New internet trends

Smartphone sales fell year-on-year for the first time globally

Mary Meeker’s annual report on internet trends is among the most highly anticipated slide deck in Silicon Valley. That’s because Ms Meeker, who founded the billion dollar fund Bond Capital, has an unerring instinct for pinpointing the future direction of the digital economy. The focus of the 2019 edition is on data, the ways in which companies, regulators and countries handle it, and the concerns as data floods the Net. Alongside security and privacy concerns, there are issues about regulation, moderation and privacy management. India has been rated as a “moderately regulated” economy and there are concerns about political, social, or religious content being blocked “often without direct public input”, and the increased use of government surveillance and disconnection of mobile internet for political reasons. 

The study says due to a rising base, new internet user growth slowed in 2018 and smartphone sales fell year-on-year for the first time. But more than half the world’s population had access to the internet, with a majority of users (about 53 per cent) coming from Asia-Pacific. While China has the largest base, accounting for 21 per cent of all internet users globally, India comes second at 12 per cent and the US third at 8 per cent. Despite the rise of India as an internet powerhouse, the bulk of the digital economy is still controlled by the US and China. As many as 18 of the top 30 digital multinational businesses are US-incorporated, while seven are from China. That situation will probably not change until there’s a reboot of the Indian policy ecosystem, allowing startups to tap more capital with less red tape. 

According to the report, digital ad spends increased but there was a slowdown in growth rate. Surveys indicate that 59 per cent of all financial transactions in 2018 were digital, which is a tectonic shift. This is buttressing the growth of the fintech industry but is also creating new security concerns. Digital corporates saw a rise in customer acquisition costs as they were compelled to invest in privacy management. There was a surge in cyber attacks including attacks by government-backed actors. An estimated 447 million sensitive records were exposed in security breaches in 2018. 

Corporates tracking consumer behaviour cashed in on several trends. In developed markets, more than 80 per cent of TV watchers use a second device to look up relevant topics on the Net, and over 40 per cent discuss news real-time on social media. The time spent surfing on mobile and using social media now exceeds time spent watching TV. Instagram has overtaken Twitter in terms of social media penetration while WeChat with its predominantly Chinese base is also a huge player.  Instant short video has a cult following and internet gaming, mainly on mobile, has grown exponentially. 

On-demand services, which started with ride hires and BnB bookings, are moving into healthcare, to deliver instant medical appointments, pathology tests, and online home-delivery of prescription drugs. Local and hyper local services are growing rapidly. In many cases, corporates have gained through the launch of freemium services, where free users are converted into paying customers as they get hooked. Another major growth category is online education services where Byju finds special mention. The report also indicates that Reliance Jio with its combination of online services and physical retail may pioneer a new business model.