What are the current digital trends worldwide? How does the competition on digital platforms develop? The answers can be found in the Digital Economy Compass 2017, recently released by the statistic portal Statista.com. A new comprehensive guide to the global digital market analyzes the current trends in the global digital market and provides an overview of various relevant indicators for markets, individual segments, and companies in more than 190 slides. The report covers 9 Markets, 50 countries, and the period of 7 years (2015 – 2021).
Global trends
China will overtake the United States and become the largest digital market by 2018. The Digital Economy Compass emphasizes that Chinese tech companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei, and Baidu have already achieved impressive figures and operate successfully in the global market. By market capitalization Chinese companies Alibaba and Tencent occupy fifth and sixth places respectively, just after such giants as Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Moreover, Tencent, one of the biggest publicly traded companies in China, has taken the second place on the global social media market, just behind Facebook, the study says.
The Digital Economy Compass shows the figures and factors behind the development of technologies and emphasizes the dependence of business successes on the technology implementation.
“At least 40% of all businesses will die in the next ten years… if they don’t figure out how to change their entire company to accommodate new technologies,” the Report cites the words of John Chambers, the Chairman of Cisco Systems.
The study provides a comprehensive overview of the platform business in the key markets of the USA, China, and Europe. It also paid much attention to the influence of such driving forces as Cloud, Social, and Mobile. The report covers the topics of venture capital, and the future technologies of artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and virtual reality.
«Global VR revenues are expected to increase to almost 40 billion dollars by 2020,» – the study says.
The authors of the report also analyze trends and offer deep insights into particular industries – from eCommerce to Digital Media, from Smart Home to Fintech.
eCommerce
According to the Digital Economy Compass, eCommerce is the biggest digital market people spend their money on. The revenue of this industry is expected to double to more than two billion US dollars by 2021. The largest growth is expected in the “Fashion” and “Food and Personal Care” sectors. Not surprisingly, there are well-known brands in these sections such as US Amazon or Chinese Alibaba Group. But in addition to these big players, there are less-known names as German fashion retailer “Zalando” or French chain of cosmetics stores Sephora.
FinTech
As the Statista infographic shows, global digital payments are expected to more than double by 2021. Despite the fact that Fintech services are still new to many regions, some countries have promising prospects in terms of using the advantages of financial technologies. The authors of the report predict that the United States will increase the total Fintech transaction value from 824 billion dollars in 2016 to 1983 billion dollars by 2021. And China will grow the transaction value from 765 billion to 2861 billion, thus becoming the global leader among Fintech markets.
eServices
While the Internet penetration levels are steadily rising around the world, eServices gain more and more momentum. Food delivery, the most dynamic eService market, is expected to triple its revenues by 2021, to 210 billion dollars. The Digital Economy Compass emphasizes that selling food online is a promising business, especially in the U.S.
According to calculations by analysts, the revenue of the food delivery market in the American market will reach 39,9 billion dollars in 2021. The second biggest market is British with 9,6 billion dollars in revenues, and the third is German with 7,3 billion dollars, the report says.
Dating services are also considered among most rising eServices markets. Only Tinder, the top dating app, registers a daily average of 1,4 billion swipes on its platform. Moreover, the study shows that online dating services market has reached the level where it can offer different apps for different types of relationships and various audiences, as a dating app for Christians.
Digital Media
Digital Economy Compass also shows a prognosis for the digital media market. The report notes a new trend in digital media – the evolving role of virtual reality. According to Statista figures, in 2016 more than 88 million Google cardboards (budget VR solutions) were shipped.
The authors of the research also provide forecasts for the most significant areas of the digital economy media economy, including video games, streaming services, and ePublishing. The revenues generated by video games overshadow other parts of the digital media market, says the report. According to the figures from Statista, the revenue of this sector is predicted to reach 67,1 billion dollars by 2021 compared to 23,89 billion in the video-on-demand segment.
Smart Home
Intelligent homes where all devices are connected and can be monitored and controlled via the smartphone or tablet is increasingly popular with consumers. The Global Smart Home market will rise more than four times by 2021, Digital Economy Compass predicts. While the U.S. remains the top Smart Home market in the world, with 57% of global market share, the most dynamic are China and Germany. The study says that the Smart Home revenue in these regions will grow from 1,18 to 13,43 and from 0,89 to 4,6 billion dollars respectively.
New smart home solutions, particularly in the field of communication devices, will become more and more common in people’s houses, the researchers note. It is estimated that the global number of people using virtual assistants, such as Amazon’s Alexa, will grow from 504 million in 2016 to 1,8 billion in 2021.
Connected cars
Last year the inhabitants of the US cities of Pittsburgh and San Francisco had a chance to travel by Roboter-Taxi within the experiment of taxi service Uber. According to the Digital Economy Compass, the USA will remain the biggest connected car market in the near future with more than 18 billion dollar revenue by 2021.
Even now most key original equipment manufacturers from America, Europe, and Asia offer connectivity-related packages and trendy names like Tesla, VW, BMW, Ford, and others that do not feel afraid to invest in driverless car research and development. As the report says, the humanity may see 190 850 000
connected cars on the road as soon as 2021.
