Friday 2 October 2020

5.5m US households experience identity theft each year

 "New consumer research from Parks Associates finds 5% of US broadband households annually experience identity theft, which equates to 5.5 million households affected and at least 6.6 million people. Identity theft ranks as the top data security or privacy concern, cited by over half of all US broadband households."

Thursday 3 September 2020

UK adults bought 21m new connected devices during the lockdown

"One in five UK adults (21%) – the equivalent of 10.3 million consumers - purchased at least one new digital device as a result of spending more time at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic according to Deloitte’s Digital Consumer Trends 2020 report. In total, up to 21.2 million digital devices were purchased during the first two months of the lockdown period, including two million printers and monitors.

Deloitte’s research, carried out in May 2020 and surveying the digital habits of 4,150 respondents between the ages of 16 and 75, found that UK adults used 170.3 million devices* daily during the first two months of lockdown, equating to 3.5 devices on average per person.

Games consoles, laptops, smart speakers and eReaders saw the highest uptick in usage. Among those who own the devices, daily usage of games consoles rose by 10 percentage-points, with 44% of owners using their console daily, up from 34% in 2019. Meanwhile, daily smart speaker usage rose from 59% to 66%; laptop usage rose from 67% to 73%; and eReader usage rose from 30% to 34%.

Fitness bands and smart watches both experienced a decline in usage as consumers spent more time at home as a result of the pandemic. 60% of fitness band owners used their device daily during the lockdown period, down from 64% in 2019, while daily smart watch usage declined from 64% to 62%. This comes despite an overall increase in the adoption of wearables, from 27% to 31% in the last year."

More data here 

TikTok has over 50m daily active users in the US

 "TikTok, in its lawsuit challenging a ban by the President Donald Trump administration, revealed its monthly users have grown almost 800 percent since January 2018, CNBC reported.

Back then, the app was used by around 11 million Americans, according to CNBC. Then a year later, that number more than doubled as TikTok reported 27 million monthly users.

And finally, by this year, the app was averaging 91 million users per month, with over 100 million by the time the pandemic had set in and was keeping Americans at home, and over 50 million who use the app every day, according to CNBC.

Globally, the app has seen an equivalent spike, with 55 million in January 2018 increasing to 689 million by July 2020, CNBC reported."

Source:  PYMNTS, reporting data from CNBC, 24th August 2020

What households bought during the lockdown

 "In the 13 weeks ending June 27, 1 million more coffee and espresso makers sold and half a million more electric grills and griddles sold compared to the same period last year, according to NPD Group data. Additionally, single-serve blending and processing products saw a 41% increase in unit sales during the period. 

"We've seen it in other recessions, we also saw it after 9/11, that people kind of hunker down and leftovers become critical … making sure that I don't have any food waste," Derochowski said. "So when you think of leftover friendly dishes, there are a lot of your one-dish meals and things that can be made, whether it's [with] a multi cooker or slow cooker or casserole dish or something like this. Those have done well because people are making leftover-oriented foods.""

Wednesday 5 August 2020

More than 3bn people a month access Facebook's 'family' of services



Note - The 'family' of services is Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp

Adults in the UK watched more than 6 hours of video content a day during lockdown



Full presentation here


Peacock has more than 10m subscribers

"Peacock, the latest major entrant to the streaming video universe, has added more than 10 million signups since its launch. Comcast, the owner of NBC News and Peacock's parent NBCUniversal, revealed Thursday as part of its second-quarter earnings.
“People are watching more frequently and for much longer than we projected,” NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said on a call with analysts.
The news underscores the high interest in at-home entertainment at a time when consumers are staying home and movie theaters in most regions are closed."

'Hamilton' attracted 750,000 new subscribers to Disney+

"A filmed version of the Hamilton Broadway theatre production premiered to much fanfare on the Disney+ streaming platform on July 3rd.
Consequently, the Disney+ app was downloaded 752,451 times globally between July 3rd and July 5th, including 458,796 times in the US alone, according to a report in Variety, citing analytics firm Apptopia.
It means US downloads were 74 per cent higher than the average of the four weekends in June 2020 over comparable time periods (Friday through Sunday)."

