A Q&A with Caroline Moul, the President of PHD Canada

eMarketer senior analyst at Insider Intelligence Paul Briggs discusses what he's paying attention to in 2021 and why: online grocery shopping, food delivery apps, and more 2021 trends to watch out for in Canada.

In 2020, digital video ad spending exceeded TV ad outlays for the first time in Canada. Digital video gained the most momentum of any format amid the pandemic last year, growing by 10.0% year over year (YoY). This includes both in-stream video formats (e.g., YouTube ads) and those outstream (ads appearing in social media feeds).

The big-box retailer reported its member renewal rate was 91% in the US and Canada at the end of 2021 and 89% worldwide. Like Netflix, which also raised its prices this year, Amazon Prime is seeing its US expansion slow to a trickle: We forecast subscriber growth will drop to 2.0% by 2025 as the market approaches saturation, which could be another driving factor in Amazon’s decision to raise prices.

At a time when reliable information about the coronavirus is critical, trust in the news media in Canada is not as high as it should be, according to new research.

Wealthsimple has secured $559M in funding at a $3.7B valuation thanks to the success of its retail trading and new crypto and P2P money transfer products. The Canadian fintech should now roll out customized portfolio options to double down on growth.

What has been dubbed the “streaming wars” in many markets—especially in the US—is more like a skirmish in Canada. Despite the influx of US-based services like Disney+ and Apple TV+ in the past year, and the presence of homegrown services like Bell Media’s Crave nationally and Vidéotron’s Club Illico in Quebec, Netflix is still by far the most popular subscription OTT service in Canada.

Canada’s incumbent banks lose ground in customer satisfaction: The Big 5 Canadian banks saw lower overall satisfaction as a group in J.D. Power’s annual survey—but this poses little risk to their market positions, given the strong satisfaction with their direct bank units and their hard-to-replace legacy offerings.