State of eCommerce 2026: Mobile User Growth Stabilises While Website Traffic Reaches New Highs

The global eCommerce industry is entering a new era shaped by channel transformation, market shifts and evolving competitive dynamics. As regulatory policies and tariff frameworks continue to reshape cross-border commerce, changing consumer behavior is also elevating the strategic importance of the web channel as brands seek new avenues for growth and customer acquisition.

This report analyses the latest trends shaping the global eCommerce landscape, with a focus on traffic dynamics, regional market performance, leading platform strategies, category developments and benchmark brand performance. It examines how user engagement is evolving across web and mobile channels, how major players are adapting their growth strategies and where new opportunities are emerging across fashion, beauty and fast-growing markets.

Global eCommerce Website Traffic Reaches Record Highs as Mobile User Growth Stabilises

Global eCommerce website traffic continued to climb in 2025, reaching new highs in both visits and unique visitors. In Q4 2025, website visits increased 9% year over year, while unique visitors grew 21%, setting new records across the industry. Meanwhile, after reaching peak levels in 2024–2025, mobile user growth and engagement have stabilised at consistently high levels.

The global eCommerce market continues to exhibit strong seasonality, with major shopping events such as Black Friday, Christmas and New Year driving annual traffic peaks across both web and mobile channels. As consumer behavior evolves, the web channel is increasingly re-emerging as a critical touchpoint for customer acquisition and growth, complementing the mature but highly engaged mobile ecosystem.

India stood out as the strongest-performing eCommerce web market. Over the past 12 months, the country recorded nearly 58 billion website visits, ranking first globally and growing 28% YoY – significantly outpacing other markets. On mobile, while overall app downloads remained relatively stable, Africa led growth with a 26% YoY increase, emerging as a key driver of global eCommerce app expansion.

Temu Becomes the World's Second-Largest Cross-Platform eCommerce Platform, While SHEIN's Website Visitors Surge 70% YoY

Amazon remains the industry's clear leader thanks to its scale across both web and mobile channels, although growth has moderated on both fronts. Temu ranked second globally in both mobile and web audience size, with mobile MAU growing 24% YoY, significantly outpacing other leading eCommerce apps.

Meanwhile, SHEIN continued to expand its web audience, with website unique visitors surging 70% YoY in Q1 2026, the fastest growth rate among major global eCommerce platforms. Despite this rapid growth, its web audience remains smaller than its mobile MAU.

Leading platforms including Alibaba.com, Meesho and Shopee are also strengthening their web acquisition strategies, with website audience growth significantly outpacing the broader industry average.

Fashion eCommerce Website Visits and Unique Visitors Surge 54% and 64% YoY

In Q1 2026, fashion eCommerce websites recorded 54% YoY growth in visits and 64% growth in unique visitors, significantly outperforming mobile channels. While app downloads increased modestly, time spent declined, suggesting that consumer shopping journeys are increasingly shifting toward the web. For fashion brands, enhancing website experience and conversion performance has become a critical driver of overall business growth.

Fashion eCommerce website traffic increased across all major markets. India remained the world's largest fashion eCommerce market, averaging nearly 1.4 billion monthly website visits. Pakistan (+109.3%) and India (+98.3%) nearly doubled their traffic YoY, emerging as the primary drivers of growth. Brazil (+51.0%) and Türkiye (+57.8%) also recorded growth exceeding 50%, highlighting broad-based momentum across leading markets, with particularly strong gains in emerging economies.

Nykaa FY2026 Net Profit Surges 183% as Cross-Platform Audience Continues to Expand

Nykaa is India's leading beauty eCommerce platform, leveraging its omnichannel retail, content community and owned-brand strategy to maintain a dominant position in the country's online beauty market. According to company financials, revenue grew consistently from FY2022 to FY2026, with FY2026 revenue surpassing INR 100 billion and net profit jumping 183% year over year to INR 2.04 billion.

Sensor Tower data shows that both Nykaa's website audience and mobile user base have continued to grow since April 2023. During the November 2025 shopping season, the platform reached record highs of more than 40 million website unique visitors and over 21 million mobile MAUs.

In Q1 2026, traffic referrals from Wishlink and Instagram to Nykaa's website grew significantly, highlighting the increasing importance of content-driven affiliate marketing and social commerce in driving web acquisition. This suggests that consumer purchase journeys are shifting from direct search to content-led discovery.

At the same time, traffic originating from Amazon declined by 11.4%, while the share of users navigating from Nykaa to Amazon fell 15.8%, indicating strengthening brand affinity and a reduced reliance on third-party comparison and marketplace platforms.

In Q1 2026, Nykaa's share of digital ad impressions declined across five of India's largest metropolitan markets – New Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Pune – while the share of impressions from all other metropolitan areas increased from 57.2% to 61.9%. This shift suggests that Nykaa is gradually reducing advertising spend in mature Tier 1 cities and reallocating investment toward Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and emerging regional markets, making geographic expansion a key pillar of its 2026 marketing strategy.

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This article was written by Rui Ma, Senior Analyst, APAC at Sensor Tower, and authorised by Nan Lu, VP of Marketing, APAC. Please credit Sensor Tower if you wish to reprint or share this content.

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