Snapchat will have 347.3 million users this year, up 16.1% year over year. Emerging markets, particularly India, will fuel these gains, while growth in core regions will be more modest.

The pandemic has fueled greater social media usage worldwide and prompted revisions to our earlier forecasts. We now expect the total number of social network users to rise 8.1% in 2020, to 3.23 billion—equivalent to 80.7% of all internet users.

In 2020, Instagram’s total number of monthly users will hit 1.00 billion for the first time, thanks to a worldwide user growth rate more than double what we had predicted before the pandemic.

In 2020, Facebook’s worldwide user base will grow 8.7%, nearly double the rate we had forecast before the global pandemic began.

This annual scorecard, weighted based on responses to a consumer survey, ranks the 25 largest US financial institutions by assets by their mobile banking capabilities. The report presents detailed benchmarking data on the availability of 42 mobile features, selected by analysts based on the features’ propensity to help financial institutions differentiate themselves from competitors.

Advances in AI and predictive analytics are using consumer scores to automate business decisions to predict things like risk and fraud. But concerns over fairness mean companies need to make scores transparent to consumers.

Social network ad spending has substantially rebounded since the early days of the pandemic. In 2021, the biggest issues social media marketers will face are in the areas of brand safety, ethics, and privacy.

Amazon’s net US digital ad revenues will rise by 41.0% this year as consumers shift dramatically to more ecommerce shopping and advertisers pay to get in front of shoppers at their leading destination.

YouTube viewing is shifting to connected TV (CTV) screens, a behavioral change that could help make YouTube a powerful alternative for TV advertisers moving dollars to digital video.

The COVID-19 outbreak undermined many of our pre-pandemic US forecasts. Insight can now be gleaned by examining the difference between what we thought would happen as of February 2020 vs. what our forecasts now show.

This report explores our latest forecasts for US voice assistant, smartphone voice assistant, and smart speaker users, and provides additional analysis about trends shaping the market.

The pandemic led to lower TV ad spend and increased connected TV viewing this year. The shift in TV viewing means TV audience measurement gaps must be addressed to keep pace with how, what, and where consumers are watching TV.

Many consumers still consider email to be their preferred channel for receiving brand communications. Much of the data suggests that email has become more important, not less, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

During a year where investments in most advertising channels shrunk or stalled, connected TV ad spending is poised to keep growing.

Marketers are turning to technology and inclusive design to ensure their websites, customer experiences, and campaigns are accessible to all consumers, including people with disabilities.

In response to increased social discourse about racial and gender inequity in the US, marketers are redoubling their efforts to be more inclusive. By reflecting the diversity of the real world in their teams and campaigns, they can build greater brand affinity and deeper customer relationships while working to effect positive change.

This will be a tough year for holiday season retail in the UK. Shoppers will spend less in 2020, and much of their spend will fall outside the traditional November–December time frame, leading to the lowest holiday retail sales total since 2015.

Search ad spending in the US will rise by 5.9% this year, significantly below trend, in the face of the massive disruption to consumer lifestyles. But the pandemic is setting search up for a bigger future.