Hootsuite and We Are Social have just published their excellent annual report about how the world uses the internet for 2020. Full report embedded below or here. In the mean time, here are my key takeaways for Australian advertisers:

• More than half of the world’s population will use social media by mid 2020. Humanity has literally never been this connected.

• Self-care, mental health and mindfulness is a key priority for all. Internet users are spending less time on the endless vortex that we call the internet scroll/swipe. This is especially with platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Instagram recently introducing wellness tools to encourage breaks from their own platforms. In fact, YouTube delivered a staggering 1 billion ‘take a break’ reminders last year. Less time on social media isn’t bad for advertisers though. Here’s to more mindful and meaningful media consumption replacing brainless scrolls and double taps.

• 88% of Australians are connected to the internet. There’s 22.3M Aussies that advertisers can talk to.

• Aussies spend 5 hours and 41 mins on the internet each day, roughly an hour below the global average. Of that time, we only spend 2 hours and 13 mins connected via mobile devices – one of the lowest recorded for the 46 countries listed in this report. This is probably because Australia is a developed country, and data shows that developing countries are far more likely to use mobile internet because it’s easier and more affordable than land line connections.

• Our mobile connection speed is the 6th fastest listed here (I don’t believe that) but our fixed internet connection speeds are almost half the worldwide average (yeah, that sounds about right).

• The 4th highest search term on YouTube is ‘video’ ? Aren’t they all videos?!

• ASMR is still a thing on YouTube. (I don’t get it.)

• The Google Play and iOS charts show some pretty interesting differences. Games are a top app category for everyone. But photo apps are the second most downloaded app type for iOS users, but much further down at #6 for Google Play users, with tool apps coming in second for them. (There’s actually interesting data on the social, economic and political differences between Android and iPhone users. Despite being a left wing, city-living gal, I buck the trend as a proud member of #TeamSamsung.)

• The top three most downloaded apps globally are Facebook products – Whatsapp, Facebook and Messenger.

• Tinder was the top app for global consumer spend. That explains that time I matched with a guy in London who was about to come to Melbourne and kept claiming that he was a free user and the app must have glitched because he swears he’s not that desperate and would never ever spend money on Tinder for that special holiday mode…

• Apparently 38% of global internet users scan a QR code monthly. I find this surprising because I haven’t seen one in the wild for a very long time, but apparently Chinese consumers are behind this staggering stat. (Check out this quaint guerrilla marketing campaign I did with QR codes way back in 2011.)

• Australia’s ecomm adoption is actually below the worldwide average, at 70% vs 74%. That gets even lower when we look at mobile ecomm, with us sitting at 33% vs. the global average 52%. I do expect to see this increase in 2020, especially with more brands/apps building for mobile first and 5G connectivity making it faster/easier to buy on mobile.

• Digital advertisers spent $334 billion dollars in 2019, a healthy 12% increase from 2018. Top platforms to spend with were (in order) Google, Facebook, Alibaba and Amazon.

• The lines between social media and ecomm will get blurred in 2020, and I predict that Australian consumers will soon expect shoppable content to be the norm. (Chinese influencers are trailblazers here though.)

• Continued improvements to AR tech will also boost ecomm by removing the need to ‘showroom’ before purchasing. Because, hey, I’m lazy and if I can use AR to imagine what a couch looks like in my living room then I’m totally going to do that.

Full report for you to nerd out over here. You’re welcome.