, Temu averaged 187,000 installs whereas Shein noticed about 62,000.
The buying app’s quick rise recollects how the video leisure platform TikTok grew to grow to be probably the most downloaded app worldwide in 2021, after years of outsized development. The video app topped 2 billion lifetime downloads by 2020, together with sister app Douyin in China, Sensor Tower stated. Combined, the TikTok apps have now reached 4.1 billion installs.
Like Temu, a lot of TikTok’s early development was pushed by advertising spend. The video app grew its footprint within the U.S. and overseas by closely leveraging Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat’s personal advert platforms to purchase its clients. TikTok was famously stated to have spent $1 billion on adverts in 2018, even turning into Snap’s largest advertiser that yr, as an illustration.
By investing in consumer acquisition upfront, TikTok was in a position to acquire a following which then improved its capability to personalize its For You feed with suggestions. Over time, this algorithm grew to become excellent at recognizing what movies would entice probably the most curiosity thanks to this funding, turning TikTok into some of the addictive apps by way of time spent. As of 2020, children and teenagers started spending extra time watching TikTok than they did on YouTube. And earlier this month, Insider (*1*) knowledge indicated all TikTok customers within the U.S. had been now spending a mean of practically 1 hour per day on the app (55.8 minutes), in contrast with simply 47.5 minutes on YouTube, together with YouTube TV.
While Temu is nowhere close to TikTok’s sky-high figures, it seems to be leveraging an identical development strategy. The firm is closely investing in promoting to purchase customers, which it makes use of to personalize the buying expertise. One of Temu’s key options, in actual fact, is its personal kind of For You web page that encourages customers to browse trending objects “Selected for You.” In addition to gamification parts, Temu additionally places heavy emphasis on recommending retailers and merchandise on its residence web page, which is knowledgeable by its consumer knowledge.
But the app’s development doesn’t appear to be pushed by social media. While the Temu hashtag (#temu) on TikTok is nearing 250 million views, that’s not likely a exceptional quantity for an app as huge as TikTok the place one thing like #canines has 120.5 billion views. (Or, for a extra direct comparability, #shein has 48.3 billion views.) That suggests Temu’s rise isn’t essentially powered by viral movies amongst Gen Z customers or influencer advertising, however moderately extra conventional digital promoting.
According to Meta’s advert library, as an illustration, Temu has run some 8,800 adverts throughout Meta’s numerous platforms simply this month. The adverts promote Temu’s gross sales and its extraordinarily discounted objects, like $5 necklaces, $4 shirts, and $13 sneakers, amongst different offers. These adverts seem to be working to increase Temu’s installs, permitting the app to keep its No. 1 slot on the App Store’s “Top Free” charts, that are closely influenced by the variety of downloads and obtain velocity, amongst different issues.
Of course, having a excessive variety of downloads doesn’t essentially imply Temu’s app will keep a excessive variety of month-to-month energetic customers. Nor does it imply these customers received’t churn out of the app after their preliminary curiosity has been abated. Still, Temu’s obtain development noticed it rating because the No. 1 “Breakout” buying app by downloads within the U.S. for 2022, in accordance to knowledge.ai’s year-end “State of Mobile” report. (Data.ai calculates “Breakout” apps by way of year-over-year development throughout iOS and Google Play.)
Because Temu’s development is newer, the app didn’t earn a place on the Top 10 apps in 2022 in both the U.S. or globally by way of downloads, client spend, or month-to-month energetic customers, on this report. Instead, most of these spots nonetheless went to social media apps, streamers, and relationship apps like Bumble and Tinder. The solely retailer to discover a spot on these lists was Amazon, which was the No. 7 app worldwide by energetic customers and the No. 8 most downloaded within the U.S.
Temu’s advertising funding might not repay in addition to TikTok’s did, although, as different low cost buying apps noticed related development solely to later fail as customers discovered that, truly, $2 shirts and denims had been offers that had been too good to be true. Wish famously fumbled as customers grew pissed off with lengthy supply instances, pretend listings, lacking orders, poor customer support, and different issues customers count on from on-line retail within the age of Amazon.
Temu at this time holds a 4.7-star score on the U.S. App Store, however these rankings have grow to be much less reliable over time due to the benefit with which firms can get away with pretend critiques. Dig into the critiques additional and also you’ll discover related complaints to Wish, together with scammy listings, broken and delayed deliveries, incorrect orders and lack of customer support. Without addressing these points, Temu appears extra doubtless to go the way in which of Wish, not TikTok, it doesn’t matter what it spends.
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