Mary Meeker’s 2016 Internet Trends Report: Messaging Apps Could Rival Home Screen

Mary Meeker, a former Morgan Stanley internet analyst and now partner at venture-capital fund Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, has delivered her annual report that offers critical stats and trends about how technology is evolving. TechCrunch has highlighted the takeaways from the report: 1) The global internet adoption rate was flat year-over-year at 9%, reaching 3 billion users or 42% of the world’s population. 2) Smartphone adoption’s growth is slowing, while Android increases marketshare despite a shrinking average selling price. 3) Video viewership is exploding, with Snapchat and Facebook Live showing the way, though video ads aren’t always effective. 4) Messaging is dominated by Facebook and WeChat, it’s growing rapidly, and evolving from simple text communication to become our new home screen with options for vivid self-expression and commerce. 5) US advertising is growing, with Google and Facebook controlling 76% of the market and rising, but advertisers still spend too much on legacy media rather than new media where the audience has shifted. 6) Meeker predicts the rise of voice interfaces because they’re fast, easy, personalized, hands-free, and cheap, with Google on Android now seeing 20% of searches from voice, and Amazon Echo sales growing as iPhone sales slow.