Esselunga app monthly active users (MAU) in Italy 2020

Over March 2020, about 354 thousand Italian android users shopped through the app of the food retailer Esselunga. Between January and March 2020, according to airnowplc.com, the number of Android monthly active users (MAU) more than doubled, while it was lower on iOS devices, with only 91,749 MAUs. Likewise, the number of downloads peaked in March 2020, when the Esselunga app was downloaded nearly 155 thousand from the Google Play Store.

Online food retail

The online marketplace of the supermarket chain Esselunga is not the only player reporting a successful performance in Italy. Supermercato24, a food marketplace that provides products from different grocery retailers, reported increasing number of mobile downloads and unique users over March 2020. In fact, since the lockdown due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) was extended to the whole country, Italian consumers seemed to prefer online shopping rather than visiting physical stores.

Successful e-grocery after the pandemic?

The surge of online grocery shopping during the lockdown encouraged a purchasing behavior which was already on the rise. In Italy, the value of groceries sold online increased from 0.5 billion euros in 2016 to 1.6 billion euros as of 2019.