Mary Meeker’s Internet trends report is now an annual fixture of importance. Ever since it first got published in 1995, it is a repository of what has been whilst giving a peek into what’s emerging on the horizon. Reading additional commentary and conversation around the report makes it richer. Intense conversations and curiosity lead us to several opinions and ideas on this year’s report. In this post, we assemble different analysis of this years report. A sort of a meta on Mary Meeker’s report.
Origin and Journey of the Internet Trends report
Mary Meeker first published this report in 1995. Those were the early days of the Internet. Mary Meeker was employed with Morgan Stanley, she began with a 55 slide presentation in 1995. All the previous Internet Trend Reports from 1995 are here and the latest 2019 one is here.
Every year, everything about her presentation is dissected. Starting from how many slides she carried!
Precisely because there is so much content out there, both in the slide deck as well as analysis from different industry sectors, do we offer this catch up. This post is a collection of insights from 14 industries on how the trends in the internet will shape or affect that particular industry. You may choose to dive into the industry of your choice or even look at the overall trends.
1. Banks & Credit unions
Financial marketing insights that the banks and credit union (financial co-operative societies) can take from the Mary Meeker’ s report as they prepare their organisations for the digital future are captured here.
2. FinTech industry
Fintech firms are those that use Technology to make financial services more efficient. There are 1400 companies listed under Fintech. Mary Meeker’ s 2019 report captures the rise of alternate channels and new players in this industry. For example, ride sharing companies are pushing into digital payments and financial services. Read the insights from Mary Meeker’s report for the FinTech industry here.
3. Social Media
This year’s report had some interesting trends on how the use of Facebook and social media is declining while the formats which encourage the ‘telling of stories’ is on the rise. The report on implications for social media companies can be accessed here.
4. Healthcare industry
Mary Meeker’s report further strengthened the fact that the healthcare sector is Digitising. She says this coincides with rising health care costs in the US. While this is more visible in the health wearable, digitisation is underway in the entire healthcare ecosystem. The detailed analysis for the healthcare industry can be read here. Sharing one such slide which is already generating a lot of conversation and even research.
5. For Marketers
The trends show that 63% of adults are trying to limit their screen time as compared to 47% last year. The opportunity that radio throws up is interesting. The 4% difference in ad spends vs time spent by consumers is an important lead. A concise snapshot is here.
6. For Data and Legal discovery technologists
There is even an analysis of the Mary Meeker’ s report for Data and Legal discovery technologists. E-Discovery is a 2 BUSD industry already. Data and Legal discovery professionals use technology to facilitate discovery and to manage electronic data in legal cases and are already proving invaluable. This snapshot captures relevant information from the Mary Meeker report for E-discovery professionals. Trends like the volume of data expected to be created by users, cloud deployment, cyber attacks, remote work. Access it here.
7. Fashion Industry
The Fashion Industry has key takeaways from the report which can be accessed here.
Note: This page will need a free signup to access the content.
8. Enterprise IT
Time to become cloud natives, DevOps and Agile methodologies being tools to scale success and Digital customer experience are three big takeaways for the Enterprise IT industry. Here is a detailed report.
9. Retail
From slowing growth in e-commerce, the evolution of the online advertising industry, the growing clout of Asia Pac and more. Please access insights and analysis for the retail industry here.
10. China’s increasing dominance
China’s increasing dominance in the world of the internet was called out by Mary Meeker. 21% of all internet users are from China. The bigger and newer story is that of the ‘super apps’ and other innovations emerging from China. A detailed report here
11. India finds a mention
The previous Mary Meeker reports did carry more slides on India. However this time around the mention has been for Jio increasing the internet users in India and Byju’s for innovation in education
12. E-commerce
E-commerce is showing signs of rising customer acquisition costs and reduced internet ad revenue by 9%. While the internet growth is solid , it has shown a 6% increase YoY as compared to a 7% increase in the previous year. Read the full report with other insights here
13. Other trends from the report
Overall trends included many interesting features from Visual Communication leading the way, to more than half the human population being online. Mobile having surpassed the television finally as the screen of choice. Freemium (Trial +Paid adoption) being the new model that is gaining ground. Here are 11 trends with industry expert insights from the tons out there.
The misses and critic speak
When a report comes for so much scrutiny, surely, there will be ‘misses’ that get pointed out. In fact the Harvard Business Review wrote of the need to reimagine the Internet Trends report Here are a few noteworthy mentions of what the report missed.
- The report carried a key trend of privacy concerns and consumers moving to encrypted messaging apps. However, this article states that the two graphs being compared are from different periods and irrelevant to draw this conclusion.
- While she did capture much about China, this report calls out what Mary Meeker missed about the China story.
The why of a meta on Mary Meeker’s report
We have had fun putting this together. More fun, discussing these from the different lenses that each of the analysis above will provide. We recommend that you do it too.
As much as its about the report, we have also had occasion to talk about Mary Meeker, the person. Mary Meeker’s Internet trends report has evolved along with the internet. It sits as an important fixture in the connected world. Surely, this has been a story of evolution for Mary Meeker, the person as well. From publishing it whilst being employed with Morgan Stanley and taking it with her when she moved to Keiner Perkins. Last year Mary Meeker quit Kleiner Perkins and raised more than $1 billion for her debut growth fund, ‘Bond’.
Mary Meeker’s journey is one of crafting relevance. It is a stellar example of how an individual has crafted relevance beyond the constraints of employment and a job description. And of course, there was some conversation on that as well. Stay inspired.
