eCommerce Apps in Brazil: Growth and Future

A few weeks ago, Appsflyer shared The State of eCommerce Apps Brazil, a report that shows relevant data of this region and provides great insights for this vertical that has been growing a lot: eCommerce. Below, you’ll be able to see some interesting highlights presented in the report that can help you build your strategy to be more effective or even open your eyes to new opportunities in the region.

The year 2020 changed people's behavior due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as people were forced to adapt to it. This new behavior impacted in a way that was never seen before by traditional companies, digital companies, and especially apps. One trend that we can see is that the digital habit of using more apps, spending more online, and being more connected is not going away even though the numbers of the pandemic are improving and vaccination is advancing at a good pace. The figures presented by the report show that.

The consumer spending on eCommerce apps has seen a 55% year-over-year increase in Brazil, that is an astonishing increase, with a trend so strong year over year, there are a few experts that are expecting the greatest quarter of all time in terms of revenue, in the last quarter of this year, due to the holidays.

In-App Shopping Revenue Trends per Platform

This huge revenue growth is closely related to the growth of downloads of eCommerce apps in Brazil. Brazil is now the leading market for shopping app installations on Android, accounting for 19% of total app installations worldwide. It also ranks 2nd among iOS markets, with 9% of total installs in this vertical on iOS. The vast number of users tied with a good app experience can drive impressive revenue.

One of the biggest issues for the marketers in the region is acquiring users, since the opportunity of the market is evident, there are several competitors working hard and creating aggressive strategies to get as many users as they can to download and make purchases on their apps. Brazil reached the second largest market in spending on app installation ads, only behind the United States. That is a clear sign of the maturity of the advertisers of Brazil and the competitivity of the market.

eCommerce App Installation Ad Spend in Brazil (Q4 2020 and Q1 2021)

Great part of this investment was dedicated to acquiring new users. We can see that the Non-Organic Installations (NOI's) grew a lot, despite the rising cost of media in the region. With the 50% annual increase in media cost on Android, marketers spent 62% more to get 25% more non-organic installs. This rise might be the result of the pandemic since every brand needed to switch fast to digital and migrate most of their efforts to this platform, this saturated the market and made the prices go up due to the high demand of advertisers to new users.

Also, the higher cost of iOS CPI (cost per install) was mostly driven by iOS 14 and the growing competition for users with full granularity, before the migration to aggregate data. The eCommerce apps in Brazil had one of the biggest increases in CPI last year, reaching 171% (March 2020 to March 2021), with an average of $2.88 per installation. Android doubled its CPI between March 2020 and March 2021, while iOS apps had a 204% increase during the same period. Still, we can see in the graph below that even though the prices of media are going up, app marketers continue to invest substantially to acquire new users, the non-organic installations account for over 80% of eCommerce app installations in Brazil.

eCommerce - Brazil, non-organic app installation trends per platform

Brazil is one of the hottest and most promising mobile markets in the world at the moment. It had almost 1 billion eCommerce app downloads in one year and reached the outstanding mark of the largest Android market for eCommerce around the globe. To take advantage of the moment Brazil is living, marketers should focus specifically on well-developed acquisition and retention strategies. Pushing users not only to try their apps and products for the first time but also to have a recurrent engagement with them. This is a result also of a good app experience, revenue, and great mobile experience that go hand in hand.

The mobile market is changing, we are seeing media prices go up, a more reduced level of data granularity in iOS, remarketing losing its power, etc… So advertisers need to adapt quickly to be able to exploit the great moment Brazil is living in.

Rocket Lab can help you with that, we have a lot of experience in the region, tech that can understand your target and find valuable users, and a local team that gives all the needed support. Get in touch with us!


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