COVID-19's impact on consumer and business behavior

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TRAVEL:

Airlines, Hotels, Ridesharing, Cruise Lines and Online Travel Agencies

FOOD & DRINK:

Food Delivery, Food & Drink

Grocery Delivery

Streaming and Gaming (coming soon)

ITALY

Classroom – Italy put itself in a nationwide quarantine but children must continue to learn. In order to do so, they’re turning to classroom apps. Outside of serious situations like this pandemic, we’ve seen the use of classroom apps rising each year in the United States.

Food delivery – I did not think food delivery apps would see a surge (unknown people handling your food) due to the virus, but as people are forced to stay home, they might not be fully prepared with food in their own homes and they’re turning to delivery.

Grocery delivery – Esselunga OnLine is a grocery delivery app, not unlike Instacart. As people try to minimize the number of people they come in contact with, this certainly feels like a safer way of stocking up on supplies.

Workplace – As people continue to self-quarantine and/or are ordered to work from home, these apps are naturally rising in many countries hit hard by the virus or in other markets as a precaution.

Medical – Medical ID has been around since 2014 but COVID-19 has boosted it on to the Google Play store ranks. The app “allows creating medical profiles that are accessible from your lock screen. In case of emergency, profiles enable quick access to vital information such as your allergies, blood type, medical contacts, etc. that are essential to attending first responders, medics or medical staff having to take action.”

CHINA

Workplace chat – Installs of workplace chat apps are rising as remote work becomes the new norm. Zoom video conferencing (not pictured below) has also been taking off worldwide, growing global DAUs 67% since January 1, 2020.

Food & Drink – Staying in China, we see an expected drop in mobile app sessions for popular Food & Drink apps. Notice KFC and Starbucks have recently had slight rebounds as they start allowing for mobile pick up orders again.

Ridesharing – Quarantines and general fear have certainly hurt local travel as we see ridesharing apps trend downward.

Streaming video – As you can imagine, people who are quarantined need to be entertained. Sessions of China’s top streaming video apps were slowing but experienced a rebound as the severity of the virus increased.

UNITED STATES

Wholesale club – As the virus spreads, people in the United States are preparing to be home for some time by stocking up on items in bulk at the nation’s top wholesale clubs. Just recently, downloads of Costco and BJs Wholesale have begun to shoot up off their typical trend lines.

SOUTH KOREA

Coronavirus-specific apps – The day of its launch (Feb. 17), the virus-tracking app Corona 100m quickly ranked in Korea among the top 60 apps in the Medical category of Google Play. By February 21, it was #1 in Medical and #1 in Top Overall. Now, it remains #1 in the Medical category, but has dipped to the top 50 Overall. Corona Map, which has a similar function, launched at the end of January. In pattern with the spread of the virus, it started ranking in the Health & Fitness category (Google Play) in Korea on February 2. It took the #1 spot of the Health & Fitness category by Feb. 18 and ranks within the top 200 Overall.

Work/school-from-home apps – Unsurprisingly, South Koreans are working and learning from home. Zoom is experiencing a major surge in downloads globally, and Korea is a key contributor. Zoom is joined by other popular school/work-from-home apps like Classting, which grew downloads in Korea over 4,000% since Feb. 1. We’ve also included eNotifier in this group, which is a smart notification system used by over 1,600 schools in Korea. In this app, schools can post notices, class polls, etc. eNotifier’s downloads are up about 630% since Feb 1. Similar to eNotifier is the IMS School App, where parents can get school/class announcements in real time.

Grocery Shopping apps – Mobile grocery delivery apps are also seeing higher engagement in South Korea. On March 5, the #1 app in the Google Play app store was Public Shopping. Using this app, you can buy and request home-delivery for everything you’d find at your local market, from fishery foods to household goods. DAU is up 307% and sessions are up 475% since Feb. 1. We’ve also seen Korea’s “post-office” app Post Kmall grow its DAU 553% since Feb. 1. Post Kmall offers competitively priced consumer goods and local products. I believe these items can be delivered or you can pick a spot to pick them up.

Entertainment apps – Netflix app sessions are up almost 15% in South Korea since Jan. 1. Other entertainment apps seeing increased engagement in the country include Watcha play and Lilith Games’ AFK Arena. More data to come on the entertainment/gaming space.