Data will also play a huge role, with advancing artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities opening doors to new treatments and ways to address patients needs.
No. 4. Ecommerce growth continues
Meeker's internet trends report: A whopping 50 slides in the report are dedicated to ecommerce. Standing out is the 16% year-over-year growth in sales in 2017, and ecommerce's 13% share of total retail sales in the US. (Slides 45 and 46)
eMarketer breakdown: In our US retail and ecommerce forecast released in February, we estimated that ecommerce growth will continue to accelerate, with sales rising another 15.6% in 2018 and reaching a total of $891.77 billion by 2022. In a breakdown of sales growth by category, food and beverage stands out as an industry that will see transformation in the ecommerce space this year.
Mobile was again a driver of overall ecommerce growth. Global mcommerce sales rose by 43.9% in 2017 and accounted for 5.8% of total retail expenditures. Standing out in mcommerce is China. Alone, it made up 67.1% of mcommerce sales worldwide last year, and sales are expected to nearly triple from $869.85 billion to $2.571 trillion between 2017 and 2021.
No. 5. Chinese companies are dominating the internet
Meeker's internet trends report: Five years ago, nine of the top 20 internet companies in the world were from the US, and two were from China. Today, Chinese companies account for nine of the 20 listed, while American companies account for 11. The top two Chinese companies on the list are Alibaba and Tencent, ranked at sixth and seventh, respectively. (Slides 217 and 218)
eMarketer breakdown: In eMarketer's report, "APAC Tech Leaders StatPack: Key Digital Companies in Asia-Pacific," Tencent and Alibaba are looked at in detail.
Alibaba has businesses in the movie, financial technology, gaming and online video industries. It's also investing in AI, augmented reality (AR), and connected cars. In October of 2017, it announced a $15 billion, three-year overseas research and development (R&D) budget to develop next-generation tech. Its Tmall platform is the main ecommerce platform in China, holding 51.3% of total market share in Q2 2017.
Tencent is known for WeChat, its mobile messaging app. WeChat (locally called Weixin) isn't your average messaging app: It has an in-app payment service called WeChat Pay that can be used for utility bills, taxis, groceries and peer-to-peer (P2P) payments. eMarketer predicts WeChat will have 543.7 million users by the end of 2018.
No. 6. Spend, spend, spend on mobile ads
Meeker's internet trends report: Although mobile is starting to dominate media time, ad dollars in the US are not flowing to the small screen at the same rate—leaving a $7 billion opportunity wide open. (Slide 96)
eMarketer breakdown: We predict that this opportunity gap will close quickly, and that mobile ad spending will surpass TV ad spending in 2018.