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Digital 2020: fixing trends

This year, the pace of digital development will be higher than even the most daring forecasts. And to understand what was the starting point at the beginning of the current period, I propose to fix the main indicators. The numbers are pretty interesting.

Users: Prioritization


At the beginning of the first quarter of this year, We Are Social and Hootsuite published a report on Digital 2020, which showed how digital, mobile and social media have become an integral part of the daily lives of people around the world. The document is quite voluminous - 247 slides with graphs and detailed data for each segment in different parts of our planet.

I will dwell on the basic indicators. To begin with, I’ll point out that in early 2020, more than 4.5 billion people used the Internet (+7%, or 298 million, compared with January 2019).
The number of users of social networks exceeded 3.8 billion (+9%, or 321 million, compared to last year), and mobile phones - 5.19 billion (+2.4%, or 124 million).

Almost 60% of the world's population is already connected to the Internet. And according to analysts, by the middle of this year, more than half of the world's population will use social networks.



How much time do people feel sorry for online?


The report said that last year, on average, people spent 6:43 hours a day on the Internet, that is, 3 minutes less than a year earlier. However, this is approximately 40% of the waking time. At the same time, this indicator varies by country. For example, in the Philippines it is the highest (09:45), and the lowest in Japan (04:22).

Despite the ubiquity of mobile devices, three-quarters of Internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 still connect to the network via laptops and desktop computers. In addition, recent Statcounter data shows that about 53% of all web page requests are currently received from mobile phones, but computers still account for 44% of the total.

Messengers and social networks are the most popular applications: 89% of Internet users aged 16 to 64 enter them. In second place are applications for buying things (66%), in third place are maps and entertainment programs (65%), followed by music (52%) and games (47%).



Social networks: who are the leaders?


According to the results of 2019, Facebook became the most massive platform - almost 2.45 billion active users per month and the advertising audience is fixed at 1.95 billion people. YouTube (2 billion) and WhatsApp (1.6 billion) turned out to be slightly less monthly users.

TikTok is quickly gaining an audience, but at the beginning of 2020, out of 800 million of its users, 500 million came from China.

Among other social platforms, the fastest growing:

  • Reddit - + 30% per year, that is, reached 430 million users;
  • Pinterest — +29%, 332 2020 .

The largest amount of content on the Internet is presented in English, Russian and Spanish (reviewed 10 million of the most popular sites).

The top Google searches in 2019 were on Facebook, Google, YouTube, You, and Weather.

43% of Internet users aged 16–64 years resort to voice search or voice commands (+9% per year). And almost half block ads.

90% of Internet users watch videos, 51% visit a video blog, 70% listen to music, 47% listen to radio stations and 41% visit podcasts.

In addition, three quarters of users make at least one online purchase per month. The largest expense items in 2019 were for travel ($ 1.19 trillion), fashion ($ 620 billion) and electronics ($ 457 billion).



About the nuances of user choice


The data in the Digital 2020 report indicates that most people still use various devices to access the Internet. Therefore, companies need to balance their strategy of presence in the network. Also, people use different devices at different times and for different needs, therefore, the task of marketers is to take into account such features in their strategies.

For example, according to App Annie, mobile applications now account for 10 of every 11 minutes that people spend on mobile devices, and it only takes 9% of mobile time to browse the web.

New data from GlobalWebIndex shows that we use applications in almost all aspects of our lives - whether we are talking with friends and family, relaxing on the couch, managing finances, preparing for something, or even love.

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