Internet user growth rose 7% in 2017: Mary Meeker Report
While presenting her annual Internet Trends Report 2018, Meeker said, "When you have rising monetization, rising growth and rising data collection, it drives a lot of regulatory scrutiny whether it’s related to data privacy, competition or safety in content."
Mary Meeker just presented 294 slides on the future of the internet covering everything from usage to data privacy, changing job market, GDPR, technology adoption, AI, e-commerce and a lot more. Here are some key takeaways:
- 2017 was the first year in which smartphone unit shipments didn’t grow at all. As more of the world become smartphone owners, growth has been harder and harder to come by. The same goes for internet user growth, which rose 7 percent in 2017, down from 12 percent the year before. With more than half the world online, there are fewer people left to connect.
- People, however, are still increasing the amount of time they spend online. U.S. adults spent 5.9 hours per day on digital media in 2017, up from 5.6 hours the year before. Some 3.3 of those hours were spent on mobile, which is responsible for overall growth in digital media consumption.
- Digital payments, digital reach is expanding. China continues to lead the rest of the world in mobile payment adoption, with over 500 million active mobile payment users in 2017.
- Tech companies are facing a “privacy paradox.” They’re caught between using data to provide better consumer experiences and violating consumer privacy. As Meeker said, “With personalization, data improves engagement in experiences and drives growth and scrutiny. Personal collective data provides better experiences for consumers. They’re 2.2 billion Facebooks, 200 million Pinterests, 170 million Spotifies and 125 million Netflixes. People putting their data into these products to make their experiences better and then there’s the collective data of many other users that effect a lot of real time products, whether it’s Waze or SnapMap or NextDoor, or Uber Pool. This all creates a privacy paradox. We tried to simplify it into really three sentences. Internet companies are making low price services better in part from user data. Internet users are increasing their time on internet services based on perceived value. Regulators want to ensure data is not used improperly and not all regulators think about this in the same way.”
- Speaking of data privacy, one if the most pertinent issues on the Internet today, Meeker said, “When you have rising monetization, rising growth and rising data collection, it drives a lot of regulatory scrutiny whether it’s related to data privacy, competition or safety in content.” Meeker said that while it is crucial to stop unintended consequences of data it is also irresponsible of regulators to stop innovation and progress, especially in a world where there are a lot of countries that are doing different things. Giving the specific example of GDPR in EU, Meeker quoted a Bloomberg editorial which said that Europe, with GDPR, should be mindful of unintended consequences and open to change when things go wrong.
- E-commerce sales growth is continuing to accelerate. It grew 16 percent in the U.S. in 2017, up from 14 percent in 2016. Amazon is taking a bigger share of those sales at 28 percent last year. Conversely, physical retail sales are continuing to decline.
- Data improves predictive ability of many services. Data volume is foundational to algorithmic refinement in AI performance. It’s foundational to tool and product improvement, artificial intelligence predictability and capability. Artificial intelligence service or platforms are merging from internet leaders. Amazon.com and Google are increasingly competing in this space. Amazon’s AI platform emerging from AWS enabling easier data processing and collection for others, Google is doing the same thing from the Google Cloud.
- Most online consumers are willing to share data for benefits. 79% willing to share personal data for a clear personal benefit. Consumers also take actions when the benefits of data are not clear, 64%, according to Deloitte, deleted certain apps because of data concerns.
- Internet companies are making consumer privacy tools much more accessible, looking at Facebook’s change and Google’s change, bringing the privacy tools to the fore from the rear. For data sharing, there are a lot of different views. The EU, Asia, and Americas are rising their regulatory focus on data collection and sharing, while China is encouraging data collection.
- China and India and the US are the only markets that have relative GDP that is rising, others are falling.
- 2017 was the first year in which smartphone unit shipments didn’t grow at all. As more of the world become smartphone owners, growth has been harder and harder to come by. The same goes for internet user growth, which rose 7 percent in 2017, down from 12 percent the year before. With more than half the world online, there are fewer people left to connect.
- People, however, are still increasing the amount of time they spend online. U.S. adults spent 5.9 hours per day on digital media in 2017, up from 5.6 hours the year before. Some 3.3 of those hours were spent on mobile, which is responsible for overall growth in digital media consumption.
- Digital payments, digital reach is expanding. China continues to lead the rest of the world in mobile payment adoption, with over 500 million active mobile payment users in 2017.
- Tech companies are facing a “privacy paradox.” They’re caught between using data to provide better consumer experiences and violating consumer privacy. As Meeker said, “With personalization, data improves engagement in experiences and drives growth and scrutiny. Personal collective data provides better experiences for consumers. They’re 2.2 billion Facebooks, 200 million Pinterests, 170 million Spotifies and 125 million Netflixes. People putting their data into these products to make their experiences better and then there’s the collective data of many other users that effect a lot of real time products, whether it’s Waze or SnapMap or NextDoor, or Uber Pool. This all creates a privacy paradox. We tried to simplify it into really three sentences. Internet companies are making low price services better in part from user data. Internet users are increasing their time on internet services based on perceived value. Regulators want to ensure data is not used improperly and not all regulators think about this in the same way.”
- Speaking of data privacy, one if the most pertinent issues on the Internet today, Meeker said, “When you have rising monetization, rising growth and rising data collection, it drives a lot of regulatory scrutiny whether it’s related to data privacy, competition or safety in content.” Meeker said that while it is crucial to stop unintended consequences of data it is also irresponsible of regulators to stop innovation and progress, especially in a world where there are a lot of countries that are doing different things. Giving the specific example of GDPR in EU, Meeker quoted a Bloomberg editorial which said that Europe, with GDPR, should be mindful of unintended consequences and open to change when things go wrong.
- E-commerce sales growth is continuing to accelerate. It grew 16 percent in the U.S. in 2017, up from 14 percent in 2016. Amazon is taking a bigger share of those sales at 28 percent last year. Conversely, physical retail sales are continuing to decline.
- Data improves predictive ability of many services. Data volume is foundational to algorithmic refinement in AI performance. It’s foundational to tool and product improvement, artificial intelligence predictability and capability. Artificial intelligence service or platforms are merging from internet leaders. Amazon.com and Google are increasingly competing in this space. Amazon’s AI platform emerging from AWS enabling easier data processing and collection for others, Google is doing the same thing from the Google Cloud.
- Most online consumers are willing to share data for benefits. 79% willing to share personal data for a clear personal benefit. Consumers also take actions when the benefits of data are not clear, 64%, according to Deloitte, deleted certain apps because of data concerns.
- Internet companies are making consumer privacy tools much more accessible, looking at Facebook’s change and Google’s change, bringing the privacy tools to the fore from the rear. For data sharing, there are a lot of different views. The EU, Asia, and Americas are rising their regulatory focus on data collection and sharing, while China is encouraging data collection.
- China and India and the US are the only markets that have relative GDP that is rising, others are falling.
