India has achieved a significant milestone in the global e-commerce landscape, recording nearly 58 billion e-commerce website visits over the past 12 months, according to Sensor Tower's State of E-commerce 2026 report. This represents the highest globally and marks a 28% year-on-year growth, outpacing all other major markets including the US, Japan, Germany, and the UK. During Q1 CY2026 alone, India averaged nearly 1.4 billion monthly visits to fashion e-commerce websites, the highest globally. The report indicates that e-commerce website visits in India grew 28% year-on-year, the fastest among major markets, while e-commerce app downloads in India between Q2 CY2025 and Q1 CY2026 grew only 6%.
The fashion e-commerce segment demonstrates the most dramatic shift in consumer behavior patterns. According to Sensor Tower's data, fashion e-commerce websites recorded 53.7% year-on-year growth in visits, while unique visitors increased 64.3% year-on-year in Q1 2026. By comparison, mobile app downloads for fashion platforms grew just 6.1%, while total time spent on apps declined 5.2%. India's fashion e-commerce websites showed exceptional growth with traffic increasing 98.3% year-on-year, nearly doubling from the previous year, making India the primary growth engine for the category. During Q1 CY2026, India led the global beauty e-commerce category with average monthly website visits approaching 350 million and traffic surging 116% year-on-year.
The data reveals a fundamental change in how consumers discover and engage with e-commerce platforms. As reported by Sensor Tower, consumers are increasingly beginning their shopping journey on the web instead of directly opening shopping apps. Unlike apps, websites are easier to discover through Google Search, creator links, affiliate platforms and social media, allowing brands to reach users before asking them to install an application. The report notes that referrals from Wishlink to Nykaa's website increased 58% during Q1 2026, while Instagram referrals rose 25.6%, indicating consumers are increasingly discovering products through creators, affiliate platforms and social media rather than traditional marketplace searches. This shift suggests consumers are using websites for product discovery and research, even though apps remain important for repeat purchases.
The data points to a strategic evolution where retailers are building parallel web and app strategies rather than treating websites as secondary storefronts. According to the Sensor Tower case study on Nykaa, the company ranked first globally in both beauty app monthly active users and beauty website unique visitors during Q1 2026. Within India, Nykaa led both categories, ahead of Purplle and Tira. The company crossed 40 million website unique visitors during the November 2025 shopping season while simultaneously recording more than 21 million monthly active users on its mobile app. This demonstrates that growth is coming from both channels rather than one replacing the other, with the company's website audience and mobile user base expanding steadily since 2023.
The report suggests that the next phase of e-commerce growth will be shaped by AI agents rather than traditional platform competition. Google's recently announced Gemini Intelligence points to this evolution, designed to complete multi-step shopping tasks across Android apps and browsers. This technology allows AI agents to navigate websites and complete purchases after user approval, suggesting the distinction between apps and websites could become less important for users but more important for retailers. The hybrid strategy emerging in the data suggests retailers may increasingly need to optimize both their app and web experiences so AI systems can discover products, compare prices, access inventory and complete transactions, regardless of where the journey begins.
