Temu hits 50 million installs, but does it matter?

Temu, the ecommerce company owned by Pinduoduo, has had its mobile app installed by 50 million people since it launched in September 2022. Even with its late 2022 launch, it managed to become the 8th most downloaded shopping app in the United States last year. Both SHEIN and Wish took about 3 years to cross 50 million installs whereas it’s taken Temu about seven months. 

In the US iOS App Store, Temu has ranked as the #1 app, 69 out of the last 75 days. Recently, the app launched in Australia, New Zealand, the UK where  the it is also ranking highly and growing downloads consistently. It also launched in Canada where it has been the top ranked app for 26 days in a row on the iOS App Store. 

Last month, Temu had a 44% share of downloads among other top “everything ecommerce retailers” market that I created. Looking at the chart above, its growth seems to be directly impacting Amazon’s new app install numbers in a negative manner.

Looking back at the first chart displaying App Store rank, it appears obvious the company is buying its way to the #1 spot. Organically staying at #1 this long is just not something that happens these days with how the iOS App Store ranking algorithm works. Across iOS and Google Play, Temu is paying for more than 900 app store search terms in the US alone. If you want to learn more about Temu’s mobile ad strategy, download our latest ebook.

It also has visibility on TikTok where it is working with influencers in a manner so competitive that it caused SHEIN to sue. Temu also spent big marketing dollars with a couple of Super Bowl ads last month.

So, do all of these downloads matter if they’re not organic? Will the music stop when the paid ad machine shuts off? Temu wants to avoid being another Wish. The Wish app also sold basically everything including clothing for dirt cheap prices. Users did not come back though after poor experiences, so when paid user acquisition slowed, the users dried up.

I didn’t include Amazon or Walmart in the above because they blow both SHEIN and Temu out of the water. New downloads are indeed using Temu shortly after download as user sessions have skyrocketed above that of SHEIN before falling just a smidge below it. Wish continues to falter. Now, why might Temu not end up like Wish? It could have staying power through mobile gaming (something Netflix is trying to do) and connecting those gaming experiences with users’ friends. 

Temu app performance and user reviews will need to be monitored to get insight as to whether or not this app should really have stalwart ecommerce players viewing it as a long term threat. You can do that with Apptopia, but first, check out how other top apps are finding success by clicking the button below.