“App tourism” on the rise in Australia and New Zealand: report

Consumers in Australia and New Zealand explored digital alternatives and adopted mobile apps en masse amid COVID-19 lockdowns, leading to a sustained year-on-year increase in consumer in-app spending across the majority of categories.

That is according to the “State of App Marketing in Australia & New Zealand” report by App Annie and AppsFlyer, which explores the impact of the pandemic on the local mobile industry and offers guidance on how companies and brands can better analyse market opportunities.

Why it matters

Although the pandemic triggered a flurry of app downloads, lockdowns are bad for retention, with consumers increasingly trialling apps to find out which spark joy and enable them to better navigate the new normal, resulting in Australia and New Zealand experiencing a significant rise in “app tourism”.

Key insights

• The threat of mobile install fraud looms, especially among shopping and finance apps, where fraudulent installs can account for more than 50% of total downloads.
• Australia and New Zealand apps are estimated to have had a financial fraud exposure of over A$21.3 million (US$15.7 million) in the first half of 2021 alone.
• There was a sharp rise in “app tourism”, with shopping, gaming and health & fitness categories that enjoyed a surge in interest during the pandemic seeing dips from 2019 to 2021.
• Finance app downloads in Australia and New Zealand grew by 35% and 25% respectively year on year between H1 2020 and H1 2021 as the pandemic accelerated the trend away from cash.
• The introduction of Apple’s privacy-centric iOS 14 and the App Tracking Transparency framework has made remarketing more challenging, as reliance on user-level data is over.

Quote

“In many ways, the mobile app market in Australia and New Zealand has never been healthier and consumer spending has never been higher as Australians and New Zealanders double down on new mobile-first habits. But if the pandemic created ‘app tourism’, the challenge for marketers moving into 2022 will be how to get consumers to settle down more permanently” – Cindy Deng, managing director, Asia Pacific, App Annie.

Background

“The State of App Marketing in Australia & New Zealand” report leveraged App Annie’s mobile estimates used by over one million registered users, measuring downloads among 3,250 apps across [Australia and New Zealand] between Q1 2020 and Q2 2021 that have AppsFlyer’s SDK installed. This covered 237 million app installs, including 136 million non-organic app installs, across gaming, shopping, finance, food & drink, health & fitness, and social apps.