译者：畅远 （2021/02/10）作者：SIMON KEMP （2021/01/27）

近十亿的新社交媒体用户。累计使用互联网时间13亿年。电子商务消费上万亿美元。

如果您正在查找最新的数字观点和社交媒体统计信息，那么你可以在这篇报告中找到。

我们与社交媒体We Are Social和Hootsuite合作发布的新的数字2021报告系列表明，在过去的一年中，互联技术已成为人们生活中更为重要的组成部分，社交媒体，电子商务，流媒体内容和视频游戏都在过去12个月里有了显著的增长。COVID-19还带来了一系列新的挑战和机遇，因此2021年的数字化绝不是``一如既往''。在今年的报告中可以看到的一些关键主题如下：

人们搜索信息和品牌的方式发的变化；

线上受众人口的不断发展；

电子商务的重要性迅速增长；

为什么移动必不可少，但不是唯一答案；为什么？和

为什么是时候改变指导社交媒体营销“组合”的指标了。

在我们了解这些数字之前，我要感谢所有使今年的报告成为可能的数据合作伙伴和提供商，尤其是：GWI、Statista、App Annie、The ITU、GSMA Intelligence、Semrush、SimilarWeb、Locowise、Kenshoo。

我还要提醒您注意有关我们方法更改的重要说明，您将在报告的第6页上找到这些说明。数字2021年全球概览报告(见文末)。以下是我对今年的热门新闻分析。

基本概要

以下是2021年1月全球“数字状态”的标题统计数据和趋势：

人口：2021年初，世界人口为78.3亿。根据联合国报告，这一数字目前以每年1％的速度增长，这意味着自2020年初以来，全球总人口增加了8000万。

移动端：如今有52.2亿人使用手机，占世界总人口的66.6％。自2020年1月以来，单个移动用户增长了1.8％（9300万），而移动连接总数已增加了7200万（0.9％），到2021年初将达到80.2亿。

互联网：2021年1月，全球有46.6亿人使用互联网，比去年同期增加了3.16亿（7.3％）。目前，全球互联网渗透率为59.5％。但是，COVID-19对互联网用户数量的报告产生了重大影响，因此实际数字可能更高。

社交媒体：现在全球有42亿社交媒体用户。在过去的12个月中，这一数字增长了4.9亿，同比增长超过13％。目前，社交媒体用户的数量相当于世界总人口的53％以上。

但是除了这些有趣的细节之外，这些数据还告诉我们哪些关于人们在上网时的事情呢？

您可以在下面找到有关本年度所有主要趋势的便捷摘要，但是如果您想更详细地研究这些故事中的任何一个-以及此处未包括的其他一些故事，请查看我们的Digital 2021报告和分析的完整集合。

社交媒体采用激增

过去一年，社交媒体用户数量增长了13％以上，到2021年初，近十亿新用户使全球总数达到近42亿。

到2020年，平均每天有超过130万新用户加入社交媒体，相当于每秒钟约有15.5万新用户。

现在，典型的社交媒体用户每天在社交媒体上花费2个小时25分钟，大约相当于他们一周中的一个白天。

加起来，到2021年，全球社交媒体用户将在社交媒体上花费总计3.7万亿小时，相当于人类共同生存的时间超过4.2亿年。

正如我们在前几年所看到的，国家之间存在很大的差异。

GWI报告称，菲律宾人仍然是世界上最大的社交媒体消费者，每天平均使用社交平台花费4个小时15分钟，比排名第二的哥伦比亚人整整半小时。

另一方面，日本用户表示他们每天在社交媒体上的花费少于一小时，但今年的51分钟这一数字仍比我们去年同期针对日本用户的报告高出13％。

2. 手机已成为我们的“第一屏”

