Amid global economic gloom, Asia-Pacific remains a region of digital opportunities in 2023, highlighted by the increasing momentum of the metaverse in China, surging retail sales in India, and burgeoning livestream commerce in Indonesia.

A jarring deceleration in ad spending growth has shaken the advertising industry in many parts of the world. However, this softness is not universal, and it is likely to be short-lived.

Alibaba, Amazon, and Mercado Libre dominate retail ecommerce in different parts of the world. Here’s a look at how these marketplaces stack up, in seven charts and graphics.

Pinduoduo grew faster than JD.com, Alibaba in Q3: But with lockdowns and protests stymieing domestic spending, the discount retailer is looking for growth opportunities in the US.

Pinduoduo, ByteDance pose threat to Amazon: China-based companies are getting into international ecommerce for an expanded customer base. If the prices are right, they could give Amazon more Q4 worries.

Shoppers in India spent enthusiastically ahead of Diwali celebrations: But the outlook for China’s biggest shopping event is much less rosy as Chinese consumers grapple with economic uncertainty.

Alibaba was the world’s No. 1 digital retailer in 2021 with $1.249 trillion in ecommerce gross merchandise value (GMV). Amazon ranked No. 2, with ecommerce GMV of $602.0 billion, while JD.com and Pinduoduo took No. 3 and No. 4, respectively.

The personal luxury goods sector is riding a wave of high demand in the US and China, buoyed by wealthier consumers who are relatively immune to the impact of price increases. But brands will need to appeal to the rising Gen Z consumer, as well as strengthen loyalty among their most important customers.

Canada’s consumers are slowly but surely shifting to online shopping, with ecommerce more than doubling its share of total retail sales since 2019. In this report, we look at the various retail milestones Canada will reach in 2022, as well as our first-ever breakdown of the country’s ecommerce sales by product category.

Challenging macroeconomic conditions have ushered in an era of more modest spending growth in China. But the outlook remains positive in spaces that are capturing consumer interest and demand—like live commerce and digital groceries.

Retailers look to promotional shopping events like Prime Day to juice sales: Amazon, Alibaba, Walmart, and others hope the prospect of a good deal will lure customers in.

ByteDance properties Douyin and TikTok have been making waves inside and outside China for several years. Their combined spectacular growth will result in ad revenues of more than $30 billion for their parent company in 2022, leaving ByteDance in fifth place among ad publishers worldwide.

China’s total media ad spending and digital ad spending will both grow at their lowest rates since we began tracking them in 2012, but the ad industry is nonetheless set for an eventful year in the world’s second-largest market.

Nearly every country in the world will see slower growth in total ad spending and digital ad spending than it did last year, but the comparison is an unfair one because 2021 was abnormal. The outlook is mostly bright.

The metaverse is expected to be a major disruptor across industries, but it's still early days for the emerging realm. In this report, we look at how different markets are embarking on their own metaverse business models.

China’s digital ad market will expand in the coming years, but growth pace to slow: Government restrictions on data transfers and collection of personal info to weigh on Big Tech.

Retail media advertising sits at the intersection of two major digital disruptions unfolding in Latin America: the meteoric rise of ecommerce and reallocation of ad dollars toward digital formats. While still nascent, retail media will play a larger part of brands’ marketing strategies in 2022.

Farfetch and Neiman Marcus join forces to update luxury retail for the ecommerce age: The fashion platform will invest up to $200 million in the retailer, with the latter using Farfetch’s ecommerce tools to power digital channels.

In 2022, 40.7% of China’s digital ad spending will go toward the ecommerce channel, for ads offered by retailers like Alibaba and JD.com. This eclipses the share in the US, where 14.5% of digital ad spending will flow to ecommerce channel ads sold by the likes of Amazon, Walmart, and eBay.