Mobile-Phone Data Shows Virus Crushing Some Retail Hot Spots

Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
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Mobile-phone data -- a proxy measure for crowds -- is showing just how dramatically some of the world’s retail hot spots have cleared out as coronavirus spreads.

In Seoul’s Myeongdong shopping district, mobile devices plummeted about 67% last weekend, compared to the weekend traffic four weeks earlier, according to UberMedia data analyzed by Webster Pacific.