Mobile accounts for 48% of ecommerce sales in China

"Nearly half of China’s total online shopping GMV (gross merchandise volume) was generated by shoppers using mobile devices in the first quarter as consumers continued to rapidly shift their e-shopping activities from PCs to smartphones, according to independent research firm iResearch.
In its latest quarterly report on the state of the e-commerce industry in China, iResearch said that shopping via mobile devices surged 168.3 percent in the first quarter of 2015 compared with the first quarter last year, with GMV totaling RMB 362.34 billion ($58.4 billion). Mobile GMV accounted for a record-breaking 47.8 percent of total GMV."

Source:  AliZila, 27th May 2015

Snapchat users watch 2 billion videos a day

"In a 23-page sales pitch it’s sending to ad agencies this month, the company says more than 60 percent of 13- to 34-year-old smartphone users in the U.S. are active on the service and together view more than 2 billion videos a day. That’s already about half the number of videos people watch on Facebook, which is seven years older and has 10 times as many members."

Source;  Bloomberg, 26th May 2015

56% of US households have a TV connected to the internet

"New consumer research from Leichtman Research Group, Inc. (LRG) finds that 56% of all US households have at least one television set connected to the Internet via a video game system, a smart TV set, a Blu-ray player, and/or a stand-alone device (like Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, or Amazon Fire TV) -- up from 44% in 2013, and 24% in 2010. While 27% of all households have a TV set connected via one device, 29% of households are now connected via multiple devices -- up from 17% in 2013.
Along with the increase in connected TV households and devices, there has also been an increase in watching Internet-delivered video on the TV set. Overall, 29% of adults watch Internet-delivered video via a connected TV at least weekly, compared to 17% in 2013, and 5% in 2010. In addition, among Netflix streaming video users, 85% say that they watch Netflix on a TV set -- a slightly higher level than in any previous year.
These findings are based on a telephone survey of 1,215 households nationwide and are part of an LRG study, Emerging Video Services IX. This is LRG's ninth annual study on this topic.
Other related findings include:
52% of households get a subscription video on-Demand (SVOD) service from Netflix, Amazon Prime, and/or Hulu Plus
43% of adults stream an SVOD service at least monthly
43% of pay-TV subscribers get Netflix -- compared to 50% of all pay-TV non-subscribers
19% of Netflix subscribers agree that their Netflix subscription is shared with others outside their household
On a daily basis, 33% of adults watch video on non-TV devices (including home computers, mobile phones, iPads, tablets, and eReaders), and 58% weekly -- up from 27% daily, and 53% weekly two years ago
10% of adults are very interested in HBO Now at $14.99 per month without having to subscribe to a pay-TV service"

Source:  Press release from Leichtman Research, 27th May 2015

More than 50% of UK households own a tablet

"The tablet computer has established itself as a must-have device in just five years with more than half of UK homes now owning one.
Apple’s iPad launched in the UK on 28 May 2010 and, alongside Android and other tablet devices, it is helping to shape the way we surf the internet, communicate and watch TV and video.
The rapid rise in popularity of tablets means that over half of UK households (54%) now have one1, up from just 2% in 2011.
Tablets are proving particularly popular among people aged 35-54 with nearly two thirds of this age group (64%) having a tablet.
The trend looks set to continue - 21% of households currently without a tablet told Ofcom they were likely to get one within the next 12 months.
A tablet generation
According to Ofcom research, seven in ten (71%) children aged 5-15 had access to a tablet at home by the end of 2014, up from just over half (51%) in 2013.
And many kids do not even have to share a tablet with their parents. One in three children (34%) aged 5-15 have their own device - up from one in five (19%) in 2013.
Tablets are also proving popular with toddlers - one in ten (11%) of 3-4 year olds now have their own tablet to keep them entertained."

