"Cheap is King" Chinese Shopping App Surpasses Even Danggeun Market

Chinese Overseas Direct Purchase Platform AliExpress
Foreign Media: Some Chinese Shopping Apps Pose "Critical Security Threat"

Alibaba Group's overseas direct purchase platform AliExpress has surpassed Danggeun Market to become the 'most newly installed shopping app' in South Korea over the past three years.

According to Mobile Index, a big data analysis solution by IGAWorks, Danggeun Market was newly installed 585,541 times last month, ranking second in the combined Google Play Store and Apple App Store shopping category for new installations.

[Photo by AliExpress TV Advertisement]

The first place was taken by the AliExpress app, which was installed 682,332 times.

AliExpress's new installations in February were 304,687, but this number more than doubled in just one month. Compared to the number of installations a year ago (107,198), it surged more than sixfold.

On the morning of March 9th, at the AliExpress Pop-up Store opened in K-pop Square, COEX, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Han Song-yi, Director of AliExpress, is introducing new AliExpress services such as "Choice" and "Taobao Collection." [Image source=Yonhap News]

This is the first time in 35 months since Mobile Index began analyzing combined data from the two major app markets in May 2020 that the Danggeun Market app has lost the top spot in monthly new installation rankings. Danggeun Market recorded about 1.75 million new installations in the first month of tracking and consistently ranked first with monthly new installations ranging from a minimum of 510,000 to a maximum of 1.6 million.

Industry insiders attribute AliExpress surpassing Danggeun Market in new installations to AliExpress's recent aggressive entry into the domestic market, which has led to an increase in users.

AliExpress entered the Korean market in 2018 and opened a domestic customer center last November to launch a full-scale market strategy. Ray Zhang, head of AliExpress Korea, said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency earlier this month, "We will invest about 100 billion won in the Korean market this year." AliExpress also plans to collaborate with CJ Logistics to reduce the delivery time of overseas direct purchase products, which used to take one to two weeks, to 3 to 5 days.

Top Newly Installed Shopping Apps in March 2023
[Image source: Mobile Index capture]

According to Mobile Index, the number of AliExpress app users last month was about 2.96 million, double the approximately 1.58 million users a year ago. In terms of monthly active users, AliExpress ranks 10th, far behind Coupang (1st with 27.3 million users), Danggeun Market (2nd with 15.6 million users), and 11st (3rd with 8.13 million users).

An industry official said, "Danggeun Market already has about 32 million cumulative subscribers and is somewhat saturated, so the demand for new app installations does not seem high. However, it is questionable whether a Chinese app can surpass domestic shopping apps and rank among the top in terms of user numbers."

"Chinese Shopping App 'Pinduoduo' Poses Unprecedented and Critical Security Threat"

TikTok [Photo by AP Yonhap News]

Meanwhile, concerns about the security of Chinese shopping apps have been steadily raised by foreign media.

Recently, it was confirmed that the Android app of China's major e-commerce company 'Pinduoduo' (PDD Holdings) contains malicious software capable of accessing consumers' personal information.

Earlier on the 2nd (local time), CNN reported that, based on its own commissioned analysis by experts from the US, Europe, and Asia, malicious software was found in Pinduoduo, a Chinese shopping app used by 750 million people monthly.

The malicious software is analyzed to have functions that easily bypass the security of users' mobile phones and monitor all activities through other apps, including various notifications, private messages, and even setting changes.

There are evaluations that Pinduoduo has committed an unprecedented level of personal information infringement. One expert pointed out, "Many apps collect extensive user information without explicit consent, but Pinduoduo goes beyond the existing level to an unprecedented extent, making it very unusual and critical."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.