来自App Annie的数据显示，如今，全球Android用户每天在手机上花费的时间超过4小时。

总体而言，这意味着在过去12个月中，Android用户在手机上累计花费了超过3.5万亿小时。

App Annie的2021年移动状态报告还显示，与现场电视相比，移动设备现在占用的人的时间更多。

GWI的数据讲述了一个类似的故事。 该公司的最新研究发现，如今全球典型的互联网用户每天在手机上使用互联网的时间为3小时39分钟，而每天观看电视的时间总计为3小时24分钟。这意味着普通互联网用户现在在手机上使用连接服务的时间比观看电视的时间长大约7％。

但是，正如我们将在下面看到的那样，移动设备仍然仅占我们每日上网时间的一半左右。

3. 在线时间猛增

总体而言，现在平均每个互联网用户每天在所有设备上使用互联网的时间将近7个小时，相当于每周在线时间超过48个小时，即每7整2天。

假设平均每个人每天睡眠7到8个小时，这意味着我们现在约有42％的睡眠时间是在网上度过的，而使用互联网的时间几乎与睡眠时一样多。

数字还显示，人们每天花在网上的时间比往年更多。

GWI的最新发现表明，2020年第三季度普通互联网用户每天在线花费比2019年第三季度多16分钟，同比增长4％。

如果整个2021年互联网使用率保持在这些水平，那么今年全球互联网用户将在网上花费近12万亿小时，这意味着人类的综合时间超过13亿年。

但是，正如我们在去年的报告中所看到的那样，不同国家/地区的人们在网上花费的时间差异很大。菲律宾人报告说，他们在网上花费的时间最多，平均每天接近11个小时。巴西人，哥伦比亚人和南非人也表示，他们平均每天在线花费10个小时以上。另一方面，日本人报告的在线时间最少，每天少于4.5小时。有趣的是，中国的数字也处于较低水平，每天仅5个小时22分钟，比全球平均6个小时54分钟少1.5个小时。

4. 在线搜索行为正在发生变化

查找信息是人们上网的主要原因，全球近三分之二的互联网用户都说这是他们的主要动机之一。

但是，GWI的最新研究表明，世界范围内的搜索行为正在不断发展，这种变化的行为对希望吸引数字受众的任何人都具有重要的意义。

常规搜索引擎仍然是其中必不可少的组成部分，有98％的受访者表示，他们每月都使用搜索引擎。

但是，十分之七的受访者表示，他们现在至少使用一种工具（基于文本的搜索引擎除外）来每月在线查找信息。

语音界面是最受欢迎的替代方法，全球45％的互联网用户表示在过去30天内使用了语音搜索或语音命令。

同时，全球将近三分之一的互联网用户每月也在其手机上使用图像识别工具，例如Pinterest Lens和Google Lens等工具在拉丁美洲和东南亚尤为受欢迎。

但是，不断演变的搜索行为中最有趣的趋势可能是社交搜索的兴起。

现在，大约有45％的全球互联网用户表示，他们在查找有关他们打算购买的产品或服务的信息时会转向社交网络。

但是，这一数字在年轻用户中甚至更高，Z世代用户表示，与在搜索引擎上寻找品牌相比，他们更可能在社交媒体上搜索品牌。

5. 多设备策略仍然是必不可少的

现在，移动电话占全球上网时间的53％，但数据清楚地表明，其他设备在我们的生活联系中仍然发挥着重要作用。

GWI数据显示，十分之九的互联网用户通过智能手机上网，但三分之二的人还表示他们使用笔记本电脑或台式计算机访问互联网。

值得强调的是，手机现在是所有国家/地区中使用最广泛的互联网设备，但是手机和计算机之间的差距通常很小，尤其是在西欧。

同时，来自StatCounter的最新数据表明，计算机仍然在全球网络活动中占了重要的份额。

在2020年12月提供的网页中，有40％以上是通过笔记本电脑和台式机设备上运行的Web浏览器请求的，尽管与2019年12月相比，这些设备的总体份额略有下降。

6. 更具战略意义的社交媒体营销方法

Kepios对GWI收集的数据的分析表明，任何给定社交媒体平台的用户中至少有98％还使用至少一个其他社交平台。各个社交平台也有很大的受众重叠，其中85％的16-64岁的TikTok用户说他们使用Facebook，而几乎95％的同一年龄段的Instagram用户说他们也使用YouTube。

