SHEIN surpasses Amazon! It becomes the most downloaded shopping app in the United States

Amazon’s dominant position in cross-border e-commerce platform has been repeatedly challenged!

China's largest fast fashion B2C cross-border e-commerce company with an independent station model has once again achieved great results!

According to the latest report from mobile data platform Apptopia, in the first half of 2022, SHEIN successfully surpassed Amazon to become the most downloaded shopping app in the United States.

In fact, this is not the first time that SHEIN has replaced Amazon. Outside the United States, SHEIN's download data and other data are also very impressive.

SHEIN, which is popular among overseas consumers, was revealed to have completed its latest round of financing this year. Its estimated valuation has reached US$100 billion, exceeding the combined valuations of H&M and Zara, and is only slightly behind ByteDance ($140 billion) and SpaceX ($100.3 billion). It is the world's third largest unicorn company.

SHEIN surpasses Amazon! It becomes the most downloaded shopping app in the United States in the first half of this year

Apptopia’s latest report data shows that in the first half of 2022 , SHEIN ranked ahead of Amazon in both the global shopping app and US download lists .

Globally, the top three e-commerce shopping apps in terms of downloads are Meesho , Shopee and SHEIN . All three have successfully exceeded 100 million downloads , with Amazon currently ranking fourth.

In the US market, SHEIN has achieved even more impressive results, becoming the most downloaded shopping app in the United States.

Among them, SHEIN had 22.4 million downloads , while Amazon had 22 million downloads, followed by Walmart, Shop, Fetch Rewards, Klarna, Etsy, OfferUp, eBay, and Nike.

As can be seen from the download data, SHEIN far exceeds platforms such as Etsy, but the gap with Amazon is not very large. However, this is still something worth paying attention to.

As a clothing giant, SHEIN's business is mainly fast fashion clothing. Although it covers clothing, accessories, shoes and bags, jewelry, home furnishings, beauty, home textiles and other categories, its categories are still relatively single compared to Amazon. Amazon is recognized as the largest global foreign trade trading platform, covering all categories of goods including clothing, and has always been popular with consumers.

According to Statista data in 2020, 26% of global consumers choose Amazon as their preferred cross-border e-commerce platform. In the US e-commerce market, 75% of consumers directly choose Amazon to shop, and 2/3 of consumers choose the platform as the first stop for product search . Amazon covers consumers with strong purchasing power in developed countries and regions such as the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan.

Thanks to its good consumer base, Amazon's dominant position in cross-border e-commerce platforms has been difficult to shake, but this situation is now being rewritten.

The popularity remains high, but SHEIN still has room for growth

Throughout 2021, Amazon's downloads still ranked first among shopping apps in the United States, but its global downloads dropped from the first place in 2020 to the fourth. SHEIN has emerged as the second most downloaded shopping app in the world, with 190 million downloads, a 70% increase from 2020. Since the beginning of this year, SHEIN's app download ranking has been rising all the way, successfully snatching the download crown in the US market from Amazon, which once again proves that SHEIN's strength should not be underestimated!

Data shows that in the fast fashion field in the European and American markets, SHEIN's market share was only 7% in 2020, but it became 30% in 2021, and its revenue has increased by more than 100% for eight consecutive years.

It is worth noting that although SHEIN's downloads have exceeded Amazon, its clothing revenue is still lower than Amazon.

According to Bloomberg , SHEIN 's revenue was $16 billion in 2021. According to MarketWatch , as early as 2020, Amazon's apparel business revenue had grown to $41 billion, surpassing retailers such as Target and Walmart to become the top online clothing store.

Amazon is feeling the challenge from SHEIN, and conversely, SHEIN is also facing pressure from competitors such as Amazon.

In addition, SHEIN has been facing accusations of "infringement" in recent years. According to foreign media reports, another American freelance artist recently filed a lawsuit against SHEIN for infringement, demanding more than $100 million in compensation.

All these news indicate that SHEIN, which has already become famous overseas , actually still has a lot of room for growth.

With a valuation of $100 billion , SHEIN plans to IPO in the US in 2024 ?

There is actually a lot to talk about SHEIN, and the first word that comes to mind is "listing".

At the beginning of this year, SHEIN, which had been rumored to be going public several times , was once again rumored to be going public. At that time, people familiar with the matter said that SHEIN was considering restarting its IPO plan in the United States, which would be listed as early as this year, and had hired Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase to be responsible for the IPO. However, it was later denied that the company currently had no plans to go public.

Not long after the denial, SHEIN recently announced news of its listing.

Chinese fast fashion giant SHEIN hopes to conduct an initial public offering in the United States as early as 2024 , Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter .

The report quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that SHEIN was raising a $1 billion round of financing at the beginning of this year. After this round of financing, SHEIN's valuation may be as high as $100 billion. During the financing period, SHEIN expressed to investors its hope to go public as early as 2024.

Is this rumor true? Regardless of the truth, SHEIN, which has advantages in price, traffic and supply chain, does face questions related to the environment, society and corporate governance (ESG), which may become obstacles to its IPO.

Is the rise of SHEIN good for cross-border sellers?

In the eyes of some cross-border sellers, although SHEIN and Amazon are not complete competitors, every time good news about SHEIN comes, the editor has observed that there will always be sellers applauding: support the rise of SHEIN and do not let Amazon dominate the market.

The reason is that sellers are worried that Amazon will become too dominant and impose too harsh sales conditions on platform sellers, so they hope that a cross-border e-commerce platform with equal strength will emerge to compete with Amazon.

Judging from the data, Amazon's penetration rate in the online market is indeed very high.

Taking the United States as an example, online sales growth is showing a slowing trend due to the overall environment , but Amazon's share of the US e-commerce market is still growing in 2021, ranking first among the top 1,000 companies , with total sales accounting for 41.8% of total US online sales . This shows Amazon's position in the hearts of consumers.

Still, Amazon can't ignore the threat from SHEIN and others.

In May, Sensor Tower conducted a study on the top 10 most used apps in the U.S. for package tracking, grocery delivery, and online shopping (excluding peer-to-peer marketplaces like eBay and OfferUp).

Among all online shopping applications, Amazon leads with 59% of monthly active users, but its monthly active users have dropped by 16% compared with the data in the first quarter of 2021. The reason for the decline is most likely because SHEIN's monthly active users climbed from 6% in the first quarter of 2021 to 14%, grabbing Amazon's share.

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