Temu, a procuring app from Chinese language e-commerce big Pinduoduo, is having fairly the run because the No. 1 app on the U.S. app shops. The cell procuring app hit the highest spot on the U.S. App Retailer in September and has continued to carry a highly-ranked place within the months that adopted, together with because the No. 1 free app on Google Play since December 29, 2022. Extra lately, Temu once more snagged the No. 1 place once more on the iOS App Retailer on January 3 and hasn’t dropped since — even outpacing competitor Shein’s every day installs within the U.S.
Providing low-cost factory-to-consumer items, Temu offers entry to a variety of merchandise, together with quick vogue, and pushes customers to share the app with associates in trade at no cost merchandise, which can account for a few of its progress. Nevertheless, the big majority of its new installs come from Temu’s advertising and marketing spend, it appears.
When TechCrunch lined Temu’s rise in November, the app had then seen a little bit greater than 5 million installs within the U.S., in response 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 by way of December 31.
In line with Sensor Tower estimates, Temu has managed to attain a complete of 19 million lifetime installs throughout the U.S. App Retailer and Google Play, greater than 18 million of which got here from the U.S.
The expansion now sees Temu outpacing rival Shein when it comes to every day installs. In October, Temu was averaging round 43,000 every day installs within the U.S., the agency mentioned, 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 procuring app’s quick rise remembers how the video leisure platform TikTok grew to turn out to be probably the most downloaded app worldwide in 2021, after years of outsized progress. The video app topped 2 billion lifetime downloads by 2020, together with sister app Douyin in China, Sensor Tower mentioned. Mixed, the TikTok apps have now reached 4.1 billion installs.
Like Temu, a lot of TikTok’s early progress was pushed by advertising and marketing spend. The video app grew its footprint within the U.S. and overseas by closely leveraging Fb, Instagram, and Snapchat’s personal advert platforms to accumulate its clients. TikTok was famously mentioned to have spent $1 billion on advertisements in 2018, even turning into Snap’s greatest advertiser that 12 months, as an example.
By investing in person acquisition upfront, TikTok was capable of acquire a following which then improved its potential to personalize its For You feed with suggestions. Over time, this algorithm turned superb at recognizing what movies would entice probably the most curiosity because of this funding, turning TikTok into one of many most addictive apps when it comes to time spent. As of 2020, youngsters and teenagers started spending extra time watching TikTok than they did on YouTube. And earlier this month, Insider Intelligence knowledge indicated all TikTok customers within the U.S. had been now spending a median of almost 1 hour per day on the app (55.8 minutes), in contrast with simply 47.5 minutes on YouTube, together with YouTube TV.
Whereas Temu is nowhere close to TikTok’s sky-high figures, it seems to be leveraging an identical progress technique. The corporate is closely investing in promoting to accumulate customers, which it makes use of to personalize the procuring expertise. One among Temu’s key options, in actual fact, is its personal kind of For You web page that encourages customers to browse trending gadgets “Chosen for You.” Along with gamification parts, Temu additionally places heavy emphasis on recommending retailers and merchandise on its residence web page, which is knowledgeable by its person knowledge.
However the app’s progress doesn’t appear to be pushed by social media. Whereas the Temu hashtag (#temu) on TikTok is nearing 250 million views, that’s not likely a exceptional quantity for an app as massive as TikTok the place one thing like #canine has 120.5 billion views. (Or, for a extra direct comparability, #shein has 48.3 billion views.) That means Temu’s rise isn’t essentially powered by viral movies amongst Gen Z customers or influencer advertising and marketing, however reasonably extra conventional digital promoting.
In line with Meta’s advert library, as an example, Temu has run some 8,800 advertisements throughout Meta’s varied platforms simply this month. The advertisements promote Temu’s gross sales and its extraordinarily discounted gadgets, like $5 necklaces, $4 shirts, and $13 sneakers, amongst different offers. These advertisements seem like working to spice up Temu’s installs, permitting the app to keep up its No. 1 slot on the App Retailer’s “Prime Free” charts, that are closely influenced by the variety of downloads and obtain velocity, amongst different issues.
In fact, having a excessive variety of downloads doesn’t essentially imply Temu’s app will keep a excessive variety of month-to-month lively customers. Nor does it imply these customers received’t churn out of the app after their preliminary curiosity has been abated. Nonetheless, Temu’s obtain progress noticed it rating because the No. 1 “Breakout” procuring app by downloads within the U.S. for 2022, in response to knowledge.ai’s year-end “State of Cellular” report. (Knowledge.ai calculates “Breakout” apps when it comes to year-over-year progress throughout iOS and Google Play.)
As a result of Temu’s progress is more moderen, the app didn’t earn a place on the Prime 10 apps in 2022 in both the U.S. or globally when it comes to downloads, client spend, or month-to-month lively customers, on this report. As a substitute, most of these spots nonetheless went to social media apps, streamers, and courting apps like Bumble and Tinder. The one retailer to discover a spot on these lists was Amazon, which was the No. 7 app worldwide by lively customers and the No. 8 most downloaded within the U.S.
Temu’s advertising and marketing funding could not repay in addition to TikTok’s did, although, as different low cost procuring apps noticed related progress solely to later fail as shoppers discovered that, really, $2 shirts and denims had been offers that had been too good to be true. Want famously fumbled as shoppers grew pissed off with lengthy supply instances, pretend listings, lacking orders, poor customer support, and different issues shoppers count on from on-line retail within the age of Amazon.
Temu right this moment holds a 4.7-star ranking on the U.S. App Retailer, however these rankings have turn out to be much less reliable through the years because of the ease with which firms can get away with pretend evaluations. Dig into the evaluations additional and also you’ll discover related complaints to Want, together with scammy listings, broken and delayed deliveries, incorrect orders and lack of customer support. With out addressing these points, Temu appears extra prone to go the way in which of Want, not TikTok, it doesn’t matter what it spends.
