Should a Firm Introduce a New Mobile App? An Investigation of the Channel Interaction Between Mobile Apps and Mobile Websites

With the growing ubiquity of mobile devices, mobile website and mobile app have become the key channels for firms to engage with mobile users. Does a firm need to introduce a new mobile app if it already has a mobile website? Prior studies have attempted to examine the channel interaction relationship between mobile app and mobile website, but the analysis is often based on data from one single firm. In this study, we utilize a large sample of mobile app releases by 216 firms to investigate the impact of a mobile app launch on the traffic of a firm's mobile website. We find that the number of visits to a firm's mobile website significantly increases after it releases a new app, indicating a synergy effect between mobile app and mobile website. Additional investigation reveals that this synergy effect is stronger for mobile websites with a lower level of user engagement and a lower proportion of middle-aged and older age groups. We present the first empirical evidence that there is significant heterogeneity across different firms in the interaction between mobile channels