尽管受众重叠的一般概念可能不足为奇，但这些重叠的程度与营销人员特别相关。

关键要点是，品牌并不需要在每个平台上都活跃起来，事实上，数据显示，仅存在于一个或两个较大的平台上，就可以吸引几乎全球所有的社交媒体用户。

从上面内容来看，现在至少有6个平台的月活跃用户超过10亿，而至少有17个平台的月活跃用户超过3亿。

但是，这并不意味着营销人员应该只专注于这些较大的平台。

确实，数据支持对社交媒体采用更具战略性，基于投资组合的方法的观点。

营销人员应该将精力集中在其他因素上，而不是将注意力全部集中在覆盖率上，例如每个平台的内容格式提供的特定创意机会，或更多“小众”平台上提供的不同参与机会。

因此，不要被平台用户分散注意力，而是试着问自己：

我想吸引谁？

他们可能因为什么原因使用社交媒体？

哪个平台与他们的动机最相关？

我如何使用这些渠道来实现预期的结果？

7. 深入研究在线受众人口数据

我们在今年的报告中加入了许多新图表，可按年龄和性别深入分析相关活动。

这些图表中最具启发性的图表之一表明了电子商务的如何根据不同的人群而变化。

从GWI数据中得出的明显结论是，婴儿潮一代的互联网用户使用电子商务的可能性仅比Z代和千禧一代的互联网用户少。

此外，年龄在55至64岁之间的女性互联网用户实际上比年龄在16至24岁之间的男性互联网用户更有可能在网上购物。

有趣的是，有相当大的年纪较大的互联网用户在玩视频游戏。

也许不足为奇的是，老一辈人的游戏采用率没有Z一代人高，在Z世代中，超过90％的互联网用户说他们在玩游戏。

但是，GWI的数据仍然显示，全球55-64岁的互联网用户中有三分之二以上都在玩视频游戏。

在最新的社交媒体数据中，另一个与年龄相关的趋势表明，在某些顶级平台的受众群体中，年纪大的组是增长最快的细分市场。

例如，Facebook看到65岁以上的用户在过去一年中增长了约25％，几乎是整体平均水平（13％）的两倍。

令人惊讶的是，50岁以上的用户也是Snapchat增长最快的人群。

在过去的三个月中，广告客户可以在Snapchat上接触的50岁及以上的用户数量增长了约25％，该年龄段的男性用户增长了三分之一。

请注意，这些Snapchat数据代表季度增长，而上述Facebook数据则显示了年度增长。

另外值得注意的是，这些数字代表相对增长，而不是用户数量绝对增长的份额。

在上述内容中，过去25至34岁的用户在过去一年中仍然是Facebook新用户中最多的群体，尽管该用户已经是该平台的最大人群。

无论如何，相对增长数据仍然表明，更多的老用户正在加入社交平台。

这些不断变化的人口统计信息可能会为营销人员带来新的机会，并为平台和发行商带来新的收入来源。

8. 在线商店和电子商务的兴起

电子商务的兴起是2020年最突出的数字事件之一，COVID-19大流行迫使全世界的消费者开始接受在线购物。

在全球范围内，将近77％的16至64岁的互联网用户表示他们如今每月都会在网上购买商品。

印度尼西亚的互联网用户最有可能进行电子商务购物，GWI调查中该国87％以上的受访者表示，他们在过去一个月内在网上购买了商品。

另外，埃及只有57％的互联网用户表示在过去30天内进行了在线购买。

同时，人们近几个月来一直在购买商品也值得玩味。

Statista报告显示，2020年，时尚与美容类别在全球B2C电子商务收入中占最大份额，超过6,650亿美元。

这是我们正在进行的全球数字报告系列中的第一次，“旅行”类别并未获得最大的收入份额，突显了最近几个月来旅行和旅游品牌的困难程度。

的确，据Statista报告，旅行，出行和住宿类别的在线收入比去年同期下降了50％以上，导致每年的消费者支出减少了超过五万亿美元。

