Leading Apparel Brands in the U.S.: Q1 2025 Performance Overview

The U.S. apparel market continues to be dominated by key players, with SheIn Group Limited, Gap, and Nike leading the charge. In Q1 2025, these brands demonstrated distinct digital trends across their websites and applications. This analysis draws on Sensor Tower's comprehensive dataset, highlighting web and app user behaviors, advertising strategies, and audience engagement.

SheIn Group Limited

SheIn's digital presence is formidable, with a strong focus on both its website, shein.com, and its SHEIN app.

• Audience Trends: From Q4 2024 to Q1 2025, shein.com saw a fluctuation in visits, peaking in November with over 900M visits and stabilizing at around 820M by March. The monthly true audience consistently hovered above 60M throughout the quarter.

• App Engagement: The SHEIN app maintained a strong monthly active user base ranging from 41M to 47M, indicating a robust mobile presence.

• Ad Spend & Channels: SheIn's monthly advertising expenditure in March reached approximately $33M, with significant impressions over 4.5B. Facebook and Instagram were dominant channels, with Facebook alone accounting for over 2.9B impressions.

Gap

Gap's digital strategy features its websites, gap.com and gapfactory.com, alongside the GAP app.

• Audience Trends: Both websites experienced varying traffic, with gap.com seeing a rise to over 590M visits in March. Monthly true audience figures remained steady, averaging around 34M in March.

• App Engagement: The GAP app saw a slight decline in monthly active users from 680K in October to 620K in March, reflecting moderate app engagement.

• Ad Spend & Channels: Gap's monthly ad spending peaked in March at approximately $3.8M, with impressions nearing 465M. Instagram and Facebook were key platforms, delivering considerable reach.

Nike

Nike's digital ecosystem includes nike.com and the Nike: Shoes, Apparel, Stories app.

• Audience Trends: Nike.com maintained stable traffic with visits exceeding 270M in March. The monthly true audience was over 42M, highlighting Nike's strong online presence.

• App Engagement: The Nike app's monthly active user base showed resilience, increasing from 8.5M in January to nearly 10M in March.

• Ad Spend & Channels: Nike's advertising efforts were consistent, with a monthly spend of approximately $9.1M in March, yielding impressions of over 1.2B. Instagram remained a significant channel, contributing to nearly half of the total impressions.

Conclusion

In summary, SheIn, Gap, and Nike have each leveraged their digital platforms to maintain strong market positions in Q1 2025. Sensor Tower's data provides unparalleled insights into these brands' cross-platform strategies, highlighting the importance of web and app integration in the digital age. For more in-depth analysis, visit our Web Insights, App Performance Insights, and Pathmatics offerings.