One of the most anticipated reports of the year is finally here! Each year Mary Meeker, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins ,Caufield & Byers, puts together an exhaustive analysis (355 slides) of the latest online trends. She just released her latest report earlier this month. After reading through all of the slides here are my favorite takeaways:

Fact #1

Smartphone shipment growth has dramatically declined since 2014 to just 3 percent this year, indicating that almost everyone who wants or needs a smartphone now has one. 

Fact #2

Investment in Ads on Mobile devices​ has increased significantly YoY coupled with the first decrease in investment in Desktop Ads. Just looking at this slide from the 2016 report vs the 2017 report Meeker put together you can see of the $22 billion opportunity on mobile there was in 2016 – advertisers have taken advantage of the opportunity. Slowly we are closing the gap between where consumers are spending time and where advertisers are spending money.

Fact #3

These are the ad formats that are doing well and how they are doing well (the important note here is a high-performing ad unit isn’t always the one driving the most revenue). Ads that are performing well and how: 

• • PLAs in Google- driving clicks (see fact 9 below)
  • Targeted Pins from Pinterest – driving product discovery + purchase
  • Contextual Ads from Facebook – driving direct purchases
  • Goal Bidding Ads for Snap – driving user action
  • Geo Targeted local ads (google) – driving foot traffic to stores
  • Incentive Based + Skippable Video Ads – positive interactions

Fact #4

Ecommerce growth is up 15% YoY in the United States.

 Fact #5

While we may be very focused on the United States we can’t ignore the growth in China. Commerce grew 24 percent in China this year compared to 15 percent in the U.S., as China shifts to online shopping faster than other countries, led by giants like Alibaba with 570 million mobile monthly users.

Fact #6

Speaking of giants – if you haven’t been watching what Walmart is up to I highly encourage you to take a look. Walmart is seeing new online growth in the wake of its purchase of deep-discount site Jet.com. Beyond Jet.com Walmart has also acquired online speciality retailers such as:

•  Hayneedle (indoor and outdoor furniture) 
• ModCloth (women’s vintage inspired retailers) 
• Moosejaw (outdoor retailer)
• Shoebuy.com (shoe retailer)

Fact #7

Google and Facebook have a combined share 85% of the estimated $72B invested in digital advertising this year. This tells us where everyone is investing there money but is troubling that two major players dominate so much of ad spend that is out there. 

Fact #8

AdBlocking technology has increased significantly over the past few years, but almost exclusively on desktop with 18% of users in the US using an AdBlocker, and only 1% of users on mobile doing the same. (See slide below for a great visual of this) 

Fact #9

Google PLAs now account for 52% of Paid Retail clicks on Google – up from just 29% only 2 years ago. 

Fact #10

Mary Meeker forms an interesting hypothesis about the future: The future of search is about pictures not keywords. In the future Meeker goes on to speculate that voice and imagery will replace typing.

These are just some of the many facts you can find in Mary Meeker’s great report. She dives into trends in gaming, trends in China & India and more.