另一方面，其他许多类别的电子商务收入在2020年都将强劲增长。

食品和个人护理是2020年增长最快的消费者电子商务类别，其中COVID-19锁定和社交疏离措施是在线杂货店购物大幅增长的催化剂。

在全球范围内，该类别的年收入在2020年超过4000亿美元，比上一年增长40％以上。

这些数字支持了我们在《 2020年7月数字化全球统计报告》中分享的发现，当时许多互联网用户表示，他们希望继续采用在COVID-19封锁期间采用的新的在线购物行为。

无论如何，这种趋势的影响应该远远超出食品和个人护理类别。

杂货店购物往往是一种高频活动，这意味着最近几个月人们有机会养成和嵌入新的在线购物习惯。

正如大多数营销人员所知，要激发这种行为改变（尤其是在高频活动中）可能非常困难，因此这些新习惯为品牌和零售商提供了重新定义现状的无与伦比的机会。

9、2021年值得期待的事情

希望您对今天的“数字现状”有了深刻的了解。

但是未来又会怎样呢？

基于我对正在进行的全球数字报告系列中的数据的分析，在接下来的几个月中，我将密切关注一些事情。

第三方Cookie的消亡：Google的Chrome浏览器将在2021年底终止对第三方Cookie的支持，因此我们可以预计今年广告技术会发生重大变化，尤其是随着程序化平台自身的自我重塑。

灵活的工作方式：“在家工作”在可预见的将来似乎仍将是许多人工作生活中不可或缺的一部分，因此我们应该看到产品和服务的进一步创新，旨在在未来几个月内帮助远程工作，尤其是在沟通和“团队凝聚力”领域。

数字化的颠覆：互联的产品和服务将继续撼动现有类别并创造新的类别，但我将在2021年关注三个特别感兴趣的行业：

医疗保健，特别是有助于精神健康的远程医疗和相关服务；

金融，保险和跨境支付都是创新的强大竞争者；

教育方面，政府和慈善家齐心协力，为互联教育创建了更有效的解决方案，而企业则将注意力集中在在线“技能提升”这一新兴机会上。

重大技术突破：这已经很长时间了，但是全球立法者都在暗示2021年可能是大型对决的一年。但是，最大的问题是，谷歌，Facebook，亚马逊或阿里巴巴是否会战胜它们，在政府强制之前，按自己的意愿进行自我剥离。

便携式数字身份：随着WhatsApp条款和条件的最新更新，隐私再次成为人们关注的焦点，“去中心化”的数字登录方法可能会备受关注。肯定值得一看的是Inrupt，但肯定不是唯一的竞争者。

10.最后……

如果没有更新我们值得普立兹的报道互联网上最激烈的战斗之一，我们就无法完成今年的分析。

尽管去年这个时候发出了警报，看来很多人还没有收到备忘录关于发明用于分享小猫图片的互联网。

#TeamDog在过去12个月中成功在Instagram上发布了4,400万条#dog帖子，而#TeamCat仅管理了3,300万条#cat新帖子。

这与Twitter上的情况类似，该平台的广告工具显示，今天有3.07亿用户对狗“感兴趣”，而只有2300万用户对猫“感兴趣”。

与去年的千比（2.5亿对25万）相比，这是一个显着的改善，但是在Twitter上，爱狗的人数仍然比爱猫的人数多13到1。

今年，我们将再次在此故事中放上标签，因此请留意未来的pupdates。

到今天为止，所有这些快速任务可能已经占用了您6个小时54分钟的时间，因此，我将在这里介绍今年的分析。

我将在几周后再次收到我们的Digital 2021当地国家/地区报告。

在此之前，如果您需要更多统计信息，请查看我们完整的报告

附原文

Close to half a billion new social media users. 1.3 billion years spent using the internet. Trillions of dollars spent on ecommerce.

