It’s boom time for shopping apps. With mega-sale events and regional e-commerce festivals heating up the market, mobile shopping activity is peaking, and there’s no slowdown in sight. While the traditional holiday season (from Singles’ Day and Double 12 to Christmas and New Year sales) still drives significant traffic, mobile commerce in 2025 isn’t just about festive spikes anymore. It has evolved into an everyday habit, a daily opportunity for shopping apps to acquire, engage, and retain users.
Globally, mobile shopping behavior has become deeply embedded in consumer lifestyles. The shopping app market is projected to reach $2.89 trillion by the end of 2025, up from $2.1 trillion in 2023. Mobile commerce is expected to account for over 70% of total global e-commerce sales, making the competition for user attention more intense than ever.
While Asia Pacific continues to dominate, momentum is also building fast in LATAM and MENA. For instance, Southeast Asia is on track to surpass $150 billion in mobile sales by 2025, fueled by rising smartphone penetration and the shift to cashless transactions. In India, Tier II and III cities are driving 1.5x faster growth in shopping app downloads compared to national averages. Meanwhile, in mature markets like the US and Western Europe, mobile shopping sessions are up 28% year-over-year, especially for niche and hyper-personalized platforms.
But this exponential growth brings a new challenge:
In a crowded marketplace, how do you make your app stand out, and get downloaded and used regularly?
One effective tactic is aligning your app with complementary categories. For example, coupon and discount apps continue to attract deal-seeking users, with downloads up 25% YoY amid rising inflation and cautious spending. Embedding your app within such ecosystems can help you reach value-driven users right when they’re most inclined to make a purchase.
Another growing category is Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) apps. While still emerging, BNPL usage is rising rapidly among Gen Z and mobile-first shoppers, especially in emerging markets. By partnering with or targeting users of BNPL apps, shopping platforms can offer more flexibility and boost conversions.
However, if you’re aiming for sustained growth at scale, on-device app discovery is the way forward and that’s where Appnext stands out.
As one of the fastest-growing discovery platforms in emerging markets, Appnext has partnered with top Android OEMs like Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo, collectively representing 48% of the global smartphone market.
Powered by its proprietary Timeline Technology, Appnext delivers contextual and personalized app recommendations based on each user’s behavior and intent. Whether users are browsing for fashion, tech, or homeware, your app can be recommended natively from the very first moment they customize their new device and throughout their everyday mobile journey.
These recommendations appear across high-engagement placements such as, minus 1 screen, app folders, smart widgets and app drawers.
And they’re not just personalized, they’re localized, appearing in the user’s language, at the right time, and based on real-world context like location and usage patterns.
Danny Tuttnauer, COO of Appnext, commented:
“Appnext discovery solutions usher in a new era of mobile, whereby devices are no longer simply gadgets that people call upon to send an email or play some music. Instead, mobiles are unique to the individual and – effectively – intuitive. As people’s reliance on their mobiles has grown, so has the expectation that their device will be tailored to meet their needs.”
“It is impossible to overemphasize the significance of the complete discovery offering for OEMs, operators, advertisers, and for the average user.”
With consumers spending more time than ever on mobile, now is the time to rethink how you acquire users. With over 10 billion daily app recommendations delivered across 200+ markets, Appnext empowers retail apps to connect with audiences not just globally, but contextually.
User acquisition isn’t about sheer volume anymore. It’s about intent-driven engagement at scale, something Appnext makes possible through- deep integration with OEMs, intent & moment-based targeting, and transparent and self-serve discovery solutions for marketers. It’s plain to see that with Appnext on your side, your app will gain a global audience of shoppers this season.
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