Venture capitalist and former Wall Street analyst Mary Meeker today presented her annual Internet Trends report, which is eagerly anticipated and analyzed by tech executives and investors.
Top trend: "At 3.6 billion, the number of Internet users has surpassed half the world’s population. When markets reach mainstream, new growth gets harder to find — evinced by 0% new smartphone unit shipment growth in 2017."
- Adults spend an average of 5.8 hours per day with digital media, 3.3 hours of which is via mobile devices.
- 20% of all purchases in China are e-commerce, which is the highest such mark.
- Amazon has expanded its e-commerce marketshare from 20 to 28%, based on GMV. 49% of users begin products searches at Amazon, versus 36% via traditional search engines.
- 6% of all e-commerce referrals now come via social media like Facebook and Twitter.
- American IT companies represent 25% of MSCI market cap, compared to 33% at the dotcom peak.
- More Chinese Internet users are willing to share personal data in exchange for benefits than are U.S. users (38% vs. 25%).
- Meeker, while presenting her report at the Code Conference, said that "Google, in effect, is evolving from an ad platform to a commerce platform," while Amazon is doing the reverse.
- She also said that direct-to-consumer retail is booming, fueled by the impact of social media as a source for referrals, and that "shopping is increasingly entertainment."
