Article: We take a peek at Mary Meeker’s hotly anticipated 2018 Internet Trends Report

Author: Jane Kroese
Date: Jane Kroese

We recently took a look at the trends for 2017, and today we have the chance to highlight some from the newly released 2018 report fresh from Silicon Valley. At 300 slides long, it makes for interesting reading and covers a wide range of topics:

 

Smartphones take a hit: 2017 was the first year in which smartphone unit shipments didn’t grow, and the global average selling price of smartphones continues to decline. However there is a reason for this - as more people around the world become smartphone owners, growth will always become harder to achieve.

 

Mobile wallets: mobile payments are becoming easier to complete and China is leading the way with 500 million active mobile payment users in 2017.

 

Speed of tech disruption: the speed of technological disruption is accelerating. Meeker’s example is that it took 80 years for Americans to adopt the dishwasher, yet the Internet has become commonplace in less than a decade. And it looks like tech is going to continue to disrupt the way we work with more on-demand and internet-related jobs.

 

It’s an Amazon takeover: Almost half of online shoppers begin product searches on Amazon, compared to 36% through traditional search engines. Amazon Echo’s installed base in the US grew from 20 million in the first quarter of 2017 to more than 30 million in the fourth quarter – and it looks like they’ll be continuing their global domination with a move into advertising and plans to introduce AI service platforms to their offering.

 

Privacy paradox: Meeker refers to this as the big issue facing tech companies – they want to improve customer engagement and experience but are facing more and more issues with data breaches and violations of consumer privacy. It’s a hard line to toe and 2018 should produce some interesting stories on this – particularly on the back of the recent Facebook debacle and GDPR regulations coming into play across Europe.

 

A key insight from the report indicates that our online media consumption is not showing any signs of slowing down – US adults spent 5.9 hours per day on digital media in 2017, up from 5.6 hours in 2016, and some 3.3 of those hours were spent on mobile. For agencies like KISS, this means we need to continue working with our clients to tell stories and develop brands that will keep people engaging with their organisation, rather than their competitors.

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