Monday 15 June 2020

Kids in the UK, US and Spain spend almost as much time with TikTok as YouTube




Data provided by 60,000 families with kids aged 4-14 in UK, US and Spain

1/3 of Americans say they avoid restaurants with online ratings of less than 4 stars

"Online reviews are a key driver of restaurant revenue, with one-third of customers saying that they avoid eateries with ratings of less than four stars. Social media is just as vital to driving business, with 72 percent of customers reporting that they have used Facebook to decide where to eat. Both of these channels are plagued with fraud, however, including fake reviews and phishing scams on social media. This month’s Deep Dive explores how restaurants can identify fake reviews and have them removed, and how they can educate their customers to spot impostors on social media."

Friday 5 June 2020

25% of US households have a subscription to Disney+


Source:  Data from Parks Associates, reported 29th May 2020

The US was the top spending market for AVOD in 2019

Top five countries by AVoD expenditure ($ million)
Ranking Country 2019
1 USA 7,998
2 China 6,777
3 United Kingdom 1,620
4 Japan 1,611 4
5 India 632 5

Digital ad expenditure in Europe reached €64,8bn in 2019

"IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising and marketing ecosystem, announced at its virtual Interact conference today that digital advertising grew 12.3 percent in 2019 to €64.8bn, driven by strong growth in out-stream video, mobile and social spend. On average €4bn has been added to the digital advertising market every year since 2006.
2020 Digital Advertising Forecast
Given the impact that COVID-19 that had on the industry’s operations and investments, the 2019 results were accompanied by a 2020 forecast for digital investment by IAB Europe’s Chief Economist Dr. Daniel Knapp. In its April 2020 forecast, the IMF predicted that Covid-19 and the global lockdown will spark the worst economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Knapp modelled his forecasts on macroeconomic indicators, paired with industry data to estimate a decline of 16.3% for Europe (including the UK). However, Knapp highlighted that digital is looking to be the least affected advertising media, predicting a decline by -5.5% in 2020 in Europe compared to a stronger contraction (-21.3%) for other media.
2019 Digital Advertising Investment
The AdEx Benchmark study is the definitive guide to advertising expenditure in Europe, covering 28 markets, and is now in its fourteenth year. In 2019, a total of twenty-one markets experienced double-digit year-on-year growth.
Video grew by nearly 30 percent to almost €10bn; out-stream was the driving force behind this growth with an increase of 36 percent. In some markets out-stream experienced growth of more than 40 percent, for example Finland, Greece and the UK.
Social is fueling display growth across Europe, up 25.6 percent year-on-year with double-digit growth in all twenty-eight markets. Search remains the largest online advertising category in terms of revenue with a growth of 11.8 percent and a market value of €28bn. Total mobile ad spend grew by 24.9 percent in 2019 to exceed €30bn to account for nearly half (47 percent) of all digital ad spend in Europe.
[...]
The IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark study divides the digital ad market into three categories: Display, Search and Classifieds and Directories. Growth in these advertising formats has been underpinned by shifting uses in devices and changing consumption patterns.
[...]
CEE continues to dominate the growth in Europe and in 2019, as in 2018. The top five largest growth markets all came from the CEE region:
Serbia – 28.4 percent
Ukraine – 28.0 percent
Belarus – 25.2 percent
Croatia – 22.3 percent
Turkey– 19.1 percent

Top 10 rankings (by market size) are:
UK – €21.4bn
Germany – €9.4bn
France – €6.1bn
Russia – €4.9bn
Italy – €3.2bn
Spain – €3.2bn
Sweden – €2.3bn
Netherlands – €2.3bn
Switzerland – €1.8bn
Norway – €1.3bn"
Source:  Press release from IAB Europe, 3rd June 2020
Download the 25 page presentation here

Thursday 21 May 2020

Spotify paid (reportedly) over $100m for Joe Rogan's podcast

"Spotify signed an exclusive agreement with comedian Joe Rogan to carry his popular podcast on its audio streaming platform starting Sept. 1, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer. The company is paying more than $100 million for the rights to stream new episodes of "The Joe Rogan Experience" and its library going back to 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a person familiar with the deal.
The podcast will be free to all Spotify users, including paid subscribers and people who listen to its ad-supported service. Spotify also will carry video episodes of the podcasts as in-app "vodcasts," the company announced.​
Rogan will maintain full creative control over the show, which features interviews with celebrities and experts on topics such as neuroscience, sports, comedy, health, infectious disease and culture. After the September debut, all prior episodes of "The Joe Rogan Experience" will be exclusive to Spotify by the end of the year, per Spotify."
Source:  Mobile Marketer, 20th May 2020