If you’re looking for the latest digital insights and social media stats, you’ll find them all here.

Our new Digital 2021 reports series – published in partnership between We Are Social and Hootsuite – shows that connected tech became an even more essential part of people’s lives over the past year, with social media, ecommerce, streaming content, and video games all seeing significant growth in the past 12 months.

COVID-19 also introduced a new set of challenges and opportunities though, so digital in 2021 will be anything but ‘business as usual’.

Some of the key themes to look for in this year’s reports include:

Changes in how people search for information and brands;

The evolving demographics of online audiences;

The rapidly growing importance of ecommerce;

Why mobile is essential, but not the only answer; and

Why we need to change the metrics that guide our social media ‘mix’.

Just before we get stuck into the numbers, I’d like to say a very big thank you to all of the data partners and providers who’ve made this year’s reports possible, especially: GWI, Statista, App Annie, The ITU, GSMA Intelligence, Semrush, SimilarWeb, Locowise, Kenshoo.

I’d also like to draw your attention to the important notes on changes to our methodology, which you’ll find on page 6 of the report.Please read on below for my analysis of this year’s top stories.

Essential headlines

Here are the headline stats and trends for the global ‘State of Digital’ in January 2021:

Population: the world’s population stood at 7.83 billion at the start of 2021. The United Nations reports that this figure is currently growing by 1 percent per year, which means that the global total has increased by more than 80 million people since the start of 2020.

Mobile: 5.22 billion people use a mobile phone today, equating to 66.6 percent of the world’s total population. Unique mobile users have grown by 1.8 percent (93 million) since January 2020, while the total number of mobile connections has increased by 72 million (0.9 percent) to reach a total of 8.02 billion at the start of 2021.

Internet: 4.66 billion people around the world use the internet in January 2021, up by 316 million (7.3 percent) since this time last year. Global internet penetration now stands at 59.5 percent. However, COVID-19 has significantly impacted the reporting of internet user numbers, so actual figures may be higher.

Social media: there are now 4.20 billion social media users around the world. This figure has grown by 490 million over the past 12 months, delivering year-on-year growth of more than 13 percent. The number of social media users is now equivalent to more than 53 percent of the world’s total population.

But beyond tasty trivia, what does all of this data tell us about what people are actually doing online?

You’ll find my handy summary of all this year’s top trends below, but if you’d like to dig into any of these stories in more detail – together with some other stories that aren’t included here – head over to DataReportal.com, where you’ll find our complete collection of Digital 2021 reports and analysis.

1.Social media adoption surges

Social media user numbers jumped by more than 13 percent over the past year, with nearly half a billion new users taking the global total to almost 4.2 billion by the start of 2021.

On average, more than 1.3 million new users joined social media every day during 2020, equating to roughly 15½ new users every single second.

The typical social media user now spends 2 hours and 25 minutes on social media each day, equating to roughly one waking day of their life every week.

Added together, the world’s social media users will spend a total of 3.7 trillion hours on social media in 2021 – equivalent to more than 420 million years of combined human existence.

As we’ve seen in previous years though, there are significant differences between countries.

GWI reports that Filipinos are still the world’s biggest consumers of social media, spending an average of 4 hours and 15 minutes per day using social platforms – a full half an hour more than second-placed Colombians.

At the other end of the scale, users in Japan say they spend less than an hour a day on social media, but this year’s figure of 51 minutes is still 13 percent higher than the figure we reported for Japanese users this time last year.

