The number of social network users in Canada continues to climb, as a wider variety of platforms become available that can satisfy user appetites for information, entertainment, and personal expression.

Our latest forecasts for ad spending in Canada, which include our first-ever estimates for Google and Meta, show strong growth overall and an accelerated shift to digital.

Our annual lookahead for Canada highlights some growth areas for brand marketers as well as the mediascape that’s evolving to serve them.

We define “social commerce” as products or services ordered via social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, WeChat, Line, VK, and others, either by buying directly on the social platform, such as via Instagram Checkout or WeChat Mini Programs, or through clicking links on the social network that lead to the retailer’s product page to complete the purchase.

TikTok: In March 2021, Walmart partnered with TikTok for a second live shopping event on the platform, following a pilot of the livestream shopping program in December 2020. Walmart hasn’t provided sales figures from the first live event but told TechCrunch in March that it received seven times more views than expected and a 25% increase in its TikTok follower count.

Average daily time spent with media shot past the 10-hour mark last year, pushing media consumption to new levels in Canada.

This report summarizes our forecasts for nine countries—the US, Canada, France, Germany, the UK, China, India, Japan, and South Korea—and offers comparative analyses of the major time spent numbers for each.

US and Canada. The US accounts for the lion’s share of Snapchat users. As a result, the decelerating growth in the country means North America, which we define as the US and Canada, will see only a modest increase in the number of Snapchat users, too. This is despite a better-than-expected bump in Canada. Mixed fortunes mean modest growth overall.

Canada trails only Japan worldwide across a variety of Twitter penetration metrics: About one-fifth of the population (22.1%), a quarter of internet users (25.0%), and more than a third (35.2%) of social network users in Canada use Twitter. Compared with the US, Twitter adoption in Canada is significantly higher.

Facebook’s US and Canada ad revenues came in at roughly $8.38 billion, up from $7.20 billion in Q1 2019. The US and Canada accounted for roughly 48% of Facebook’s worldwide revenues. On the earnings call, Facebook CFO David Wehner said the precipitous drop in revenues during March had moderated in the start of Q2.

There was especially notable growth in the US and Canada, where core Facebook gained 5 million users between Q4 and Q1, the strongest growth it has experienced in those markets in many quarters. Facebook also grew strongly in Europe, adding 12 million users in Q1.

Ecommerce’s share of total retail in Canada is higher than we previously expected, as brick-and-mortar outlets are forced to shutter and online shopping becomes a necessity.

After reaching an expected saturation point last year, daily media time in Canada will climb further this year based on our latest forecasts. COVID-19 has driven up demand for media while people are quarantined at home, which will impact our full-year forecast.