Almost half (47%) of all smartphone owners in the U.S. use mobile shopping apps, with established online players eBay and Amazon.com leading in popularity, according to new research.
The study, from Nielsen, indicates that 45 million people, or 47% of all smartphone owners, used mobile apps in the Nielsen-defined Shopping/Commerce category in June.
Nielsen projected those findings from a survey of 5,000 iOS and Android users who agreed to have Nielsen install app-use tracking software on their phones. It was Nielsen’s first study of a particular category of mobile app.
The results don’t mean that consumers are necessarily buying things on their phones. In fact, most of the top 10 apps in the category just help users find deals or organize their shopping.
Nielsen’s software doesn’t look into users’ mobile purchases.
Major brands already well-known for online buying are also behind the most-used smartphone shopping apps. In June the eBay and Amazon apps topped the list, attracting 13 million and 12 million unique users, respectively. Likewise, traditional retailers like Target and Walgreens received significant mobile traffic from savvy shoppers looking to find the best deals in their local retail stores.
“Retailers are finding that consumers are willing to use smartphone apps to enhance their shopping experience, and this data shows usage of shopping apps is growing,” said Don Kellogg, Director of Telecom Insights at Nielsen.
Daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial saw more than 10 million Americans using their apps during June 2012. Apps like Shopkick, Out of Milk, and RedLaser rounded out the list of top 10 shopping apps in June, reflecting the unique opportunities for apps to engage shoppers in retail locations.
“As more Americans use their smartphones while shopping and making purchases directly through apps, retailers should consider personalizing their targeted offerings around the needs of individual consumers,” said Kellogg.
The popularity of mobile shopping apps is growing, at least for the top names. The estimated unique users for eBay Mobile in June were up by 31 percent from January, according to Nielsen. Amazon Mobile’s went up by 35 percent. Those gains outpaced the market-share growth of smartphones as a whole. Over the same period, smartphones went from 48 percent to 54.9 percent of all mobile phones in the U.S., according to Nielsen.