2.Mobiles have become our ‘first’ screen

Data from App Annie shows that Android users around the world now spend more than 4 hours each day using their phones.

In total, that means Android users spent more than 3.5 trillion cumulative hours using their phones over the past 12 months.

App Annie’s State of Mobile 2021 report also reveals that mobiles now account for a greater amount of people’s time than live TV.

GWI’s data tells a similar story. The company’s latest research finds that the typical global internet user now spends 3 hours and 39 minutes each day using the internet on their mobile phone, compared to a total of 3 hours and 24 minutes per day watching television.

For context, that means the average internet user now spends roughly 7 percent longer using connected services on their phone than they do watching TV.

However, as we’ll see below, mobile devices still only account for about half of our daily internet time.

3.Online time jumps

In total, the average internet user now spends almost 7 hours per day using the internet across all devices, equating to more than 48 hours per week online – that’s 2 full days out of every 7.

Assuming that the average person sleeps for between 7 and 8 hours per day, this means that we now spend roughly 42 percent of our waking lives online, and that we spend almost as much time using the internet as we do sleeping.

The figures also show that people are spending more time online each day than they did in previous years.

The latest findings from GWI show that the typical internet user spent 16 minutes longer online each day in Q3 2020 than they did in Q3 2019, representing a year-on-year increase of 4 percent.

If internet use remains at these levels throughout 2021, the world’s internet users will spend almost 12 trillion hours online this year, which translates to more than 1.3 billion years of combined human time.

However, as we saw in last year’s report, there’s significant variation in the amount of time that people in different countries spend online.

Filipinos report spending the greatest amount of time online, at an average of almost 11 hours per day.

Brazilians, Colombians, and South Africans also say they spend an average of more than 10 hours per day online.

At the other end of the scale, the Japanese report spending the least amount of time online, at less than 4½ hours per day.

Interestingly, the figure for China also falls at the lower end of the spectrum, at just 5 hours and 22 minutes per day – 1½ hours less than the global average of 6 hours and 54 minutes.

4.Online search behaviours are changing

Finding information is the main reason why people go online, with almost two-thirds of the world’s internet users saying this is one of their top motivations.

However, the latest research from GWI shows that the world’s search behaviours are evolving, and this changing behaviour has important consequences for anyone hoping to engage a digital audience.

Conventional search engines are still an essential part of the mix, with a massive 98 percent of respondents saying that they use a search engine every month.

However, more than 7 in 10 respondents also say that they now use at least one tool other than text-based search engines to find information online each month.

Voice interfaces are the most popular alternative, with 45 percent of global internet users saying that they used voice search or voice commands in the past 30 days.

Meanwhile, almost a third of the world’s internet users also use image recognition tools on their mobiles each month, with tools like Pinterest Lens and Google Lens seeing particularly strong adoption across Latin America and Southeast Asia.

But perhaps the most interesting trend in evolving search behaviours is the rise of social search.

Roughly 45 percent of global internet users now say that they turn to social networks when looking for information about products or services that they’re thinking of buying.

However, this figure is even higher amongst younger users, with Gen Z users saying that they’re more likely to search for brands on social media than they are to look for them on search engines.

5.A multi-device strategy is still essential

Mobile phones now account for 53 percent of the time that the world spends online, but the data clearly shows that other devices still play important roles in our connected lives.

GWI data shows that 9 in 10 internet users go online via their smartphones, but two-thirds also say that they use a laptop or desktop computer to access the internet.

It’s worth highlighting that mobile phones are now the most widely used internet device in all countries, but the gap between mobiles and computers is often quite small, especially in Western Europe.

Meanwhile, the latest data from StatCounter shows that computers still account for a meaningful share of the world’s web activity.

More than 40 percent of web pages served in December 2020 were requested by web browsers running on laptop and desktop devices, although the overall share of these devices is down slightly compared to December 2019.

