Mediaboss Marketing

Despite the rapid increases in digital adoption and use that weve seen since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic more than a year ago, the latest update in the Global Digital Reports series reveals that digital growth rates remain elevated as we move into the second half of 2021.

DataReportalsDigital 2021 July Global Statshot Report published in partnership with Hootsuite and We Are Social shows that social media continues to drive connected activity around the world, with global social media user numbers fast approaching another impressive milestone.

This quarters data reveals some potential challenges ahead for marketers though, with the impact of changes in Apples privacy policies and the rollout of the EUs ePrivacy Directive starting to appear in some of our numbers.

Youll find a handy summary of this quarters top stories in the video embed below (you can also click here), but read on below for the full report, and for my in-depth analysis of the latest essential trends.

Just before we dive into the data, Id like to say a big thank you to the partners who make our Global Digital Reports possible: GWI, Statista, Semrush, Skai (formerly Kenshoo), SimilarWeb, Locowise, and App Annie.

Youll find the complete Digital 2021 July Global Statshot Report report in the SlideShare embed below (you can also click here), but read on past that to understand what all these numbers might mean for you.

Lets start with the key figures for digital adoption around the world in July 2021:

Despite COVID-19 restrictions easing in some parts of the world over recent months, the pace of growth in social media users shows few signs of slowing.

The global unique user total grew by 520 million over the past year, representing annual growth of more than 13%.

For context, that means that more than 1 in 9 of todays social media users started using social platforms for the first time within the past 12 months.

Furthermore, todays user total is 147 million higher than it was just 3 months ago, equating to quarter-on-quarter growth of nearly 3.5%.

This is one of the fastest quarterly growth rates that weve reported in the Global Digital Reports series, but its important to stress that the latest figures have benefited from a meaningful upward correction in Facebooks family active people numbers.

As the company noted in its 2021 Q1 earnings announcement,

In the first quarter of 2021, we updated our metrics calculations to maintain calibration of our models against recent user survey data, and we estimate such update contributed an aggregate of approximately 70 million [users] to our reported worldwide [total].

However, while this correction may have inflated the latest quarterly growth rates, Facebook appears to update its models and metrics on a regular basis, so the 13% annual growth rate that were reporting this quarter should still be representative of actual year-on-year trends.

At an individual platform level, Facebook is pushing ever closer to the 3 billion monthly active user milestone, with current trends suggesting that it may reach this level by early next year.

However, the companys investor reports indicate that roughly 3.5 billion people already use at least one of Facebooks family of platforms Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger.

There were no updates to user numbers from YouTube, WhatsApp, or Messenger this quarter, but the latest data from Instagram suggests the platform has enjoyed significant growth over recent months a story that well explore in more detail below.

TikTok is still keeping its latest user numbers close to its chest too, so were unable to report any official updates to its monthly active user figure this quarter.

However, data from Sensor Tower indicates that the TikTok mobile app was downloaded roughly 57 million times in June 2021 alone, so theres a good chance that the platforms active user base continues to grow (note that weve removed figures for China from Sensor Towers total, because we treat Douyin as a separate app).

Despite the latest data showing that internet user numbers have increased by more than a quarter of a billion over the past year, its clear that internet user data continues to be impacted by research limitations caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

In particular, many countries in the developing world havent published updates to internet user numbers since the outbreak of COVID-19 more than a year ago, and these are the countries where wed expect to see the most significant increases.

As a result, we continue to anticipate a meaningful upward correction in internet user numbers once research and reporting can return to normal.

The average amount of time that people spend using the internet each day dipped slightly in the past 3 months, compared with the values we reported in our Digital 2021 April Global Statshot Report.

Data from GWI shows that average daily internet use dropped by almost a minute per day, with people spending roughly 30 seconds less online on computers, and 30 seconds less online on mobile devices.

People are still spending close to 7 hours per day using the internet though more than twice the amount of time that they spend watching television.

However, its worth noting that people have been spending more time watching television in recent months.

The typical internet user around the world says that they watched an average of 3 additional minutes of TV per day compared to the previous quarter, which equates to more than 5 additional hours of television content over the past three months.

Meanwhile, despite the drop in overall internet time, people say that theyve been spending more time using social media.

GWIs most recent survey found that people spent roughly 2 minutes longer on social platforms each day over the past 3 months, compared to values for the previous quarter.

Interestingly, GWI also found that people have been spending more time with conventional media in recent months.

Survey respondents self-reported values for time spent reading physical newspapers and magazines increased by 8.5% over the past three months, equating to an additional 4 minutes per day faster than the increase weve seen for online press consumption.