Source:  Ofcom, 27th May 2015

Mary Meeker's Internet Trends 2015

2015 Internet Trends Report from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

The Chinese 'wifi stealing' app Skeleton Key has 270m monthly active users

"Wifi Skeleton Key, an app for quickly connecting to wifi hotspots without a password or sign-in, has raised US$52 million in series A funding, according to QQ Tech. The investment came from Haitong Securities, Northern Light Venture Capital, and others. QQ Tech’s sources say the company gave up 5.2 percent equity in return, which, if true, puts the company’s valuation at around US$1 billion.
Wifi Skeleton Key (named WiFi万能钥匙 in Chinese) allows users to establish a connection to millions of hotspots across China without the need for credentials. It works very similar to Wifi Companion, a likeminded app that raised US$9.75 million in series A funding in December. All ChinaNet hotspots, of which there are 8 million littered throughout the country, are available to Wifi Skeleton Key users. Those hotspots are run by China Mobile, the world’s largest telecoms operator.
The app also crowdsources login credentials, so when one user logs into a hotspot, his or her credentials are added to the database so that everyone else on the app can also use that hotspot. Users cannot actually view these credentials so as to protect user data.
Wifi Skeleton Key boasts 270 million monthly active users, making it one of the most popular apps in the country. The company claims that makes it the third most popular app in China after Tencent’s duo, WeChat and QQ Messenger."

Source:  Tech in Asia, 22nd May 2015
MAUs

The global pay TV market grew to $237bn in 2014

"The global pay-TV services market, including cable TV, satellite TV, telco TV and OTT video, totalled $237 billion in 2014, up 7 per cent from the previous year, according to the 2015 IHS Infonetics Pay-TV Services and Subscribers report.
[...]
Report highlghts include:
Global pay-TV subscribers ballooned to nearly 800 million in 2014 (up 5 percent); for the first time, the OTT pay-TV segment provided the strongest growth
Over the 5 years from 2014 to 2019, OTT pay-TV services are forecast by IHS to have the highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of any pay-TV service
Cable pay-TV revenue growth slowed to 1.8 per cent in 2014, largely due to sluggish subscriber growth in North America, where net video subscribers are declining around 1 to 3 per cent annually"

Source:  Advanced Television, 22nd May 2015

Shared usage of paid streaming services in the US

"Digital media consumer research from Parks Associates reports 57% of U.S. broadband households access an OTT video subscription, but account sharing is a lingering challenge. According to a 3Q 2014 survey of U.S. broadband households, 8% are using a subscription OTT video account held by someone outside of their home, and 6% are exclusively using shared accounts to access subscription OTT video content. This finding equates to 11% of all households that are relying exclusively on shared accounts when using subscription OTT services."

Source:  Parks Associates, 15th May 2015

The BBC has a global weekly reach of 308 million across all platforms

"Figures reveal the BBC has a weekly global audience of 308 million people. This represents the combined measured reach of international BBC content – both news and entertainment – for the year 2014/15 and is the first time this figure has ever been measured in this way.
In 2013 Tony Hall, Director General of the BBC, set a target of 500 million for the BBC’s global reach for 2022.
The figures – the BBC Global Audience Measure (GaAM) – reveal that the BBC’s weekly global news audience, which is measured each year, has increased by 18 million people, or 7 per cent since last year, to a record-breaking 283 million.  This means that one in every 16 adults around the world uses BBC News.
For the first time, television (148m) overtook radio (133m) as the most popular platform for BBC international news, and it is also the first time since we tracked audiences for all three platforms – radio, TV and online (55m) – in English and 28 other languages – that they’ve all grown in the same year.
The BBC World Service’s audience has increased by 10 per cent in its first year of licence fee funding and now stands at 210m, with the biggest boost coming from new World Service TV news bulletins in languages other than English."

Source:  Advanced Television, 22nd May 2015

Germany has gone past 'Peak Telephony'

"In 2014, fixed line networks saw 154 billion outgoing minutes in Germany which is 9 billion minutes less than last year. On the mobile side they've been observing an increase of 1 billion minutes. In total that's 8 billion minutes less than the previous year, which is about -3%. The trend has been going on for quite a while now. In 2010, combined fixed and mobile outgoing voice minutes were at 295 billion compared to 265 minutes in 2014. That's 11% less over that time frame."

