Highlights from Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report 2019

Every year around this time we are blessed with Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report, and this year’s report doesn’t disappoint.

Key findings from the 333 slide, poorly-formatted deck:

Digital time spent for Americans continues to grow, up 7% to 6.3 hours a day
Mobile advertising dollars finally hit equilibrium with mobile time spent in 2018 at 33% respectively (the first time this has ever been the case)
Mobile devices have surpassed TV for time spent among U.S. consumers for the first time
Visual media platforms like Instagram and YouTube continue to lead attention
Freemium as business model continues to increase (Dropbox, Slack, Wix, Spotify)
Fortnite is a standout example of the increasingly popular “freemium” model but also a significant new social network (it’s the new “third place” for kids, for example)
American are taking huge steps to reduce their own digital consumption (up to 63% of adults), as well as their children’s.
Technology and science are increasing faster than humans’ ability to adapt, therefore we need to spend more time developing skills that enable faster learning, quicker iteration and experimentation.

One of the most striking changes between the 2018 and 2019 reports is the mobile equivalency of attention/time versus media spend for mobile.

This is the 2018 slide:

You can see the 3% gap between how much time people spend in mobile versus how much advertising efforts were spent in the channel — and notice how print is a 5% over-spend! Meeker called this a $7 billion opportunity!

Now look at the 2019 report for Mobile…

Although the print disparity is still high for 2018 data, the mobile time spent versus dollars are equal — just like TV. What a difference a year makes!

Meeker also highlights that the technology and science are increasing faster than humans’ ability to adapt, therefore we need to spend more time developing skills that enable faster learning, quicker iteration and experimentation.