---
title: "React Native is the Future of Mobile at Shopify"
description: "Shopify is moving forward with React Native for new mobile apps after years of native development, driven by mobile purchasing volumes and a desire to consolidate iOS and Android work. It describes React Native as a framework that uses JavaScript and React’s declarative model to translate virtual DOM structures into native platform views through native bindings. Experiments with Arrive, Point of Sale, and Compass reported twice the productivity on Arrive, an estimated 80% code sharing target, and observed sharing of 95% for Arrive and 99% for Compass, while testing lowered the considered Android CPU threshold from 2GHz to 1.5GHz. The policy does not require rewriting existing native apps, leaves low-level libraries native and native hiring in place, and calls for dedicated React Native tooling, foundations, and open-source partnerships."
---

# React Native is the Future of Mobile at Shopify

[Shopify](https://yomu.fyi/company/shopify) · 2023-10-18 · Jan 29, 2020

**Type:** Announcement

## Summary

Shopify is moving forward with React Native for new mobile apps after years of native development, driven by mobile purchasing volumes and a desire to consolidate iOS and Android work. It describes React Native as a framework that uses JavaScript and React’s declarative model to translate virtual DOM structures into native platform views through native bindings. Experiments with Arrive, Point of Sale, and Compass reported twice the productivity on Arrive, an estimated 80% code sharing target, and observed sharing of 95% for Arrive and 99% for Compass, while testing lowered the considered Android CPU threshold from 2GHz to 1.5GHz. The policy does not require rewriting existing native apps, leaves low-level libraries native and native hiring in place, and calls for dedicated React Native tooling, foundations, and open-source partnerships.

## Context

Mobile purchasing accounted for 71% of Shopify buyers in Q3 of the previous year and averaged 69% of sales during the year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday period. Shopify’s existing native mobile development was successful, but the company believed it could become more effective by bringing JavaScript and the web to mobile, using a reactive model across client applications, and consolidating iOS and Android development.

## Approach / What changed

Shopify evaluated React Native through three teams and apps—Arrive, Point of Sale, and Compass—while retaining native code where needed. The company plans dedicated React Native tooling and foundations teams, contributions to the framework and related open-source projects, and continued hiring of native engineers. Existing apps will be considered for migration independently rather than rewritten by policy.

## Takeaways

- Arrive’s React Native rewrite was judged to make the team twice as productive as native development, even when targeting only one mobile platform.
- Experiments found 95% code sharing between iOS and Android for Arrive and 99% for Compass, exceeding the estimated 80% target.
- React Native is not the default for older hardware below 1.5GHz, extensive processing, ultra-high performance, or many background threads; native modules remain available.

**Tags:** [Android](https://yomu.fyi/topic/android), [iOS](https://yomu.fyi/topic/ios), [JavaScript](https://yomu.fyi/topic/javascript), [React Native](https://yomu.fyi/topic/react-native)

- Source: [Shopify](https://shopify.engineering/react-native-future-mobile-shopify)
- Source URL: https://shopify.engineering/react-native-future-mobile-shopify
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-08-31T01:13:21.631Z

[Read original post](https://shopify.engineering/react-native-future-mobile-shopify)