US gamers are gaming on a budget

Facebook continues its pivot to video

We expect there will be 159.1 million monthly mobile phone gamers in the US this year, up 1.2% from 2020. That’s 89.5% of all US digital gamers, making mobile phones the leading device by a significant margin.

5G technology is poised to transform how media, entertainment, and marketing are produced, distributed, and consumed. This report discusses five ways that next-generation wireless networks could propel industry growth.

Digital gaming and viewership of gaming video content (GVC) has become more popular amid the pandemic. In 2021, some of this activity will see modest growth, while interest in other forms of gaming will taper off.

Using gaming mechanics, traditional publishers can bolster what has become their central KPI: engagement.

The media and entertainment industries have traditionally made up a small fraction of the US digital ad market, and we expect their shares to remain flat or diminish through 2021. This partly has to do with traditional media conglomerates tightening their belts; their own ad revenues will continue to decline as ad dollars shift away from print and TV and toward the digital duopolies.

The pandemic has caused reduced advertiser spending overall, leading to lower growth of in-app ad spending despite significantly higher numbers of ad placements. While in-app purchases (IAPs) never stopped growing amid the pandemic, publisher revenues have recently been shifting from in-app advertising to purchases.

Video viewing platform Twitch is benefiting from coronavirus lockdowns in a big way in the US. Usage will jump 26.2% this year to 41.5 million, higher than the 37.5 million predicted in February.

Esports viewership has not caught up to the media hype – but there could be upcoming growth opportunities.

While the coronavirus pandemic caused every major US sports league to suspend its season, esports resumed relatively quickly. Leagues pivoted from competing inside venues to an online-only format where teams and production crews operated remotely. Despite any short-term struggles from large advertising downturns, the outlook for esports remains positive.

Esports received heightened media attention during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. While the publicity helped bring awareness to the growing industry, the pandemic will not have a significant impact on annual esports viewership or advertising revenues in the US.

As Americans hunkered down under stay-at-home guidelines for much of March and April, they unsurprisingly consumed more mobile media. The added mobile time, however, wasn’t distributed equally.

Well into the pandemic, consumers still say they are spending more time with social media. Activities like live streaming, video chatting and gaming are drawing some of them in.

This report examines key takeaways from our most recent forecasts for US virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) users.

We forecast that 37.5 million people in the US will watch streaming video on Twitch at least monthly in 2020, meaning the video streaming platform will reach 15.5% of US digital video viewers this year. At its current pace, Twitch will surpass 40 million US users by the end of 2021, according to our first ever forecast for the platform.

Amid all the handwringing about screen time—plus the demise of Toys "R" Us—one could easily imagine that kids have lost interest in toys. But they haven’t.

This report looks at how digital technology fits into the daily lives of US kids—digital natives who, compared with teens and young adults, aren’t really all that digital.

In this year’s Key Digital Trends report, we identify what changes are coming to the digital media and technology landscape in 2020 and why they matter to marketers.

Adults in China spend more time on digital than they do with any other media. Moreover, time spent on digital will continue to grow at a rapid pace, encroaching on time spent with traditional media.