Inside Mary Meeker's 2017 Internet Trends Report

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By: RickFerguson |

Posted on June 1, 2017

Inside Mary Meeker's 2017 Internet Trends Report The next best thing to Christmas for many tech and marketing geeks is the annual release of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Mary Meeker's Internet Trends Report. Chock full of stats, charts, trends, and other chocolaty goodness, Meeker's 2017 report is 355 slides of eye-opening information on digital trends. We've perused it, and we've also scoured the news coverage of it to distill the post pertinent details for time-starved loyalty marketers. You're welcome!   Here are some key takeaways from the report, courtesy of us as well as from news sites Recode and TechCrunch:

  • Global smartphone growth is slowing; smartphone shipments grew 3 percent year over year last year, versus 10 percent the year before.
  • Global internet user growth is flat; total internet users grew 10 percent this year, the same as last year.
  • U.S. adults now spend over 5.6 hours per day on the internet, including over three hours per day on mobile compared to under one hour per day in 2011. Desktop usage has only declined slightly, indicating mobile use is an addition to desktop use, not a replacement.
  • Online advertising grew 22 percent last year, with mobile ad spend now exceeding desktop spend for the first time.
  • Consumers spend 28 percent of their media time on mobile, yet it only receives 21 percent of ad spend, indicating a $16 billion mobile ad opportunity.
  • Google and Facebook now control 85 percent of online ad spend - is it time to break up Big Data?
  • Meanwhile, ad blocking is increasing, with over 400 million people globally now blocking ads on their devices.
  • Ecommerce sales grew 15 percent last year, largely at the expense of brick-and-mortar retail.
  • We created roughly 14 zettabytes (14 trillion gigabytes) of information in 2016, and the growth rate will keep increasing.

And here are some of Meeker's key trends:

  • Image-targeted ads: Snap is now targeting ads based on the images you share.
  • User-generated ads: Ads repurposed from social media sharing are outperforming ads created by agencies.
  • Ads that follow you: Location-based ads based on image recognition and camera apps will increasingly target ads to you based on what you're looking at in the physical world.
  • Big data transforms health care: 60 percent of consumers are willing to share their health data with tech firms such as Google.

There's lots more, including deep dives on media consumption, health care, and the growth of mobile and internet use in China and India. You can download or view the entire 355-page extravaganza here.