Similarly, the amount of time that people say they spend listening to broadcast radio has increased by 3.5% over the past 90 days, equating to an increase of 2 minutes per day.

An increase of just a few minutes per day might not sound like a lot, but added up, these increases mean that the typical global internet user spent an additional 6 hours consuming print media over the past quarter, and an extra 3 hours listening to broadcast radio.

New data from GWI reveals that more than 95% of the worlds working-age internet users now use social networks and messaging services each month.

Interestingly, this data suggests that the use of social networking platforms like Facebook outranks the use of messaging services like WhatsApp, albeit only by a tiny margin.

More than 5 in 6 internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 also visit search engines and web portals each month, but this figure is more than 10 percentage points lower than the figure for social networks.

Meanwhile, roughly 6 in 10 internet users say theyve visited some kind of online shopping platform in the past month, and more than 50% of internet users say that they shop or browse for products online every week.

Recent months have seen some interesting changes in the numbers that Facebooks tools report for Instagrams advertising reach.

Overall, these tools show that Instagrams advertising reach has jumped by 100 million users over the past 90 days, representing quarter-on-quarter growth of more than 7.5%.

However, this growth rate is all the more impressive when we look at changes in reach figures for countries in the European Union.

For context, changes in EU legislation including the roll-out of the ePrivacy Directive are already starting to impact companies ability to target and track audiences across the EU and the UK.

As a support article in Facebooks Business Help Centre states,

[We] anticipate an impact on campaigns active in the European Region. Businesses that advertise to people in the European Region might experience decreased performance We expect that the impact will unfold gradually, over the course of several months, as additional product updates are released.

Its worth noting that these changes will affect all advertising platforms that are active in the EU not just those owned by Facebook.

But despite Facebooks expectation that the impact of these changes will unfold gradually, it seems they may have already started to affect Instagrams advertising reach numbers.

Compared to the figures that the companys self-service tools reported just 3 months ago, Instagrams advertising reach has dropped by a whopping 5 million users (14.7%) in the United Kingdom, and by 3 million users in Italy, Germany, and Spain.

Overall, Facebooks data suggest that advertisers can now target 25 million fewer users across Europe than they could as recently as April of this year.

However, these drops only seem to have affected countries in the EU and the UK.

Its also critical to stress that these figures likely only affect the degree to which advertisers can target ads to users in Europe, and they most likely do not represent a drop in actual users.

Indeed, given the rapid growth in Instagrams reach across all other markets over the past three months, theres every chance that Instagram has grown its active user base in Europe since April.

Moreover, the companys latest numbers show no evidence of a drop in Facebooks advertising reach across the region, which may provide some level of reassurance for investors.

But its not just marketers in Europe who face mounting challenges.

In a separate advisory within Facebooks advertising tools, the company warns that potential reach figures all over the world may vary significantly as people opt out of tracking on iOS 14.5, or use other data controls.

The tone of these messages suggests that Facebook expects Apples recent iOS changes to have a meaningful impact on the performance of its advertising products over the coming months.

These changes will affect many other platforms too not just Facebook.

Despite these challenges though, its worth reiterating the point that I made at the start of this section: overall, Instagrams advertising reach has increased by more than 100 million over the past 3 months despite that big drop in EU reach.

So, the takeaway here is that changes to privacy policies, cookie support, and online tracking regulations may have a significant impact on marketers ability to target ads over the coming months at least until publishers and platforms find ways to adapt.

However, those changes dont diminish the broader opportunities available to marketers within digital and social media platforms.

Recent data from eMarketer shows that digital channels now account for nearly 6 in every 10 ad dollars spent around the world, and we dont anticipate that the challenges outlined above will make a significant dent in that share.

Marketers will need to change how they use digital and social media platforms over the next few months though, to ensure that their activities are as efficient and as effective as possible.

For example, you may want to experiment with contextual targeting opportunities, instead of relying solely on audience demographics at least until youre better able to identify how new policies and laws will affect your advertising strategy.

The latest data from Ookla shows that the average mobile connection speed around the world has increased by 60% over the past 12 months.

The typical mobile user now enjoys data download speeds in excess of 55 Mbps, compared to the 35 Mbps that the company reported this time last year.

Based on Netflixs guidance, these figures indicate that the typical mobile user can now simultaneously stream two 4K movies via a single mobile connection.

According to Ooklas latest findings, only two countries in the world now suffer from average mobile connection speeds below 10 Mbps: Afghanistan and Venezuela.

At the other end of the spectrum, 13 countries now enjoy average mobile connection speeds in excess of 100 Mbps, with average speeds in the United Arab Emirates already close to 200 Mbps.