Source:  Mobile Society, 22nd May 2015

Note - An earlier example of other markets

Digital Ad Spend hit €30.7bn in Europe in 2014; Mobile is 17% of display spend

"At the 9th edition of its annual Interact conference IAB Europe today announced that online advertising grew 11.6% to a market value of €30.7bn in 2014.
The AdEx Benchmark research – the definitive guide to the state of the European online advertising market – revealed that online advertising achieved double digit growth for a fifth consecutive year.
All markets participating in the study recorded positive growth and twenty markets grew double-digit. Mobile and video ad spend continued on their strong growth curves and are now a significant proportion of display and search ad spend.
Townsend Feehan, CEO of IAB Europe, commented “The AdEx Benchmark results highlight the importance of digital advertising for growth in Europe’s economy. We need to ensure that digital advertising enables the European digital sector to compete across the world.”
Display, Search and Classifieds
The IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark study splits the online ad market into 3 broad segments: Display, Search and Classifieds and Directories. Growth in these online advertising formats has been underpinned by shifting uses in devices and changing consumption patterns.
Display advertising outperformed other categories with a growth rate of 15.2% and the pace of Display growth further accelerated versus 2013. In 2014, the total value of the Display ad market was €10.9bn.
Search showed growth of 10.8% - and a market value of €14.7 billion. It continues to be the largest online advertising format in terms of revenue, but has recorded a deceleration in its growth rate in the last three years.
The 2014 Classifieds and Directories market grew 5.8% to €4.9bn showing growth of 5.8%. Classifieds & Directories benefitted from the improvement in the economy, but is increasingly challenged by Paid-for-search and Data-driven Display to compete for advertising budgets.
Mobile and video are driving growth 
Mobile now accounts for 17.7% of the display market, with a growth rate of 72.5% compared with 2013.
Online video advertising also showed strong growth, now representing 15.1% of the display market.
Eleni Marouli, a Senior Analyst at IHS and author of the report, “The sustained double-digit growth in online advertising in the last five years demonstrates the continual evolution of the online advertising market. The two formats driving this growth in 2014 were mobile and video. The rise of mobile and video is a reflection of the investment and innovation of the online advertising industry to meet advertiser needs, not just a reaction to shifts in consumption trends”
Regional and national pictures
Daniel Knapp, Director of Advertising Research at IHS Technology and author of the research, said, "Our study shows that even the most mature online advertising markets in Europe sustain double digit growth, clearly indicating the economic vibrancy of the sector. This growth is primarily enabled by the proliferation of intelligent data infrastructures. Data is the growth engine behind advertising that serves as a connective tissue between consumers, media and brands.”
The CEE region grew strongly as online advertising is still benefitting from the improvements in broadband infrastructure and the increase in broadband penetration in these markets, which brings more addressable audiences online. However, growth in European online advertising continues to be driven by the most mature online advertising markets in Europe. This is a direct result of investment in formats and targeting capabilities and developing data strategies in a cross-device environment.
As Europe exits the double-dip recession, advertising markets will benefit from increased optimism from brands. Provided that publishers continue to improve their offerings, online advertising spend is well-placed to be the main beneficiary of the larger advertising budgets. Mobile and video will be the primary areas of interest for these brands.
Top 3 Individual growth markets were:
Slovenia 43.1% growth
Ireland 33.3%.growth
Belarus 32.8%growth
Top 10 Rankings
UK - €8.9bn
Germany – €5.4bn
France - €3.7bn
Italy – €1.9bn
Russia- €1.8bn
Netherlands - €1.5bn
Sweden - €1.0bn
Spain – €0.9bn
Denmark - €0.7bn
Norway - €0.7bn"

Source:  Press release from IAB Europe, 21st May 2015

Full presentation here

90% of new visits to Guardian content in 2014 were from mobile

"Lee Fels [The Guardian] then told delegates that the Guardian saw 500m new visits to its digital content during 2014, 90 per cent of which were from mobile.
“The gap in visits from mob to desktop is widening,” said Felds. “It’s not reversible, it’s going to be exacerbated and we all need to gear up for it…We are following where the user is.”
Earlier today at the event, the IAB’s resident psychologist, Dr. Simon Hampton, offered a cautionary note around the Internet of Things, telling delegates that if connected household appliances started collecting data on every aspect of people’s lives and feeding it back to them, people would start tuning out if the data told them things they don’t want to hear."

