It is obvious that businesses seek the customers’ attention, and want to attract them for as long as possible. However, it will not be possible without the appropriate resources and tools that will affect visibility, but also efficiency. No wonder that PWA – Progressive Web Applications have earned an unmatched reputation among global brands and not only. PWAs are unrivaled in terms of combining the best of websites and native mobile applications qualities. They ensure better customer engagement, higher click-through rates, and increased conversions. At the same time, they significantly reduce loading times, offer online mode and guarantee a rich user experience. Besides, PWA development is much faster, cross-platform by definition, and thus significantly cheaper compared to other solutions.
Numerous global brands have benefited from the implementation of PWA. Their examples prove that creating such an application is very often a great business choice increasing mobile traffic even several times. Take a look at the list of applications that are successful Progressive Web Apps.
What is a PWA?
Progressive Web App is a type of application delivered through the web that gives a look and feel of a native application. It is built using web technologies including HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It works on any platform that uses a standards-compliant web browser.
PWA is a solution answering to the needs of users who want a faster, richer and more attractive piece of software than web applications. Even though web applications have been existing for a while for mobile devices, they are less frequently used than native applications due to their limited operation. This way, PWA is a good competitor that offers a user interface that is increasingly similar to native applications. It was thought out that Progressive Web App should have such functions as offline work, support for push notifications, access to some built-in phone functions, background processing of service employees in a separate thread and an icon on the phone’s home screen. Because PWA works in the browser, users don’t need to download and install it through app stores such as the Apple App Store or Google Play. However, the largest app stores have started to use PWA to varying degrees, which is a huge plus for developers of such applications.
Progressive web applications examples
There are many examples of successful PWA implementation, including among global brands and market leaders. They are perfect proof of how changing the technological approach can bring huge benefits. Every single industry can benefit from PWA and its advantages. Check out some of the apps that have delivered remarkable results for their owners and a dedicated community.
Twitter Lite
Twitter launched its PWA in 2017. The social platform, just like the competition, has observed that nearly 80% of their users used Twitter on mobile devices. Hence, the company had to find a solution that would ensure user engagement but also convenient for them. They also had to find a way to operate the application with a poorer internet connection and, therefore, lower data consumption. Twitter Lite is much smaller than its corresponding heavy Android native app. It offers temporary offline browsing thanks to Service Workers, as well as fluff notifications and the ability to add a shortcut to your home screen. In this way, Twitter did not sacrifice the advantages of the native experience but kept them while gaining convenience, speed and efficiency. After implementing PWA, Twitter achieved over 60% increase in pages per session, a 75% increase in tweets sent and 20% lower bounce rate.
Spotify
Spotify is a globally recognized brand. It’s fair to say that it is currently the most popular and adored music player app. Where did the idea for creating, or transforming the application to PWA come from? Well, it’s all because of a dispute with Apple. Steve Jobs’ company gets a solid 30% commission from the developer app store. Spotify, and many companies, were not satisfied with the high rates. The company decided that it was a good time to change the technological strategy a bit. Hence the idea that it was time to create a Progressive Web App. Compared to its native app counterpart, Spotify’s PWA version is much faster and accessible. It has its distinctive user interface that changes the background as the user uses the application and is highly adaptive. A shortcut to Spotify PWA, like many other PWAs, can be pinned to the home screen, making it available practically at your fingertips.
Forbes
Forbes is an example of a company that wanted to improve the mobile experience of its users. The then Forbes website was too slow, and the loading time was not the quickest. The need grew more and more due to the increasing importance of using the web on mobile devices. Not wanting to lose users, the company decided to develop PWA. This idea paid off very much, and today Forbes PWA gains greater user engagement, provides personalization and works much faster. Besides, the card stories are based on the Stories layout, like in Snapchat or Instagram, which has been extremely beneficial for visiting the app. Thanks to this new feature, PWA Forbes has registered over 40% more sessions per user that also last longer. Not only has user retention in the app improved, but ad visibility has improved, which is also a great success from a business point of view.
Trivago
The tourism industry is also a sector that cleverly uses the opportunities offered by new technologies and the Internet. After all, who and who, but these companies owe a lot to advertising, high search engine positions and overall visibility. Trivago had this in mind and also followed technology trends. Ultimately, she decided to create a PWA. In this way, one of the most popular hotel search engines managed to stay ahead of the competition. The goal, and at the same time a challenge, was to improve the user experience and the comfort of using the application. PWAs work well even with a weak network connection, so it was an excellent step to bet on it. By introducing such a solution, Trivago improved the quality of the service offered. The business benefits were undoubtedly a 150% increase in the number of repeated visits and a 2-fold increase in the number of clicks on hotel offers.
Lancôme
Lancôme, although it is not associated with technology at first glance, because it is a brand of luxury cosmetics, is one of the pioneers in implementing PWA. In 2016, the company observed a mobile conversion rate of 15%, which was an alarmingly low value compared to the desktop. When looking for a suitable solution, the company initially considered building an e-commerce app for mobile but understood that an app only made sense for customers who visited it regularly. To guarantee a great user experience close to native and fast loading, Lancôme decided to use PWA. With this approach, the time until the page is interactive fell by 84%, compared to their previous mobile experience, with a corresponding 15% decrease in bounce rates. Lancôme’s mobile sessions rise by more than 50%, and conversions increase by 17%. The user experience across platforms also became much better, just as the company wanted it to be.
Offline Progressive web applications examples
The PWA architecture, including mainly the use of Service Workers, allows for offline operation. This gives a great advantage over conventional websites and provides a native-like experience. Here are some examples of applications that work successfully without a permanent Internet connection.
Starbucks
To provide all its customers with affordable, user-friendly mobile ordering, Starbucks has built a new PWA online ordering system that provides a similar experience to their existing native application. Thanks to the ability to operate offline, Starbucks PWA allows its customers to browse the menu, add items to the cart, edit orders. Without permanent internet access, they can view prices for specific locations and place orders. Thanks to the launch of the new PWA for ordering, Starbucks has already achieved significant results, including doubling the number of non-stationary customers.
2048
2048 was a real smash right after it hit the market. It is a puzzle game that was released in 2014 as a free app for Android and iOS. Less than a week after its premiere, it had over 4 million users. The game is simple and addictive, just like very popular Candy Crush. Its purpose is to combine blocks with the same numbers to ultimately get 2048. The official version of PWA is available on a special website – 2048game.com. This allows players to access it instantly from any web browser. It’s hard to distinguish it from its native in-app counterpart, the game in the PWA version is just as smooth and runs in full-screen mode. Of course, PWA 2048 games can be fully played offline.
The Washington Post
The Washington Post, having a well-functioning mobile application, wanted to go a step further. Not everything was perfect – page load times were low, and bounce rates were high. Generating over 50% of mobile traffic, the company needed a change and adapted to readers who have slower, older devices or a weak, unreliable internet connection. Switching to PWA allowed pages to load instantly, no matter where users were and what type of internet connection they had, and it even allowed articles to be read offline.
Summary
There are plenty of PWA examples that have helped businesses around the world achieve better results. It’s a worthwhile solution that you can rely on and have many benefits. If you want to get more users and improve their experience, as well as keep them for longer, consider building a PWA. It’s also a great option for businesses whose websites are failing, load slowly and don’t generate enough traffic.
If you want to learn more about the development, advantages and possibilities of PWA, don’t forget to check out our PWA guide.
January 19, 2021