Thursday 7 May 2020

Etsy sold more than 12m masks in April 2020

"Etsy began pushing homemade masks in early April, and the results panned out in a big way: total sales on the platform doubled last month, by and large thanks to a surge in face mask sales. For comparison, Etsy’s marketplace sales figures between January and March were up only 16 percent.
More than 12 million face masks were sold during April, totaling around $133 million in sales. Etsy says they represented the second largest category of product sales across the entire site during the month of April."
Source:  The Verge, 6th May 2020

Tuesday 5 May 2020

'Trolls World Tour' generated nearly $100m in streaming revenues in 19 days

"Universal’s decision to take DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls World Tour into homes at the 48-hour rental price of $19.99 during exhibition’s COVID-19 shutdown has reportedly racked up an estimated $95M in rental fees in the title’s first 19 days. With VOD terms in the studio’s favor at an estimated 80%, Universal is banking an estimated $77M in revenues before marketing expenses.  Those are better terms for Universal then the 50/50 or 60%-65%/40% splits they reap in their relationship with movie theaters."

Monday 4 May 2020

42% of UK households with Samsung smart TVs watch 2 hours or less of linear TV a month

"The stats are these: 28% of Samsung smart TV households in the UK watch less than 2 hours of linear TV a month; and 14% watch none at all. All told then, 42% are light — very light — linear viewers.
Now the first caveat is that Samsung smart TV households are not representative of the nation as a whole. But there are 5m of them, and 44m across Europe. According to Ofcom, smart TV penetration in 2019 was 47%, and probably over 50% now. It’s unlikely that viewing habits in other smart TV households will vary much."
Source:  Presentation by Andy Jones of Samsung Ads, reported by MediaTel, 4th May 2020

515m people subscribe to Apple apps and services

"Sales of services such as streaming television content rose with billions of people locked in their homes, the company said. The segment, which includes iCloud storage as well as its streaming services for music and television shows, saw sales of $13.4bn, compared with analyst estimates of $12.9n, according to FactSet data. Cook said Apple had 515 million subscribers to apps and services, up by 125 million from one year earlier."
Source:  The Guardian, 30th April 2020
Note - I'm assuming that this is 'people' rather than devices

Thursday 26 March 2020

Facebook's usage has gone up by 50% as a result of the coronavirus

"The coronavirus has ended up a boon for social media giant Facebook, which saw a 50 percent spike in usage as the virus ate its way through the country’s health and economy.
The usage of the social media network’s numerous features, such as messenger and video calls, has spiked in recent weeks as millions of Americans have had to stay home to avoid the virus. This is a sharp turnaround from not so long ago when the social network seemed to be collecting dust, mostly seeing use from older people as the youth flocked to newer models of social media.
But as of late, Facebook has been seeing increases in news consumption as well, with more than half the articles consumed on the site relating to the virus pandemic. Ranjan Subramanian, a data analyst with the company, talked about the increase in a blog post, calling it “unprecedented.”
The report says the bulk of the increase — over 90 percent — can be credited to what Facebook terms “Power News Consumers” and “Power News Discussers,” who consume and talk about news more than most users of the service. The company, monitoring the activity from that spike fervently, wants to make sure all news put out about the worldwide crisis is as accurate and authoritative as possible — a kind of real-time experiment in how to handle news on social media."

More than a million people are watching Joe Wicks' YouTube workouts

"A YouTube workout by the online fitness guru Joe Wicks has been livestreamed by more than a million people, as parents turn to alternative teaching methods to cope with their children not being able to attend school during the coronavirus outbreak.
Wicks, who was due to start a tour of schools to promote fitness and healthy living this week, decided to livestream a daily workout instead, saying he wanted to become “the PE teacher for the nation” as the coronavirus forces more children indoors.
The former personal trainer said he had “never seen anything like” the support his workout received on Facebook, where it was shared more than 150,000 times, with support from school teachers who directed students to the stream as an alternative to PE lessons. Some schools also included links to the workout in home curriculum documents emailed to parents."

