The Long-Awaited Internet Trends Report 2016
6 June 2016, Jonathan Saipe
The long-awaited, and now almost legendary Internet Trends report from Mary Meeker of KPCB, is finally out. Irrelevant of your sector, it makes essential reading.
At a glance, here are some of the salient points:
- The global Internet adoption rate was flat year-over-year at 9%, reaching 3 billion users, or 42% of the world’s population
- With 277m users, India passed USA to become the second global user market, behind China
- Non-tech giants are acquiring tech companies to fuel growth and transition to digital as data becomes the next big platform thanks to so many devices capturing it
- Global Smartphone user growth is slowing; the largest market is Asia Pacific occupying 52% of the global marketplace
- Android has increased its market share (81%) over iOS (16%)
- Online advertising is growing, with Google and Facebook controlling 76% of the market in the US; but advertisers still focus too heavily on legacy media, rather than new media where the audience has shifted
- Ad blocking is on the rise, with approx 220 million desktop users and 420 million mobile users blocking ads – mainly in China, India and Indonesia
- Millennials and Generation Z lead the way in visual-based social media. Snapchat and Facebook Live dominating
- Messaging continues to grow rapidly with WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and WeChat leading the way
- Messaging is evolving from simple text communication to become our new home screen, with options for self-expression and commerce
- Global apps data from 2015: average apps installed – 33; average apps used daily – 12; average no of apps accounting for 80% of usage – 3; average time spent on phone per day – 4 hours
- Look out for the rise of voice interfaces as they’re fast, easy, personalised and hands-free; Google on Android now sees 20% of searches from voice, and Amazon Echo sales growing as iPhone sales slow
