Our first-ever worldwide forecast for retail media ad spending shows enduring momentum and lots of good news for Amazon and other ecommerce platforms around the world.

The ad spending winter of 2022 and early 2023 was mild and short-lived, as we predicted. And after a solid H2 2023, things are looking up across the board for 2024.

The Latin American economy is on the upswing, with digital innovation in the driver’s seat. Our trends report explores how retail media, commerce, and generative AI will be redefined in 2024 and what businesses need to know to get ahead.

No other market in the world comes close to China when it comes to ecommerce. Its highly competitive digital market has spurred retail innovations that are making their way around the world.

Douyin, TikTok's Chinese sibling, is about to become China’s largest social platform. It's also crashing the country’s ecommerce party. Already the fourth largest online shopping platform by sales, its market share is rapidly approaching JD.com's.

Alibaba's two AI models rely on open-source technology for image understanding and complex interactions, reflecting a strategic move toward wider adoption.

After the self-inflicted stagnation of 2022, China’s retail and ecommerce sales growth is somewhat back on track. At the company level, Douyin has burst onto the scene as a major retailer, and Pinduoduo’s ascent continues.

In China, ecommerce channel ad spending represents over 38% of total digital ad spending, and ecommerce search spending accounts for 64.0% of total search. Could the US figures reach similar heights?

Internet use is growing the fastest in the Middle East and Africa, where about 80 million more people will go online at least once per month between 2023 and 2027, according to our forecast. Roughly 60% of the global population will use the internet regularly.

Alibaba and JD.com, China’s other ecommerce giants, never gained substantial traction in the US, partly due to their lack of spending to acquire customers. US-based Wish spent heavily on digital ads and rode the pandemic-driven ecommerce boom to an IPO—but has since lost its way.

The company was once all in on cloud computing but is selling off the business unit as part of its massive restructuring. The move raises questions about its future business focus.

Amazon is the top dog of US retail, accounting for 37.6% of all US ecommerce sales this year for a total of $431.11 billion dollars, according to our forecast. While the giant has a successful stronghold in many US industries, Amazon isn’t dominant everywhere, especially as it pertains to a physical footprint and getting consumers comfortable with its elite tech. Here are a few areas Amazon hasn’t overtaken—yet.

The rise of shopping apps selling ultralow-cost goods from China is drawing more value-driven US consumers. But are their strategies sustainable over the long term?

Digital ad spending will increase slightly faster this year than in 2022, but the bump will be minimal. Total media ad spending growth will roughly hold steady. But there are parts of the world where spending is surging.

Splitting into six companies makes each business unit more competitive while reducing regulatory oversight, which could help increase profits.

The Chinese economy shows signs of life: While that’s good news for retailers after flat growth last year, many are adopting conservative strategies to protect their bottom lines.

Slowing growth forces Beijing to capitulate to Big Tech: Facing the weakest growth in decades, China seeks cooperation with the EU and will loosen its iron grip on tech monoliths to spur the economy.

Alibaba’s retail ecommerce sales in China were nearly twice that of Amazon’s worldwide in 2022, at $1.229 trillion compared with about $657 billion, per our estimates. Latin American competitor Mercado Libre had significantly less ecommerce sales, at nearly $35 billion.