Internet trends 2015

By Chang Se-moon

Mary Meeker of the venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, prepared a very interesting slide show on Internet trends during 2015. It has 196 slides and was viewed allegedly by more than 1.6 million people in a week. Let me introduce some of more interesting findings shown in the slide show.

The number of Internet users was 35 million (0.6 percent of total world population) in 1995, but increased to 2.8 billion (39 percent of the total world population) in 2014. The 2.8 billion Internet users were spread among Asia (28 percent) excluding China, China (23 percent), Europe (19 percent), the U.S. (10 percent) and the rest of the world (21 percent).The number of smartphone users was 80 million (1 percent of the total population) in 1995, but increased to 5.2 billion (73 percent of the total population) in 2014.

The 15 largest global Internet companies in May 2015 were dominated by two countries: the U.S. and China. The U.S. had 12 of the 15 companies, led by Apple (first place) and Google (second place), while China had three of the 15 companies: Alibaba (third place), Tencent (sixth place) and JD.com (11th place).

The number of hours that one U.S. adult spent each day on digital devices during 2015 prior to publication of the slide show in May was 2.8 hours on mobile devices, 2.4 hours on desk- or laptops, and 0.4 hours on other devices. In addition, one U.S. adult spent 4.3 hours watching television. Comparable numbers in 2010 were 0.4 hours on mobile devices, 2.4 hours on desk- or laptops, 0.4 hours on other devices and 4.4 hours on television. Advertising expenditures on the Internet were $59 billion in 2009 but increased to $133 billion in 2014.

The top six global messaging leaders are WhatsApp (launched 2009 in USA), Facebook Messenger (launched 2011 in USA), Snapchat (launched 2011 in USA), WeChat (launched 2011 in China), LINE (launched 2011 in Japan) and Kakao Talk (launched 2010 in Korea). The number of messages sent per day averages 30 billion for WhatsApp and 5.2 billion for Kakao Talk. Notice that WeChat of China, LINE of Japan, and Kakao Talk of Korea are three of the world leaders. Also, many people use more than one messaging app.

The most popular social media among young Americans of 14 to 24 years old are, in order, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Vine and Google. These are followed by Pinterest, Tum1r, WhatsApp and LinkedIn. Hopefully, you know all about these web connections. I began to explore all, but gave up because it was too time-consuming.

The top five global public e-commerce companies, measured in gross merchandise value during 2014, were Alibaba/Taobao, Amazom.com, eBay, JD.com and Rakuten. The top five companies in smartphone shipment in 2012 were Samsung, Lenovo, Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi; while the top five companies in smartphone shipment during the first quarter of 2015 were Xiaomi, Apple, Huawei, Samsung and Levono. I italicized the names of the Chinese companies to let you think about how active China has been in this business.

Internet user penetration had been the fastest in the U.S. led by Netscape, Yahoo, Amazon.com, and eBay. China, again, is rapidly catching up led by Tencent, Alibaba, and JD.com. Key companies have not yet been identified, but India is likely to be the next country in which Internet user penetration will explode. During the first quarter of 2015, India was the largest market for WhatsApp, the second largest market for Facebook and LinkedIn, and the fastest growing market for Twitter.

Countries with the largest number of Internet users are, in order, China, the U.S., Japan, Brazil, Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Iran, Egypt and Korea.

Among the top 20 global leaders of Internet public markets, measured in terms of 2015 market value of the companies, eleven are U.S. firms, six are Chinese firms, two are Japanese firms, and the remaining one is the Korean company Naver.

Finally, people born in 1978 or later are known as Gen Y because they came after Gen X. They are also called the Baby Boom Echo or millennials. Work benefits that millennials most value are, in order, training and development (22 percent), flexible working hours (19 percent), cash bonuses (14 percent), free private healthcare (8 percent), retirement benefits (6 percent), good vacation allowance (6 percent), financial assistance in housing (5 percent) and others at less than 5 percent each.

In comparison to prior generations, millennials are much more narcissistic, more open to change, more creative, and more money-driven. Millennials, however, are less confident and not really team players. By the way, narcissistic means an inflated idea of one’s own importance. Kim Jong-un of North Korea is widely known to be suffering seriously from being narcissistic. Actually, there are many politicians in the U.S., Russia, Japan, Korea, and many other places, who are also narcissistic.

Chang Se-moon is the director of the Gulf Coast Center for Impact Studies.