Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends: Mobile On The March and OnDemand On Fire

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers longtime Internet analyst Mary Meeker dropped her annual trends report on the Code Conference here today.  Meeker, as per usual in the 20 years she has been blowing our collective minds with her insight into how, where and why we are using the internet, stayed broad and expansive in her internet inventory.

The highlights?

As of right now there are 2.8 billion global internet users – or a little under 30 percent of the world population.  That is an 8 percent improvement over the year before.

The Meeker report, however, showed exactly how much of that global internet community is hopping on to the information superhighway by use of a phone.  There are 2.1 billion smartphones in circulation out there right now – a 23 percent improvement from 2014.

And as the world is increasingly accessing the web via phone, the ways of the web – particularly when it comes to monetization – are also shifting.

“Mobile remains compelling” for advertising and monetization, said Meeker. “We remain very optimistic about mobile ad spending, and print remains way over-indexed for the time spent.”

Print accounts for 4 percent of time spent consuming, vs 18 percent of ad spending.  Mobile, Meeker’s data show, is rather under-indexed – with people spending 24 percent of their time on mobile vs 8 percent of ad spending.  Web is also slightly underidexed with a 24 percent-23 percent split.

The Meeker report also noted the rise of messaging services – which should matter to payments players insofar as messaging apps are shaping up to be the next commerce frontier.   WhatsApp, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, Kakao, and Snapchat are the leaders in messaging.  Meeker further predicted the evolution of those apps from chat alone to multipurpose content hubs over time.

Meeker also took some time to focus on the shift to the on-demand economy.

“Consumers increasingly expect that they can get what they want when they want it. … This fundamentally changes the underpinnings of business,” Meeker said.

Regulatory focus on online marketplaces like Airbnb, Uber, and Lyft is “evolving,” said Meeker. “We think there’s a shift going on here, where consumers are ‘voting’ by choosing to use these products.”

Meeker also put in a plug for diversity – which, considering where she works, is either entirely surprising, or very expected.

“Diversity matters. It’s just good business. … The best decisions are often made by diverse groups of people,” she said.