• Global Digital Insights and Trends

Global Digital Insights and Trends

The Hootsuite team recently hosted an informative webinar outlining the global digital landscape in 2020.

The findings, featuring data from over 220 countries, were presented by world-renowned analyst Simon Kemp (We Are Social).

We have unpacked a few of the key insights, which we thought were really interesting. We hope you find them interesting and informative too…

Out of the total global population of 7.75 billion…

• Two thirds have a mobile phone (5.19 billion).
• 4 out of 5 people have access to the internet (4.54 billion).
• 49% are active social media users (3.80 billion).
• In the past 12 months leading up to January 2020, active social media users have increased by 9.2%.
• On average, we (internet users aged 16 to 64) spend a whopping 2 hours and 24 minutes on social media EVERY DAY!

Iceland, Kuwait, Qatar, U.A.E. and Bahrain have the highest level of internet penetration, with 99% of the population online.

Facebook boasts 2.4 billion monthly active users, with YouTube close behind at 2 billion monthly active users.

Online video is the most consumed media type globally with 90% of internet users watching some form of online video every month.

With the 2nd highest time spent on the internet, South Africans spent an average of 9:22 per day using the internet in January 2020 – average time in hours and minutes, internet users aged 16 to 64 across any device. Global average was 6:43.

36% of the total South African population are active social media users.

The top 3 Google search queries globally in 2019 were Facebook, Google and YouTube.

In the past year, social media has enjoyed the largest growth of global ad spend with 18% year-on-year growth. Comparatively, premium display advertising only grew by 7%.

Digital ad spend accounted for 50.1% of total global ad spend (full year 2019).

Sources:

  • GLOBALWEBINDEX (Q3 2019). FIGURES REPRESENT THE FINDINGS OF A BROAD SURVEY OF INTERNET USERS AGED 16 TO 64. SEE GLOBALWEBINDEX.COM FOR MORE DETAILS.
  • POPULATION: UNITED NATIONS; LOCAL GOVERNMENT BODIES; MOBILE: GSMA INTELLIGENCE; INTERNET: ITU; GLOBALWEBINDEX; GSMA INTELLIGENCE; LOCAL TELECOMS REGULATORY AUTHORITIES AND GOVERNMENT BODIES; APJII; KEPIOS ANALYSIS; SOCIAL MEDIA: PLATFORMS’ SELF-SERVICE ADVERTISING TOOLS; COMPANY ANNOUNCEMENTS AND EARNINGS REPORTS; CAFEBAZAAR; KEPIOS ANALYSIS. ALL LATEST AVAILABLE DATA IN JANUARY 2020
  • GOOGLE TRENDS (ACCESSED JANUARY 2020)
  • COMPANY STATEMENTS AND EARNINGS ANNOUNCEMENTS; MEDIASCOPE; CAFEBAZAAR (ALL LATEST DATA AVAILABLE IN JANUARY 2020).
  • GENDER SHARE DATA FROM GLOBALWEBINDEX (Q3 2019) BASED ON THE FINDINGS OF A BROAD SURVEY OF INTERNET USERS AGED 16 TO 64.
  • TATISTA MARKET OUTLOOK FOR DIGITAL ADVERTISING (ACCESSED JANUARY 2020). FIGURES COMPARE FULL-YEAR DIGITAL ADVERTISING SPEND IN 2019 TO EQUIVALENT DATA FOR 2018
  • EMARKETER (FEBRUARY 2019). FIGURES REPRESENT EMARKETER’S PROJECTIONS FOR FULL-YEAR 2019 ADVERTISING SPEND. *NOTE: SHARE OF TOTAL GLOBAL AD SPEND INCLUDES SPEND FOR BOTH