Boris Johnson's Covid-19 Lockdown Broadcast was watched live by 27m people

"Boris Johnson’s address to the nation ordering Britons to stay at home due to the coronavirus pandemic was one of the most-watched broadcasts in UK television history, with more than 27 million Britons tuning in live to watch him announce the historic lockdown of the country.
This puts the pre-recorded broadcast in the top tier of most-watched British television programmes ever, up with the likes of the 1966 World Cup final and the funeral of Princess Diana, making clear the historic importance of the occasion as the country collectively watched the prime minister give the latest coronavirus guidance.
The overnight viewing figures do not include the millions of Britons who watched the broadcast on internet livestreams through news apps and websites, or those who watched it through catch-up services, meaning the real audience is likely to have been substantially higher."
Source:  The Guardian, 24th March 2020
Note - It was shown simultaneously on several major channels

Tuesday 17 March 2020

51% of UK households have at least one paid video on demand subscription

"The proportion of UK homes with a subscription to at least one of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or NOW TV passed 50 per cent for the first time in Q4 2019, standing at 50.5 per cent.
27 million UK homes access at least one of these services, a quarter-on-quarter increase of almost 600,000 homes (4.4 per cent) since Q3 2019.
Netflix remains the largest service with 12.35 million homes subscribed, a year-on-year growth of almost 20 per cent.
Amazon Prime Video is the fastest growing service year-on-year, increasing by just over 35 per cent versus Q4 2018 to 7.14 million homes.
NOW TV saw almost 8 per cent year-on-year growth, bringing it to 1.69 million UK homes in Q4 2019 (although it experienced an 8 per cent quarter-on-quarter drop from 1.84 million in Q3 2019).
In Q4 2019, 6.03 million UK homes (21 per cent of homes) subscribed to two or more SVoD services, up 1.72 million year-on-year."
Source:  Advanced Television, 20th February 2020

36% of US workers have participated in the gig economy

"A quick glance at the workforce of 2020 doesn’t immediately present itself as all that different from the workforce of the year 2000.
The major professions remain the same — doctors, lawyers, bankers, accountants, stock brokers, academics, teachers, consultants, software programmers, etc. The trades are mostly familiar — electrical, carpentry, plumbing, welding, etc. There are still retail clerks and waiters; tailors and dry cleaners; drivers and warehouse workers — just as there were when the 21st century got off the ground.
But quick glances can be deceiving, and in the case of the 21st century, it is not only fair to say we aren’t looking at the same workforce as 20 years ago, but also, we aren’t even laboring in the same workforce of a decade ago.
That’s because a decade ago, the gig economy was still in its nascent stages. Today, it’s a bona fide influence unto itself in the labor force. According to the latest edition of the Gig Economy Tracker, PYMNTS found that 42 percent of U.S. workers will engage in some form of freelance work this year, 36 percent have participated in the gig economy and, by the end of this year, there will be an estimated 42 million workers active in the U.S. gig economy."

5G is available in 378 cities in 34 countries

"Viavi Solutions Inc today revealed new industry data demonstrating a rapid surge in the spread of 5G technology. As of January 2020, commercial 5G networks have been deployed in 378 cities across 34 countries, according to the new VIAVI report “The State of 5G Deployments,” now in its fourth year."
Source:  Press Release from Viavi, 26th February 2020

Streaming accounts for 80% of US recorded music revenues

"US recorded music revenues grew by 13% year-on-year to $11.1 billion (£8.6bn) at retail value in 2019. It’s the fourth year in a row of double-digit growth.
Americans streamed 1.5 trillion songs during the year, according to the RIAA.
Streaming now accounts for 79.5% of all recorded music revenues, following last year’s 19.9% year-on-year increase to $8.8bn (£6.8bn).
The market increase was driven by subscription streaming in the world’s largest music market. Total subscription revenues of $6.8bn (£5.3bn) were up 25% compared to 2018. Premium streaming now accounts for 61% of all revenues.
One statistic jumps out of the RIAA report: the streaming market alone in 2019 was larger than the entire US recorded music market in 2017.
Subscription services were responsible for 93% of the growth in 2019 streaming revenue. DSPs added an average of one million new subscribers per month in the US, which now has 60 million people paying for services."
Source:  MusicWeek, 26th February 2020



Tuesday 25 February 2020

Billie Eilish & Drake 'stream more than all 1980s music'

"I don’t view it as problem solved. There’s been progress, but there’s a ways to go yet. If I were still at Interscope, here are the things I’d be worried about. I’d be worried that I don’t have a direct relationship with my consumer. The artists and the streaming platforms do.
I’d be worried that an artist like Drake or Billie Eilish streams more than the entire decade of the 1980s, according to the information I’ve seen from labels and streaming services. I’d also be worried that the streaming services aren’t making enough money, because that can jackknife."
Source:  Jimmy Iovine, interviewed by the New York Times, 30th December 2019

Monday 6 January 2020

Ten Trends for 2020

Here is our annual trends presentation - looking at what is happening in media and technology, and its implications for our clients and the industry.