Ten key takeaways from the 2014 Mary Meeker Internet Trends report

KPCB analyst and Internet trends watcher Mary Meeker has just released the ‘Internet trends’ report for this year. The 164-slide presentation reports talks about everything Internet and mobile. From startling facts like Tinder’s 800 million swipes to 8 million existing Bitcoin wallets, the Meeker report talks about what is happening currently and what we can expect in the future. Let’s take a look at the takeaways from the 2014 Meeker report.

Mobile data on the rise

Internet user growth which saw a massive growth rate in 2013, now seems to be declining. Yes, you heard it right. The Internet user growth has slowed down to below 10 percent. However, mobile data traffic continues to accelerate, thanks to huge video consumption. It has been increasing significantly and is up 81 percent year-over-year and video streaming contributes to over 20 percent of all mobile data consumption.

Smartphone boom not over

While the most of us believe this is the smartphone era, you would be shocked to know that only 30 percent of the world’s 5.2 billion phone users own a smartphone. Feature phone seemingly are still dominant is most developing countries. Tablets are not as hot as everyone thinks and is bottom of the list in terms of number of buyers.

Big opportunity in mobile ads

Mobile ads are still understated, compared to print. While print accounts for only 6 percent of time spent, it still claims 23 percent of ad budgets. On the other hand, mobile accounts for 20 percent of time spent and claim just 4 percent of overall ad spending. However, the global internet advertising grew 16 percent this year while mobile advertising grew by 47 percent.

Tinder is on fire

The dating service Tinder is more popular than what you may have thought. Tinder users swipe ‘800 million’ times per day, which is said to have increased by 21 times year-on-year. It’s a dating app available for Android and iOS that lets users select which friends they like and which they don’t.

Bitcoins remain relevant

In the past, we’ve seen the rise and fall of bitcoins. Meeker report points out that about 5 million bitcoin wallets exist and have grown up to eight times year-over-over. Android bitcoin wallets are the most prominent.

TVs still bigger than mobile

The number of global TV users still surpasses the number of mobile subscribers. There are 5.5 billion global TV users compared to 5.2 billion mobile phone users. Interestingly, 52 percent of ESPN digital users access only on smartphones and tablets, accounting for 48 percent of the total time spent on the network.

China is huge on mobile

Mobile Internet users in China now account to 80 percent of its total Internet users, which is more than any other country. China added the most number of smartphone users and Internet users in the past year and the strong mobile data performance means it is leading in the m-commerce space as well.

‘Made in USA’ making a comeback

With 97 percent of all smartphone OSes made in USA, the country has a strong grip on what smartphone users are using. In stark contrast, before the iPhone, only five percent of smartphone OSes were developed in the US.

Streaming over digital music purchase

In what can be called an asset-light trend, more and more users are choosing to own less music, trading it in for subscription-based services such as Pandora, Spotify. For the first time ever, digital music sales fell, dropping by six percent as streaming service rose by 32 percent.

We are photo hungry

Over 1.8 billion photos were shared and uploaded each day in 2013, with Snapchat seeing the most growth. Much of this rise in the number of photos shared is explained by real-time uploading and sharing solutions, increased reliance on smartphone cameras and faster data speeds.