6.A more strategic approach to social media marketing

Kepios analysis of data collected by GWI shows that at least 98 percent of the users of any given social media platform also use at least one other social platform.

Individual social platforms are also subject to significant audience overlaps, with 85 percent of TikTok users aged 16 to 64 saying they use Facebook, and almost 95 percent of Instagram users in the same age group saying they also use YouTube.

While the general concept of audience overlap may not come as a surprise, the extent of these overlaps has particular relevance to marketers.

The key takeaway is that brands do not need to be active on every single platform, and in fact the data show that a presence on just one or two of the larger platforms offers the potential to reach almost all of the world’s social media users.

For context, at least 6 platforms now have more than 1 billion monthly active users, while at least 17 have more than 300 million.

However, this doesn’t mean that marketers should focus solely on these larger platforms.

Indeed, the data support the argument for a more strategic, portfolio-based approach to social media.

Rather than focusing all of their attention on reach, it’s time for marketers to explore other factors, such as the specific creative opportunities offered by each platform’s content formats, or the different engagement opportunities available on more ‘niche’ platforms.

So, rather than getting distracted by platform user numbers, try asking yourself:

Who do I want to engage?

Why might they be using social media?

Which platform(s) will be most relevant to their motivations?

How can I use these channels to achieve my desired outcomes?

7.Digging deeper into online audience demographics

We’ve included a wealth of new charts in this year’s reports that offer insights into connected activities by age and gender.

One of the most revealing of these charts shows how adoption of ecommerce varies by demographic.

And the obvious takeaway from this GWI data is that internet users in the Baby Boomer generation are only marginally less likely to use ecommerce than Gen Z and Millennial internet users.

Moreover, female internet users aged 55 to 64 are actually more likely to shop online than male internet users aged 16 to 24.

It’s also interesting to note that a significant share of older internet users play video games.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, gaming adoption rates amongst older generations aren’t as high as they are for Gen Z, where more than 90 percent of internet users say they play games.

However, GWI’s data still shows that more than two-thirds of internet users aged 55 to 64 around the world play video games.

Another age-related trend is evident in the latest social media data, which shows that older age groups are the fastest-growing segments amongst some of the top platforms’ audiences.

For example, Facebook saw users over the age of 65 increase by roughly 25 percent over the past year – that’s almost double the overall average of 13 percent.

Perhaps surprisingly, users over the age of 50 also represent Snapchat’s fastest-growing demographic.

The number of users aged 50 and above that advertisers can reach on Snapchat has grown by roughly 25 percent in the past 3 months, with male users in this age group increasing by a third.

Note that these Snapchat figures represent quarterly growth, while the Facebook figures above showcase annual growth.

It’s also worth noting that these figures represent relative growth, not share of the absolute increase in user numbers.

For context, users aged 25 to 34 still accounted for the greatest number of new Facebook users over the past year, despite already being the platform’s largest demographic segment.

However, the relative growth figures still demonstrate that a greater number of older users are joining social platforms.

These evolving demographics may bring new opportunities for marketers, together with new revenue streams for platforms and publishers.

8.Online grocery and the rise of ecommerce

One of the standout digital stories in 2020 was the rise of ecommerce, with the COVID-19 pandemic driving consumers all over the world to embrace online shopping.

At a global level, nearly 77 percent of internet users aged 16 to 64 now say that they buy something online each month.

Internet users in Indonesia are the most likely to make ecommerce purchases, with more than 87 percent of the country’s respondents to GWI’s survey saying that they bought something online in the past month.

At the other end of the spectrum, just 57 percent of internet users in Egypt say that they made an online purchase in the past 30 days.

Meanwhile, what people have been buying over recent months also makes for interesting reading.

Statista reports that the Fashion & Beauty category accounted for the largest share of global B2C ecommerce revenues in 2020, at more than US$665 billion.

This is the first time in our ongoing series of Global Digital Reports that the Travel category hasn’t claimed the largest share of revenue, highlighting just how difficult recent months have been for travel and tourism brands.

