IT Facts

There are 22 mln U.S. millionaires, Credit Suisse estimates, up from fewer than 15 mln in 2014.

About 3.2% of all US retail online sales came from digital subscriptions to physical products and their accompanying services in 2021, for a total of $29.11 bln, according to Insider Intelligence. That is up from 2.9% in 2020 and 2.8% in 2019.

In 2019 around 59 mln Americans had brokerage accounts. This number has surged since to 95 mln, as 17 mln new accounts were opened in 2020 and 20 mln were set up in 2021. Retail trading went from around 25% of volumes to 33% in early 2020 and peaked at over 40% in Q1 2021.

The number of gamers worldwide will exceed 3 bln by 2023. The global games market will generate revenues of $159.3 bln in 2020, a +9.3% YTYr increase. Markets in the Asia-Pacific region will generate $78.4 bln in 2020, up +9.3% YTY.

Buy online / pickup in store maintained a year-over-year growth of 195% in May 2020, leveling off after the sharp upward trajectory seen in March 2020 and early April 2020. According to Adobe survey of 1,000 consumers, 23% of online shoppers said they prefer buying online and picking up in store or curbside over in-home delivery. US online grocery daily sales saw a 14% decrease in May 2020, while consumer electronics daily sales were up 11%. Daily online apparel sales increased by 12% in May 2020 as prices remained low after dropping heavily in April 2020.

Access to news continues to become more distributed. Across all countries, 28% prefer to start their news journeys with a website or app. Those aged 18–24 have an even weaker connection with websites and apps and are more than twice as likely to prefer to access news via social media. Across age groups, use of Instagram for news has doubled since 2018 and looks likely to overtake Twitter over the next year. To counter the move to various platforms, publishers have been looking to build direct connections with consumers via email and mobile alerts. In the United States 21% access a news email weekly, and for almost half of these it is their primary way of accessing news. Northern European countries have been much slower to adopt email news channels, with only 10% using email news in Finland.

The proportion using podcasts has grown significantly in the last year, though coronavirus lockdowns may have temporarily reversed this trend. Across countries, 50% of respondents say that podcasts provide more depth and understanding than other types of media. Meanwhile, Spotify has become the number one destination for podcasts in a number of markets, overtaking Apple’s podcast app.

80% of US TV households have at least one Internet-connected TV device, including connected Smart TVs, stand-alone streaming devices (like Roku, Amazon Fire TV stick or set-top box, Chromecast, or Apple TV), connected video game systems, and/or connected Blu-ray players.

This is an increase from 74% with at least one connected TV device in 2018, 57% in 2015, and 24% in 2010, says Leichtman Research.

Overall, 40% of adults in U.S. TV households watch video on a TV via a connected device daily – compared to 29% in 2018, 12% in 2015, and 1% in 2010.

Older individuals use connected TV devices less often than others. Among all adults ages 55+, 18% watch video on a TV via a connected device daily –compared to 48% of ages 35-54 and 55% of ages 18-34.

Among those with any connected TV device, 64% have three or more devices – with a mean of 4.1 devices per connected TV household.

58% of TV households have at least one connected Smart TV–up from 47% in 2018, 22% in 2015, and 8% in 2010.

56% of TV households have at least one stand-alone streaming device –up from 46% in 2018, 23% in 2015, and 3% in 2011.

On a daily basis, 25% of adults watch video on a TV via a stand-alone device, 20% via an Internet-enabled Smart TV app, 11% via a connected game system, and 3% via a connected Blu-ray player.

62% of 4K HDTV owners agree that the picture quality makes everything look better, even when not watching 4K content, while 6% disagree.

Sony’s PS4 has sold 100 mln units, making it the fastest-selling console to hit that number. It hit the 100 mln figure in 5 years and 7 months, 2 months quicker than Nintendo’s Wii.

Global online music streaming subscriptions grew 32% year-over-year reaching 358 mln subscriptions in 2019, according to Counterpoint Research. Spotify topped 2019 grabbing a 31% share of the total revenue and a 35% share of the total paid subscriptions. Apple Music followed with a 24% share of total revenues in the industry and a 19% share of the total paid subscriptions. Due to Apple’s high focus on its services segment which includes Apple Music, its subscription base grew 36% in 2019. Amazon Music subscriptions reached a 15% share in 2019 compared to 10% in 2018.

Worldwide spending on public cloud services and infrastructure will more than double over the 2019-2023 forecast period, according to IDC. With a CAGR of 22.3%, public cloud spending is forecast to grow from $229 bln in 2019 to reach nearly $500 bln in 2023.

IaaS spending, comprised of servers and storage devices, will be the fastest growing category of cloud spending with a five-year CAGR of 32%. Platform as a service (PaaS) spending will grow nearly as fast (29.9% CAGR) led by purchases of data management software, application platforms, and integration and orchestration middleware.

US advertisers spent $479.1 mln advertising on podcasts in 2018, up 53% from about $313.9 mln in 2017, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC. Podcast advertising is expected to rise to $678.7 mln in 2019. Marketers are projected to spend about $70.83 bln on US TV advertising in 2019 and about $129.34 bln on digital advertising, according to eMarketer.

Dynamically inserted ads comprised 48.8% of podcast ads sold in 2018, up from 41.7% in 2017. 

Grocery delivery is accounting for less than 2% of 2016’s $715 bln in food-retail sales, according to Technomic Inc. Amazon already makes up more than half of online food orders through its Fresh, Prime and Prime Now services.