Shopsavvy clocks 40k downloads a day on iPhone and Android

Shopsavvy is the barcode scanning application from developer Big In Japan. The extremely popular Android application is a price comparison app for busy shoppers – and yesterday saw two important download stats surface. iPhone downloads have begun to rocket, adding to the roughly 40,000 downloads a day it’s seeing on Android.

What’s the story?

When you scan a barcode with ShopSavvy it provides you with information from all over the world about how much that product costs elsewhere. It allows you to comparison shop while on the go, and even provides a list of local shops that have the product, and directions to those shops on a map.

What about those downloads?

Yesterday, Big In Japan reported that it is being downloaded onto 25% of all new Android devices. And earlier this week, Google reported that it is currently activating 160,000 new Androids every single day – which puts Shopsavvy at the 40k mark.

But Shopsavvy has always been popular on Android – it began it’s life as an exclusively Google-based application. It has been available on iPhone for a good while now, but its numbers were never great. However, late yesterday, Big In Japan reported an incredible surge in downloads over the day, which saw the app climb 120 places in the top apps download chart – and hit no. 5 in the utility app chart. They even provided an hour-by-hour report:

What’s the story?

It can’t be co-incidence that this comes at the same time eBay announced the purchase of RedLaser. This company runs an app that does effectively the same thing as ShopSavvy, it just has a much better grip on the iPhone market. eBay is going to be absorbing the scanning function into its own iPhone – presumably so that shoppers can quickly check how much any product would cost if they bought it through eBay. So what caused the spike in Shopsavvy downloads? We’re actually not sure. It could be that the eBay announcement caused a surge in public awareness of barcode price comparison apps – and if you check RedLaser and ShopSavvy in the store, the Big In Japan app gets better reviews.