How We Improved Our Android App Cold Start Time by 53%
Article Summary
Swiggy's Android team cut cold start time by 53% in three months. Here's the playbook that drove a 2.2% conversion lift.
The Swiggy mobile team systematically tackled Android app launch performance using Firebase Performance SDK and Systrace. Their methodical approach to identifying and fixing bottlenecks resulted in measurable business impact and immediate user feedback.
Key Takeaways
- Moved third party library initialization off the main thread
- Used Dagger for lazy initialization and removed reflection calls
- Converted PNGs to WebP and flattened launch screen hierarchy
- Firebase Performance SDK identified root causes before optimization
- Launch to listing conversion increased 2.2% post deployment
A systematic approach to Android cold start optimization delivered 53% faster launches and drove measurable conversion improvements.
About This Article
Swiggy's Android app was slow to start because the main thread had too much work to do. The app was using reflection unnecessarily and doing file I/O operations during startup, which meant users had to wait before they could interact with the UI.
The team fixed this by removing the main thread blockers, loading branding images asynchronously, and skipping JSON deserialization at startup. They also simplified the launch screen by replacing nested layouts with a flat view hierarchy.
Users immediately noticed the app felt faster and more responsive. Firebase Performance data confirmed the improvements were consistent across the user base after the update went live.