Social commerce is rising rapidly worldwide. But to what extent can the US market mirror that of China, the world leader in social commerce?

Is TikTok ready to take on Amazon? ByteDance wants to launch an international ecommerce platform; whether it rolls out as a TikTok integration, or as a standalone app, will be a litmus test for the strength of the US social commerce market.

Retail investors and the investing-curious give Reddit a push: Thanks to January's meme-stock craze, the 16-year-old platform's user growth helped fuel increases in ad revenue, which will help the company dive into international expansion and video.

While Facebook’s digital currency remains MIA, Twitter and Amazon are making their own headway in cryptos—all in a bid to simplify payments on their global platforms.

As with other social networks, Twitter’s user base grew unexpectedly this year as pandemic-driven stay-at-home orders drove up social media usage overall.

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.

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.

The duopoly of Facebook and Google still dominates digital ad revenues worldwide, but a collective rival from the ecommerce industry is showing momentum.

This report explores the latest developments in the social media landscape, including a look at TikTok Global, Instagram’s launch of Reels, and new election-related moves from Facebook and Twitter.