Famed Internet forecaster and venture capitalist Mary Meeker released her annual Internet trends report this week. As usual, it provides a deep dive into all of the ways the Internet is continuing to evolve and impact every aspect of society on a global scale. This year the presentation is 197 slides long and while it’s worth a read for anyone interested in the meaty subject of how the Internet is shaping our world, there are some trends that are especially relevant to publishers. Take a look at the top five we highlighted below.
1) Even As Media Consumption On Mobile Has Exploded, Desktop’s Consumption Is Steady
Consumption of digital media on mobile devices has climbed from about 18 minutes per day in 2008 to nearly 3 hours in 2015. And even as this has cut desktop’s share of digital media consumption to 42% from 80% during that period, total time spent on desktop has actually remained relatively the same.
2) Tremendous Opportunity Emerging in Mobile As Ad Spending Will Catch Up With Consumer Time Spent
Print receives 18% of total U.S. ad spending while consumers are now spending just 4% of their time with print media. By contrast, mobile is earning just 8% of ad spend but is receiving 24% of consumers attention. Meeker suggests, “print remains way over-indexed relative to time spent.”
3) Mobile Ad Spending Is The Engine Driving Global Internet Advertising Growth
The total global Internet advertising market was $133 billion in 2014 compared to $59 billion five years earlier. Overall year-over-year growth has slowed but continues to be buoyed by 34% year-over-year growth in mobile advertising even as annual desktop growth slowed to 11%. Additionally, eMarketer projects that mobile will account for 56% of programmatic spending this year, surpassing programmatic desktop spending for the first time.
4) Monthly Average User (MAU) Growth Is Slowing for Social Giants
Facebook’s monthly average user (MAU) growth slowed to 13% in Q1 2015 from 23% in Q1 2013. During the same period, Twitter saw MAU growth slow to 18% from 48%. Both companies are also seeing average revenue per user (ARPU) growth drop from their peaks experienced in early 2014.
5) Vertical Viewing Is Growing Due to Mobile
As more consumers spend a greater percentage of their day viewing content on the mobile – or vertical screens – there may be a case to be made that ad inventory should be made to fit that experience. A key example would be Snapchat’s use of vertical video ads. Additionally, programmatic video is projected to grow over 440% between 2014 and 2016 to $3 billion.
See the entire Internet Trends Presentation below:
