Casting the Net wide
From 3 billion internet users worldwide, or 42% of the world's population, two years back, now 3.6 billion users are accessing the world wide web, translating into 49% penetration. But growth is clearly slowing down — up 7% in 2017 vs 12% in the previous year. Though internet usage is still growing at 4% year-on-year, the industry still faces a challenge. Meeker believes that any market where penetration is more than 50%, gaining incremental market share is always going to be tough. “The reality of all for the business people in the room, when you get to a market, when you get to 50% penetration, new growth becomes a lot harder to find,” Meeker said at the conference.
1 June 2026
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Smartphone Shipments Lag, but usage is Rising
For the first time, global smartphone demand dipped as shipments declined by 0.5% in 2017. That is despite the continuous decline in the average selling price of smartphones. However, engagement with devices is increasing substantially. Time spent on mobile, engaging with digital media, is now 3.3 hours a day, double from 1.6 hours in 2012. Digital media engagement through desktop and laptop stands at 2.1 hours a day. Importantly, China is driving global mobile video usage, growing 162% versus 124% in the previous year. As a result, there has been a spurt in the number of online long-form video providers, touching tens of millions of paying subscribers in China. Meeker believes simplicity, speed, and ease of use of new devices are driving digital consumption. The other catalysts include messaging, video, voice and mobile payments.
Amazon equals online retail
Though e-commerce constitutes just 13% of retail sales, Amazon continues to be the undisputed king in the US, driving overall e-commerce revenues in the country by 16% in 2017 to $450 billion. Amazon’s e-commerce share stood at 28% with $129 billion gross merchandise volume (GMV) against $52 billion GMV, or 20% share, seen in 2013. That’s not surprising given that 49% of buyers begin searching for products on Amazon’s website against 36% who use traditional search engines. Importantly, the installed base of Amazon Echo, powered by virtual assistant Alexa, grew from 20 million in the third quarter to 30 million in the last quarter of 2017.
Social media as referral source
While social media penetration has reached a third of consumers in the US, daily user engagement on social networks, too, has increased to 135 minutes. This is creating an efficient product discovery mechanism with most buyers purchasing products after locating them on the social media. As a result, social media referrals to e-commerce sites have grown from 2% in 2015 to 6% today, thanks to platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. According to the report, 55% of consumers between the ages of 18 and 65 purchased a product online after discovering it on a social network. But the report states that traditional digital channels such as email and search will continue to drive bulk of the referrals for the next few years.
Virtual learning is here to stay
A very telling statistic that online learning is here to stay and that those employed are willing to upgrade their skills is visible in the close to 33 million learners on Coursera.com — up 30% over 2016. According to Meeker, this shows that, globally, people are interested in upskilling and open to lifelong learning as tools get better and more accessible. Machine learning, neural networks, deeper learning, and an introduction to mathematical thinking are the top courses in demand. Interestingly, North America leads as the region with the highest number of learners, followed by Asia, Europe, South America, and Africa. Also, YouTube is emerging as the primary medium for general educational content with the video platform clocking 1 billion daily learning video views, with 70% viewers using it to solve problems related to work, school, or hobby.