Indeed, Statista reports that online revenues in the Travel, Mobility & Accommodation category were down by more than 50 percent year-on-year, resulting in a drop of well over half a trillion US dollars in annual consumer spending.

On the other hand, many other categories saw strong growth in ecommerce revenues in 2020.

Food & Personal Care was the fastest growing consumer ecommerce category in 2020, with COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing measures acting as a catalyst for significant increases in online grocery shopping.

Worldwide, the category saw annual revenues exceed US$400 billion in 2020, up by more than 40 percent compared to the previous year.

These numbers support findings that we shared in our Digital 2020 July Global Statshot Report, when many internet users said that they expected to continue with new online shopping behaviours that they’d adopted during COVID-19 lockdowns.

However, the impact of this trend should extend well beyond the Food & Personal Care category.

Grocery shopping tends to be a high-frequency activity, which means that people have had the chance to develop and embed new online shopping habits over recent months.

As most marketers know, it can be very difficult to inspire this kind of behaviour change – especially in high-frequency activities – so these new habits represent an unparalleled opportunity for brands and retailers to redefine the status quo.

9.What to look out for in 2021

Hopefully that’s given you a solid understanding of the ‘state of digital’ today.

But what does the future hold?

Based on my analysis of the data in our ongoing series of Global Digital Reports, here are some of the things that I’ll be monitoring closely over the coming months.

The demise of third-party cookies: Google’s Chrome browsers will end support for third-party cookies at the end of 2021, so we can expect significant changes in ad tech this year, especially as programmatic platforms reinvent themselves.

Flexible working: ‘working from home’ looks like it will remain an enforced part of many people’s working lives for the foreseeable future, so we should see further innovation in products and services designed to help with remote working over the coming months, especially in the areas of communication and ‘team cohesion’.

Digital disruption: connected products and services will continue to shake up existing categories and create new ones, but I’ll be watching three industries with particular interest in 2021:

Healthcare, especially telemedicine and connected services that help with mental wellbeing;

Finance, with insurance and cross-border payments both strong contenders for innovation;

Education, with governments and philanthropists coming together to create more effective solutions for connected schooling, while corporates focus their attention on the burgeoning opportunities of online ‘upskilling’.

The big tech breakup: this has been a long time coming, but lawmakers around the world are signalling that 2021 may be the year of the big showdown. However, the big question is whether Google, Facebook, Amazon, or Alibaba will beat them to it, spinning off component parts on their own terms before governments force them to do so.

Portable digital identities: with privacy once again in the spotlight following the recent updates to WhatsApp’s terms and conditions, a ‘decentralised’ approach to digital sign-on may come to the fore. Inrupt is definitely one to watch, but it’s certainly not the only contender.

10.And finally…

We couldn’t finish this year’s analysis without an update to our Pulitzer-worthy coverage of one of the internet’s most hotly contested battles.

Despite raising the alarm this time last year, it appears that many people still haven’t received the memo about the internet being invented for sharing pictures of kittens.

#TeamDog managed to publish an additional 44 million #dog posts to Instagram in the past 12 months, while #TeamCat only managed 33 million new #cat posts.

It’s a similar story over on Twitter, where the platform’s advertising tools reveal that 307 million users are ‘interested’ in dogs today, compared to just 23 million who are ‘interested’ in cats.

That’s a marked improvement on last year’s thousand-to-one ratio (250 million vs. 250 thousand), but dog lovers still outnumber cat lovers on Twitter by a factor of 13 to 1.

We’ll be keeping tabs tabbies on this story again this year, so look out for future pupdates.

All of this pun-ditry’s probably taken up enough of your 6 hours and 54 minutes for today though, so I’ll paws this year’s analysis there.

I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with the first of our Digital 2021 local country reports.

Until then, if you need any more stats, check out our complete Report.