Marketing Numbers of the Week
By: Jay Kesavan
Tags: Talent Marketplace, USA, Artificial Intelligence, Bowery Analytics, AI

12/24/2020

150

Social media usage has surged worldwide as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, as many people stayed home for weeks or months. According to a new report from eMarketer, there were nearly 150 million more social network users globally this year than before the pandemic. In total, social media topped 3.23 billion users in 2020, that is, almost 81% of Internet users worldwide were classified as social network users.

Among social networking platforms, eMarketer said Facebook will be the queen of social networks globally through the end of 2024. It remains the only platform used by more than half of the world’s population (59%). Facebook’s total user numbers will surpass 1.90 billion — about 100 million more than eMarketer projected. In 2020, Instagram also saw the biggest increase, growing its user base by 22.9% and while Snapchat users will increase 16.1% this year, the report shows.

40%

Walmart media group continues to gain momentum, boosting its new advertisers on the media network by 40% this year as more marketers sought to reach shoppers closer to the point of sale. The company’s U.S e-commerce sales soared by 79% in the third quarter from a year earlier, reported CNBC. As more customers purchasing online, resulting in increased web traffic on Walmart’s digital platforms, the retail media business is experiencing the same acceleration in its momentum, too, as per the company blog post. Advertising growth comes as the retailer continues to ramp up its e-commerce efforts in the face of growing competition with Amazon, said Walmart. Best Buy, Target Stores, Kroger, CVS Pharmacy and Walgreens have also created media networks to sell advertising, according to the report.

$4

Disney+ is expected to hit $4 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2022. Although the streaming service is thought to reach $1.94 billion by the end of 2020, and recently announced $1 subscription price increase is most likely going to cause the cash flow to jump up over the next year, according to the data from eMarketer. The company said Disney+ represents 26.5% of Disney’s subscription OTT revenues, with accounting for 67.6% and sports streamer ESPN+ making up a more modest proportion of 5.8%. Meanwhile, US OTT streaming services continue to grow, with total revenue for the sector increase by 29.9% in 2021 to US$38.15 billion and will climb another 19.4% in 2022. However, Netflix ended the third quarter this year with 195 million subscribers globally while Disney+ and Hulu had a combined 125.6 million.

$156.38

Mobile ad spending in the United States is forecast to reach $96.07 billion this year, lower than the pre-pandemic estimate of $105.34 billion. By 2021, mobile ad spending is expected to increase more than $117.35 billion and top $156.38 billion by 2023, instead of the pre-pandemic estimate of $155.26 billion, according to the report by eMarketer, a unit of data and research firm Insider Intelligence. However, due to social distancing and stay-at-home orders many people using mobile apps for a wider set of services, including grocery and food delivery, remote learning, entertainment, remote working and even socializing to combat the spread of coronavirus, said Mark Ellis, co-founder and CEO at Liftoff.

300

Meanwhile, we have a new YouTube top creator of 2020. Jimmy Donaldson, an American YouTuber well known for cracked YouTube’s secret code. YouTube star MrBeast (AKA Jimmy Donaldson) has recently opened up virtual restaurants across the United States with hungry customers able to order the YouTuber’s burgers via an app, and now the MrBeast Burger app jumped to №1 on the App Store. The new restaurant outlet franchise that has more than 300 outlets in the United States. MrBeast also posted a video on YouTube, where he basically opened up a single outlet for free. Instead of people having to pay for their burgers, MrBeast ended up paying them. This outlet caused traffic on the nearby roads, and there was a line of vehicles over 20 miles long. Shortly after it was launched, the MrBeast Burger app was the most downloaded on iTunes and Google Play and became one of the top five most popular Google searches, according to Bloomberg.