Mary Meeker's internet trends 2014 - part 1- summary

Mary Meeker's annual internet trends publication is often seen as a deep resource from which to plan going forward. Although reflective in the sense it covers what has happened in the previous 12 months, Ms Meeker always does a solid job pulling together interweaving threads. This year is no exception although I can see of areas where the conclusions reached seem to be little more than confirmation of what we already hear on a daily basis with little of real controversy. Adding numbers to the mix is important and this is where Meeker shines.

Regardless, there's a lot to take in all at once. For this story, we're merely bullet pointing the highlights and then dissecting selected pieces in separate articles.

One thing to note - while Meeker's analysis is global in some places there is a tendency for her to concentrate upon US specific data as reference points for certain conclusions.

• Internet user growth has slowed below 10%, fastest growth in 'difficult to monetize' areas like Indonesia, Nigeria, India.
• Smartphone growth continues at 205+ but is slowing, fastest growth in BRIC countries.
• Mobile data traffic is up 81% year-over-year - largely accounted for by video of which 22% is represented by mobile usage.
• Smartphones in use by 30% of global mobile phone users implying significant room for growth.
• Print advertising 'over indexed' while mobile advertising represents a $30 billion opportunity in the US alone. This is further supported by the fact mobile apps account for 68% of total mobile spend.
• Number of cyber attack groups grew 4x since 2013, now numbering some 300.
• There may be something of a bubble in stock values but nothing like the 1999-2000 era.
• US education spending ranked 4th in the world but results are subpar (rank 27th globally in math / 20th in science / 17th in reading) but online education has become global (examples given = Duolingo, Coursera)
• Healthcare ripe for overhaul via digital technologies with 27% of US spend categorized as 'waste,' but patient engagement systems e.g. Redbrick, Teledoc, Mango Health and WellDoc showing impressive ROI
• Image and video sharing rising rapidly
• Apps as service layers where apps are surfaced as required via sensors and context not as discrete idle apps
• Re-imagining content + content delivery mechanisms e.g. BuzzFeed (seen as leader in sheer numbers) using list articles, quizzes, how-to's, some breaking, video and mobile.
• General re-imagining of day to day services such as shopping, over night stays, taxi services, take away food services and home renovation driven by user experience.
• Two-thirds of digital content created by users but use of sensor technology rising rapidly - 50% year over year.
• There are now around 5 million Bitcoin wallets,  representing x8 year-over-year growth.
• Global compute, storage and bandwidth costs all falling rapidly
• 34% of data in 'digital universe' considered useful but ony 7% is tagged and less than 1% analyzed. In short, these are very early days for the 'internet of things.'
• Best use case for early data mining/analysis is seen in solving specific problems using pattern matching e.g. reduced fuel consumption with Nest.
• Although traditional TV still dominates, consumption patterns changing with high growth in tablet and smartphone usage accompanied by emergence of higher quality advertising.
• Microsoft is the number two globally trafficked property while Yahoo! is number four.
• China is considered the mobile commerce innovation world leader.
• Global internet leaders (Google, Facebook, Tencent, Alibaba) all investing heavily in M&A

Featured image via Joseph Rosenfeld