Source:  Mobile Marketing Magazine, 14th May 2015

Data Volumes vs SMS Volumes in various countries

Source:  Tweet from Benedict Evans, 21st May 2015

Google & Facebook account for 49'% of US digital ad spend & 52% of mobile ad spend

"In the battle for digital ad dollars, it's Google, Facebook and then who?
That's the question marketers are asking as they try to spend effectively on the Web, and even more so on mobile, where traffic is shifting.
Heading into quarterly earnings reports next week, Google and Facebook utterly dominate digital advertising, according to eMarketer.
The two alone control 49 percent of the U.S. digital advertising market and 52 percent of mobile ads.  Way below them, the No. 3, 4 and 6 players—Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL—are losing market share, and nobody below them claims even 2 percent. Twitter ranks fifth at 2.3 percent."

Source:  CNBC, 17th April 2015

WeChat has 549m monthly active users

Source:  Tech in Asia, 12th May 2015
MAUs

More American households have a smartphone than a desktop computer

"More U.S. households now own a smartphone than a desktop, according to new research that Parks Associates will discuss at the 19th-annual CONNECTIONS™: The Premier Connected Home Conference, May 19-21, in San Francisco. In the last five years, desktop adoption declined from 90% to 69% among U.S. broadband households, while smartphone adoption increased from 36% to 78%. Tablet adoption increased from 7% to 63%.
“The U.S population has made a dramatic shift to mobile devices and services, which they are using to access content in the cloud and check the smart devices in their connected home,” said Stuart Sikes, President, Parks Associates. “At CONNECTIONS™, we will analyze the implications of this new post-desktop world.”"

Source:  Parks Associates, 12th May 2015

A quarter of app users discover apps through search

"A Google study has found that mobile search is a growing method for app discovery, suggesting app downloads will increase as mobile search surges.
Google’s finding that one in four app users discovers an app through search comes after the search giant announced a revamping of its AdWords online advertising service with a focus on interactive mobile ads. The developments highlight Google’s recent initiatives aimed at keeping the company relevant as mobile becomes the dominant search medium.
"Discovery has always been a critical element of app usage and it remains so today,” said Jeff Hasen, founder/CEO of Gotta Mobilize, a Seattle-based marketing consulting firm. “One can spend weeks looking at all the millions of apps available, but, of course, no one has the interest or time to do so."

Source:  Mobile Marketer, 8th May 2015

20% of sales on Red Dress Boutique are processed by Amazon

"Amazon, which is usually opaque on numbers, did not disclose how many merchants actually use the service in some form, although the four-year-old online clothing site Red Dress Boutique, for example, reports that 20% of all sales — at least $2.8 million based on back-of-the-envelope math — are now processed via Amazon."

Source: Mashable, 16th May 2015

There are 14,000 Uber drivers in London

"[Boris] Johnson’s move follows a sharp rise in the number of minicabs looking for customers in the capital: numbers have increased by nearly a fifth in the past year to more than 78,000.
The rise has heaped pressure on Transport for London — which is currently undertaking a review of the London taxi market — to take action.
London’s long-established black cab drivers have complained that a lack of regulation was skewing the market in Uber’s favour.
Alarmed at Uber’s burgeoning popularity, black cab drivers have tried to stall Uber’s ascent with a legal challenge. The London Taxi Drivers Association took Uber to court alleging that the use of a smartphone to log journeys flouted regulations.
Uber said it now has about 14,000 drivers in London, making it the largest provider of private hire services in the city."

