One of the drivers of renewed growth is adoption among children, many of whom are engaged in distance learning this year as school districts across Canada provide the option for online classwork. In the Greater Toronto Area, nearly a third of elementary students’ families opted to receive their education remotely this school year.

With back-to-school season also a question mark—as schools and universities prepare for the possibility of part-time or full-time remote learning—demand may continue to suffer. Key Stat: Apparel/accessories is forecast to grow 8.6% this year, making it the only ecommerce category expected to increase by a single-digit percentage.

The pandemic-related shift to remote work and remote learning, too, has heightened demand for new and higher-quality telecom services in residential areas. The need for faster and more reliable internet has created new market opportunities for US telecom companies, particularly as bandwidth-intensive enterprise solutions are increasingly operating out of employees’ homes.

. … Working-from-home, distance learning, home-based fitness, immersive entertainment and networked social interactivity will all be part of the new normal in our lives, and made more agreeable if more users could adopt XR technologies.". VR is also finding its way into medical settings to help patients facing extended periods of isolation.

Alibaba’s own collaboration app, DingTalk, also saw tremendous uptake in China during the pandemic, among not just knowledge workers, but also students using it for remote learning. In March 2020, there were 61.9 million new installs of DingTalk in China, up 436% year over year, according to QuestMobile data.

Social commerce race aside, engaging content and a strong community of KOLs and ordinary users alike are still the core of these platforms, which are competing for eyeballs in new verticals such as esports, online learning, and finance, as well as original content and longer video formats.

Prior to the pandemic, 5G was gaining traction, as the tech industry heavily invested in and developed 5G connectivity—but social distancing along with the massive shift to remote learning and work means that faster connectivity is more important than ever.

For online learning platform Thinkific, internal employees use LinkedIn Live as well as the company’s Page to showcase the courses available. Thinkific’s social media and community manager Rob Balasabas was first approved for live streaming on his personal profile and gained immediate traction.