UAE mobile e-commerce sales surge 43% during White Friday

White Friday is a term first coined by Souq.com in 2014, referring to the popular Black Friday shopping festival in Western countries. In recent years, White Friday has steadily developed in the UAE and has quickly become one of the largest annual events in the country's retail industry.

According to AppsFlyer’s statistics on consumer spending through e-commerce apps, total installations of shopping apps in the UAE increased by 24% during this year’s White Friday (November 26), and overall mobile spending increased by 43%. Between February and April, mobile shopping app revenue increased by 105% before the arrival of Ramadan.

This shows that White Friday is now a popular shopping day for people in the UAE. Although the number of shopping app installations during White Friday this year increased compared to the Fridays before White Friday, the number of installations actually decreased by 41% compared to White Friday in 2020.

But this phenomenon is also a good sign for traditional physical retail stores . According to Samer Saad, Middle East regional manager of AppsFlyer, this is a trend that can be seen in other countries. As the epidemic situation gradually improves, people are now more willing to return to offline physical stores for consumption.

That being said, AppsFlyer data also shows that despite a decline in mobile app installations compared to last year's White Friday, users' overall spending levels actually increased by 43% during White Friday 2021. This means that consumers' average spending has increased compared to last year.

Saad also mentioned that consumer confidence has increased given the UAE’s rapid recovery over the past 12 months and the positive impact of Expo 2020 and other government initiatives on the country’s economy.

Mobile applications have become an important link between consumers and businesses. It is reported that 91% of UAE companies currently provide mobile applications to their customers. Mobile marketing has gradually become the key to helping companies stand out and occupy market share.

Cross-border e-commerce market