Source:  Financial Times, 16th May 2015

Earlier - 20,000 Uber drivers in San Francisco

90% of Twitter video views happen on a mobile device

"The majority of Twitter users (82%) watch video content on Twitter and most watch on a hand-held screen. A staggering 90% of Twitter video views happen on a mobile device, according to our own internal data. But Twitter users don’t just lean back and watch video; they also lean in to create it. Twitter users are 1.9x more likely to have uploaded a video online (anywhere) than the average U.S. internet user.
What types of video do users want more of on Twitter? Among users that have seen the following types of video content, many would like to see more of the same on Twitter, including breaking news (64%), clips from live sports shows (54%) and clips from TV shows (50%). And Twitter users say they want to see more videos from three top sources: celebrities (45%), other users (40%) and brands (37%)."

Source:  Blog post from Twitter, 13th May 2015

Mobile-only & desktop-only access of top UK websites

Source:  comScore, 30th April 2015

Facebook has 40m active small business pages

"Facebook is announcing some new programs today for small businesses, particularly ones that advertise. At the same time, the company’s also arguing that plenty of businesses find out value on the social network without buying ads.
Specifically, Facebook says the number of active small business Pages keeps growing — it’s up to 40 million, compared to 30 million last June. And only 2 million of them are active advertisers."
Source:  TechCrunch, 29th April 2015

More than half of the UK population admit to being telly addicts

"Findings from UK DTT platform Freeview, commissioned to find out more about people’s relationship with TV, reveal that Britain is having a love affair with TV, though viewers stick within their comfort zone when it comes to picking what to watch.
The report, National Obsession: our relationship with TV, found that more than half (52 per cent) of the nation – 33 million – admit to being telly addicts. TV forms a solid, valued place in consumers’ lives, with a fifth (21 per cent) saying they watch their favourite programmes out of habit and a third (33 per cent) saying TV brings a sense of structure to their life.
When choosing new programmes, many are risk averse, picking programmes which come recommended by family or friends (43 per cent) or programmes which star a favourite actor (35 per cent). However nearly one in six (16 per cent) admit to trying a new programme out of FOMO (fear of missing out), indicating the desire for social connection that TV fulfils.
The research also found TV is a social enabler, helping people to connect with others – 29 per cent of Britons even felt it helps bring together family, partners or housemates, while just under a third (31 per cent) make some kind of compromise or joint decision with family or housemates about what to watch, showing that the TV viewing context and environment is often as important as what’s on the box."

Source:  Advanced Television, 1st May 2015

Full research presentation here

28% of smartphones in the US are sold to people who earn less than $30,000 a year

"As U.S mobile phones sales transition to predominately smartphones, buyers have become significantly older and less affluent.  For the third consecutive three month period ending February 2015, sales among consumers earning less than $30,000 per year grew by more than 50 percent.  This demographic is now the largest segment of the smartphones market, accounting for 28 percent of all sales.  In contrast, sales among consumers earning more than $100 thousand a year increased by just 24 percent. For the three months ending February 2015, buyers aged 55+ also represented 28 percent of all sales, up 24 percent from a year ago, and were the fastest growing age segment of the population.
Over the three month period ending in February, overall sales of mobile phones rose 28 percent compared to last year, while smartphone sales increased 35 percent. During the same three month period, the share of sales for non-smartphones declined to just 14 percent."

Source:  Press release from NPD, 21st April 2015

100m users a month watch 1bn Vine loops every day

"With more than 100 million people watching Vines across the web each month, and over 1 billion loops played every day, Vine has just released an update to the app that finally lets users import video from their camera.
Twitter’s video sharing app has always required users to film new content directly within the app, using Vine’s once-unique hold-to-record feature. Now, Vine users can import video that they shot on their phone, or video they downloaded from friends or Dropbox, etc."

