The report on China's Internet development was written by Hillhouse capital, which is also the sixth consecutive year that the 'Internet queen' has cooperated with Hillhouse capital.
As a general partner of venture capital firm bond capital, Mikel released this 333 page report, reviewed every important Internet trend in the past year, and looked forward to what these trends show in the coming year. In the report, the former KPCB partner talked about everything from the accelerated rise of Internet advertising spending in the United States to the growth of Digital Express Services in Latin America.
Here are some of the most important and interesting Internet trends in this report.
Last year, the number of global Internet users accounted for about 51% (3.8 billion) of the total population, up from 49% (3.6 billion) in 2017. In 2018, the growth rate of global Internet users slowed to about 6%, because so many people have become Internet users, and new users become more difficult to find. Sales of smartphones, the main way many people around the world access the Internet, are declining.
As of last week, 7 of the 10 companies with the highest market value in the world were technology companies, except Berkshire Hathaway, visa and Johnson & Johnson. From high to low, they were Microsoft, Amazon, apple, Google parent company alphabet, Berkshire Hathaway, Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent, visa and Johnson & Johnson.
E-commerce accounts for 15% of retail sales. The growth rate of e-commerce has slowed - a year-on-year increase of 12.4% in the first quarter of this year - but it is still higher than that of the conventional retail industry, which increased by only 2% in the first quarter.
Internet advertising spending in the United States accelerated, with an increase of 22% in 2018. Most of the spending is still concentrated on Google and Facebook platforms, but the share of companies such as Amazon and Twitter is increasing. About 62% of the digital display advertisements purchased by advertisers are programmed advertisements, and this proportion will continue to rise in the future.
Customer acquisition costs - the marketing expenses necessary to attract each new customer - are rising, but this trend is unsustainable because in some cases, customer acquisition costs exceed the long-term revenue that customers will bring. Mikel suggested that customers should be obtained in a cheaper way, such as free trial and free graded use.
Targeted advertising faces many problems, including the impact of gdpr (general data protection regulations) and other regulatory measures, as well as more privacy issues faced by hardware and software companies such as apple and Facebook.
Americans spend more time on digital media than ever before, reaching 6.3 hours a day in 2018, an increase of 7% compared with the previous year. Most of the growth comes from mobile devices and other networking, while the time spent on computers is decreasing. At the same time, people are increasingly worried about how much time they spend online. More than a quarter of American adults say they "almost always surf the Internet".
Innovation by technology companies outside the United States remains strong, with performance, delivery and payment being some of the most popular areas.
Images have increasingly become a means for people to communicate. The improvement of WiFi speed and the increasing improvement of mobile phone cameras have led to a surge in the number of image shots. Now, more than 50% of Twitter users use pictures, videos or other media to publish information, while in the past, twitter only supported plain text messages.
With interactive games such as fortnite becoming a new social media for specific groups, the number of players of global interactive games increased by 6% to 2.4 billion last year. The number of people watching these games -- not playing games -- is also increasing.
At the same time, with privacy becoming a bigger selling point, users are expected to have more choices to communicate securely online in the future. In the first quarter, 87% of global network traffic was encrypted, compared with 53% three years ago.
The Internet will become more and more like a 'sewage pond' because, to a large extent, getting rid of problematic content becomes more difficult, and the nature of Internet communication makes this content much larger than before. Some of these problems include: 42% of American teenagers have been rudely abused on the Internet, terrorists have become radicalized on websites such as youtube, and social media has led to more serious political polarization.
Of the 25 technology companies with the largest market value, 60% were founded by first or second-generation American immigrants. Last year, these companies employed a total of 1.9 million employees. The stricter new immigration law may have a negative impact on the technology industry and may make the next Elon & middot; Elon Musk cannot enter the United States.
The digitization of health care has steadily improved, and more telemedicine and on-demand consulting services are expected in the future.