To put that figure in perspective, the typical mobile user in the UAE can now download internet content 3,450 times faster than they would have been able to by using a 56K modem just 20 years ago.

The latency of mobile internet connections continues to improve too, with Ooklas latest data showing that the lag between a device sending a data request and it starting to receive the requested data has fallen by 7.5% over the past 12 months.

The latency of the average mobile connection continues to be almost double that of the average fixed connection though, so theres some way to go before mobile gamers can enjoy the same speed advantages as their peers who use a fixed connection.

When it comes to fixed internet connections, a total of 10 countries now enjoy average download speeds of more than 200 Mbps, with Monaco and Singapore enjoying average speeds in excess of 250 Mbps.

However, 7 countries continue to suffer from average fixed connection speeds below 10 Mbps, and Ooklas data reveals that mobile connections now outpace fixed connections in more than 40 countries.

The latest data from Alexa (the analytics firm, not the voice assistant) suggests that the share of global internet traffic attributable to Chinese websites continues to grow.

The companys latest rankings show that websites managed by companies based in China now account for 7 of the 10 most-visited sites in the world, and half of the global top 20.

Chinese ecommerce platforms are particularly popular, with three of the countrys online merchants Tmall, Taobao, and JD all ranking above Amazons .com store at a worldwide level (note that Alexa treats each top-level domain separately, so traffic to Amazons local country stores are not included in the values for its .com store).

However, almost all of the traffic to Chinese websites appears to come from within China itself.

Alexas data shows that more than 95% of Tmalls traffic comes from its home market, while that figure is 94% for Taobao, and 95% for JD.

Across each of these three sites, visitors from the United States and Japan account for roughly 3.5% of total traffic, meaning that the rest of the world accounts for barely 1.5% of each sites worldwide total.

This data clearly demonstrates just how quickly Chinas connected population is growing, but it also illustrates just how different Chinas internet behaviors are to those of the rest of the world.

The latest data suggests that online translation tools are becoming increasingly popular with internet users around the world.

Google Trends data shows that 3 of the worldwide top 20 Google search queries between April and June 2021 related to converting content between languages, with translate, traductor, and Google Translate all now top queries at a global level.

GWI data reinforces this finding, with the companys latest survey revealing that roughly 1 in 3 internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 use online translation tools every week.

However, GWIs data reveals some fascinating differences between countries and cultures.

Internet users in Latin America are the most likely to make use of online translation tools, with more than half of internet users in Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina saying they use these tools on a weekly basis.

However, internet users in countries where English is the dominant language appear to be far less likely to want to translate content from (or into) other languages.

For example, fewer than 1 in 5 internet users in the United Kingdom and the USA say that theyve used an online translation tool in the past week.

Even moretellingly,searches for traductor rank relatively highly amongst Google queries in the United States, suggesting that many of those who do use online translation tools in the US are not native English speakers.

Around the world, younger people are also more likely to want to translate content than their parents generation.

GWIs data shows that Gen Z internet users are almost twice as likely to have used an online translation tool in the past week than Baby Boomers are, with nearly 4 in 10 female internet users aged between 16 and 24 translating content online in the past 7 days.

Overall, these findings indicate that people are increasingly consuming content in languages other than their own native tongue, which represents some interesting new opportunities and challenges for marketers.

For example, as we reported this time last year, were seeing increased prevalence of cross-border online shopping, especially outside of North America.

However, as international content becomes ever more accessible, and as more people visit online merchants outside of their home country, brands may find it increasingly difficult to justify different prices and even different product ranges across different countries.

Its also worth noting that Amazon appears to have increased the visibility of reviews from shoppers in other countries some of which may be in different languages which adds a whole new dimension to the factors that marketers need to consider when it comes to online shopping.

Weve teamed up with GWI to bring you some detailed insights into gaming activities this quarter, taken from the companys new Gaming dataset.

85% of the worlds internet users say that they play video games, so gaming environments represent a huge opportunity for marketers.

Moreover, 1 in 3 gamers around the world say that they play video games on a daily basis, with that figure rising to more than 40% in the USA, Japan, and the Philippines.

Meanwhile, more than 5 in every 6 gamers (84%) around the world say that they play video games at least once per week, with that figure rising to 87% in Mexico and India.

As you might expect, younger people are more likely to play video games, but GWI reports that more than 2 in 3 internet users aged 55 to 64 also identify as gamers.

Men are also slightly more likely to play video games than women, but amongst older age groups, women are just as likely to be gamers as men are.

Link:
State of the internet July 21: Audiences swell, but advertisers are anxious - The Next Web