Source:  Techcrunch, 20th August 2015

MAUs

Percent of time emojis are used in Instagram text, by country

Source:  Instagram's engineering blog, 7th May 2015

Twitter had 302m MAUs in Q1 2015

"Monthly Active Users – Average Monthly Active Users (MAUs) were 302 million for the first
quarter, up 18% year-over-year and compared to 288 million in the previous quarter. Average
Mobile MAUs represented approximately 80% of total MAUs."

Source:  Twitter Q1 2015 results, 28th April 2015

MAUs

Mobile accounts for 42% of purchases by value on Alibaba in China

"Major e-commerce players are quickly joining the revolution, particularly in emerging markets where lower penetration of PCs and fixed-line broadband has led many consumers to skip desktop shopping and leap straight to mobile commerce. In April, India’s leading online retailer, Flipkart, signaled its intention to shut down its conventional desktop-oriented site and concentrate solely on mobile sales within a year, having seen mobile traffic increase tenfold in 18 months.
Meanwhle in China, the country’s largest e-commerce company, Alibaba Group, is also moving quickly as shoppers shift to smartphones. Mobile purchases made up 42 percent of gross merchandise volume (GMV) on Alibaba’s China shopping platforms in the company’s fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31—that's up from just 20 percent in the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2013.
Alibaba’s online marketplaces host millions of large and small merchants, so it's challenge is helping retailers serve the rapidly expanding ranks of mobile shoppers. The company recently launched a tool within its popular Taobao Mobile shopping app that allows merchants on Taobao Marketplace, China’s largest online marketplace, to set up and run a store using only their smartphones, while connecting with mobile consumers through social media."

Source:  Alizila, 5th May 2015

The number of mobile-only exceeds the number of desktop-only internet users in the US

Source:  Press release from comScore, 28th April 2015
Note - it's clear from this that the majority use more than one platform

Pacquiao vs. Mayweather on Facebook & Twitter

Facebook - 37m people made 115m interactions
Twitter - 1.8m people, 5.86m Tweets

24% of US adults watch original video programming at least once a month

"A quarter (24%) of the American adult population, an audience of 59 million strong, is turning to original digital video programming at least once a month, according to the “2015 Original Digital Video Study” from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). This marks an uptick of 13 percent over last year’s audience size of 52 million. The in-depth survey of over 1,900 consumers, produced by GfK as an update to the IAB annual original digital video study, also shows that original digital video has the distinct ability to attract the difficult-to-reach 18-34 year-old audience of cord-cutters/cord-nevers – a growing group, now at 17 million.
Released during the second week of the 2015 Digital Content NewFronts, an annual marketplace managed by IAB that connects brands and media buyers with the latest in made-for-digital video opportunities, the report shows that young cord-cutters/nevers are about twice as likely as other adults to view original digital video. Fifty-three percent of cord-cutters and 63 percent of cord-nevers see this type of programming as “very” or “somewhat” important in their decision not to have pay TV. In addition, cord-cutters/nevers are inclined to find the ads shown during this type of programming to be “more interesting” or “fun” (43%), and they are not alone – a third (35%) of the general original digital viewing audience is in agreement about the likability of the ads on this sort of content.
Connected TVs (56%), smartphones (56%), and tablets (48%) are being used to stream original digital video more than twice as often as two years ago, while computer viewing of original digital video (72%) remains steady. Two-thirds (65%) of those who stream original digital video to connected TVs state that they typically watch during primetime (8-11pm) and half (53%) of them report they are doing so more than they did a year ago, largely driven by more (and more interesting) content along with ease of use of connected TVs."

Source:  Press release from the IAB, 6th May 2015

Full research here

Mobile search is bigger than desktop search on Google in 10 markets

"Billions of times per day, consumers turn to Google for I want-to-know, I want-to-go, I want-to-do, and I want-to-buy moments. And at these times, consumers are increasingly picking up their smartphones for answers. In fact, more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan.1 This presents a tremendous opportunity for marketers to reach people throughout all the new touchpoints of a consumer’s path to purchase."
Source:  Blog post from Google Adwords, 5th May 2015
Shame they don't list the 10 countries!