Why a Progressive Web App Is The Best Alternative to Mobile App and Mobile Web?

Phew! Finally, no more, not anymore- a confusing state of Mobile App or Web! The debate that continued for a decade, has been solved by a hybrid solution that evolves between Mobile App and Web.

Progressive Web Apps (PWA) is an emerging solution that takes the benefit of the strengths of both Mobile Apps and the Web to create a smooth user experience- regardless of platform. Works same like a mobile app, PWA has the same functionalities and ease-of-use as actual apps that make it the first choice of big brands like Alibaba.com, Twitter, Trivago, Lancome, Pinterest, Starbucks, Makemytrip, The Weather Channel, amongst others. Designed to deliver a faster loading experience, let’s see how PWA can help you make the right cut by increased effectiveness and smoother user experience. Before that, take a quick look to understand what PWA is.

What is Progressive Web App (PWA)?

The Second Name of High Performance and User Experience

A Progressive Web App (PWA) is an app that uses modern web capabilities to deliver a native app-like experience to users. They call it “progressive” because the app is the next level of innovation opening up a series of new features to enhance the user experience. They are perceived as a modern website but behave like a native mobile app.

PWAs are responsive, secure, and searchable. Recruited first in the hiring of high performance and faster loading speed. No doubt, the app’s new standard of web interactions has addicted hundreds of global marketers to create sticky and immersive user experiences.

What Makes PWA An “Attention Seeker”?

Here Is A Sneak Peek To Its Action Features:

• Progressive: No matter what browser you choose, PWA works for every user.
• Responsive: PWAs adapt to various screen sizes: from desktop to mobile to tablet or any dimension. It has a native-like look and feel.
• Secure: The app is secured over HTTPS protocol thus preventing the connection from displaying information.
• Searchable: These sites are recognized as “applications” and are indexed by search engines.
• Installable: The app icons can be “saved” on the mobile’s home screen, making them easily accessible, without having to follow the long and tedious steps of finding and installing from the app store.
• Shareable: The app installation link can be shared via URL without any complications.
• Fast Loaded: 53% of visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than three seconds to load. PWA apps are the best option for marketers as it load faster and use less data.

How Brands Used PWA to Write Their Success Stories

Rich with Features, PWA Is a Sales Booster for Brands

1. Twitter Lite PWA

Twitter has nearly 320 million monthly active users around the world that consume, create and share information. With over 80% of users on mobile, Twitter aimed the mobile web experience to be faster, more reliable, and more engaging.

Twitter Lite PWA helped the microblogging platform combine the best of the modern web and native app features. It helped deliver a robust experience with instant loading capabilities, increased user engagement, and lower data consumption. Thus, recording a 20% decline in bounce rate and 65% increase in page per session.

2. MakeMyTrip

MakeMyTrip a travel booking site operative in India saw a 160% increase in shopper sessions (a triple conversion rate) after launching a PWA that allows users to seamlessly book travel tickets and hotels regardless of time, location, or network availability.

3. Alibaba

Alibaba, the world’s largest online B2B trading platform, serving 200+ countries and regions saw a 76% increase in total conversions across browsers after upgrading their site with Progressive Web App (PWA).

With PWA, Alibaba was able to hook both first-time visitors as well as repeat visitors. With the “Add to Home Screen” prompt and push notifications the company was able to re-engage users by four times as compared to other mobile users.

4. Lancome

Lancome the luxury cosmetics brand wanted a fast app-like solution to drive traffic and sales. The beauty brand built a PWA and saw a 53% increase in session length, 17% increase in conversions, and 8% increase in conversion rates on recovered rates via push notifications.

5. Pinterest

Pinterest when came to know of their slow website experience and after they identified only 1% of their visitors converted to signups and installs for iOS and Android, they decided to build a PWA. Interestingly, after upgrading their site to PWA, Pinterest experienced a 40% increase in traffic, 44% increase in ad revenue rate, and a 60% increase in user engagement.

The Pinterest PWA requires only 150 KB of data storage, which is much less than the native Android (9.6MB) and iOS (56MB) apps.

The CRUX: Top Five Benefits of Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

• Increases the session lengths or time spent by the user on the mobile app.
• Push notifications help keep users engaged and increase repeat visitors without letting users download the app.
• In terms of reliability, PWAs load instantly, are faster, and light in weight.
• If speed is to be considered, PWAs load in fewer than three seconds without any delays in content loading and scrolling.
• PWA dramatically saves costs. The single web application works for all platforms.

Read Also: PWA vs Native App: Which One Should You Choose?

Technologies Used to Build Progressive Web App

Among the top technologies used to build PWA, most of them are based on JavaScript with different characteristics. The mains are:

• React
• Polymer
• Angular
• Ionic
• Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

How to Build a Progressive Web App?

1. Serve over HTTPS
2. Create an application shell
3. Register a Service Worker
4. Add Push notifications
5. Add a Web App Manifest
6. Configure the install prompt
7. Analyze the app performance
8. Audit your app with Lighthouse

How Codiant Can Help You Win The Game With PWA?

Codiant is your end-to-end Progressive Web App Development Partner that helps brands leverage the incredible benefits of PWA and increase user engagement and customer retention rate at a large scale.

We’ve helped brands from different industry verticals and domains to develop a progressive web app and drive extra reach with a positive effect on their bottom line.