It shouldn't come as a surprise that travel apps are less in demand these days, as much of the modern world has gone into lockdown, but just how much demand has decreased is mind-blowing.
Let's start with the entire category. Here's the Mobile Download Index for the Travel category in the US:
Typically, the category is stable. Companies like Airbnb, Uber, and Lyft promote their services heavily, which results in a constant stream of downloads. However, all three have just hit their all-time lows this week, and not by a little.
Airbnb, which gets downloads roughly 20,000 times from the App Store every day in the US, has dropped to just 7,883 downloads on March 23rd. We looked back as far as 2018, and even at their lowest, daily downloads were still higher than 12,000.
These figures are from the US, but globally downloads are down just as much, a whopping 72%.
This trend has put Airbnb's planned IPO on hold, caused mass layoffs at a company Airbnb owns and pushed the company towards raising more money.
Meanwhile, staying home means we no longer need to get into random people's cars anymore, causing demand for ride-sharing giants Uber and Lyft to decline sharply. Both apps have also hit all-time lows this week, both down more than 70% in the US.
Both companies have had it rough for the last few years, and this is the last thing they were expecting. There's no doubt demand for both services will rebound as lockdowns ease up, and may even spike once physical distancing is no longer required, but will they survive until then?
December saw a curious split: downloads dropped 2% while revenue sat at $1.3B. ChatGPT and TikTok dominated both charts as the mobile industry enters a new maturity phase.
Wall Street bet $2 billion on Polymarket, and downloads surged 1,172% in December. The prediction market banned in 2022 is now where Wall Street looks for signals.