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# Why Shopify chose React Native?

**[Pavan Belagatti](https://daily.dev/sources/dfa0u7-fs)** · [@johhnypav](https://daily.dev/johhnypav) · 1 min read · 2 upvotes · 2 comments

## Summary

Back in 2020, Shopify's Head of Engineering Farhan Thawar explained the company's decision to adopt React Native for mobile development. With mobile accounting for the majority of purchases (71% in Q3 2019, rising further during Black Friday/Cyber Monday), mobile was critical to Shopify's business, yet the company still faced delays launching its native Android app, a challenge shared by other companies. This struggle with native Android development timelines was a key factor pushing Shopify toward cross-platform React Native instead of maintaining separate native codebases.

## Content

Let’s rewind to 2020, when Shopify decided to go all-in on React Native (RN). Back then, mobile was a very important channel for the platform, with seven out of 10 customers using it on mobile devices. As Head of Engineering, Farhan Thawar [wrote](https://shopify.engineering/react-native-future-mobile-shopify) at the time:

“Each quarter, the majority of buyers purchase on mobile (with 71% of our buyers purchasing on mobile in Q3 of last year [in 2019]). Black Friday and Cyber Monday (together, BFCM) are the busiest time of year for our merchants, and buying activity during those days is a bellwether. During this year’s BFCM, Shopify merchants saw another 3% increase in purchases on mobile, an average of 69% of sales.”

With mobile so important, it’s no surprise the company built native mobile applications for iOS and Android; after all, native mobile gives full control of a platform’s capabilities, integrations, and performance, so why bother with cross-platform technology?

It turns out one reason was the delay in launching native apps on Android, which Shopify struggled with, along with other companies.

Read the complete in-depth article: [https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/shopify-native-mobile](https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/shopify-native-mobile)

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@flipone** · 1 upvotes

> I must have read somewhere that Shopify has gone "native" recently. True?

---

Tags: [#mobile](https://daily.dev/tags/mobile), [#react-native](https://daily.dev/tags/react-native), [#shopify](https://daily.dev/tags/shopify)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-shopify-chose-react-native--9w0qaqudl)

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