Reports indicate that this will be a milestone year across all things digital. This infographic from Search Laboratory takes a look at 2015’s ecommerce changes on a global scale, focusing on the impact that mobile commerce and social media are having on international business.
It shows Internet usage and ecommerce around the globe, including how much money and time the average Internet user spends online, along with the number of Internet users across the top 25 countries.
Mobile Retail
Mobile increasingly dominates the digital world, and as cheaper handsets and more affordable data connections reach more people, growth in mobile retail is inevitable.
What’s more, with mobile-oriented services like WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook Messenger achieving the top social media ranking spots in some of the world’s biggest economies, it’s clear that much of our digital behavior is now converging around mobile devices.
Ecommerce Sales
The increase of ecommerce sales in Asia-Pacific is tied to a growing base of digital buyers, and as more new buyers come online, sales will rise. However, nearly 70 percent of Internet users in both Western Europe and North America will purchase items on digital devices, versus just over 50 percent in Asia-Pacific.
Buyer penetration in Asia-Pacific translates to the largest number of consumers, but the region is far more fragmented than North America and Western Europe. China alone will make up more than half of all the region’s ecommerce sales this year, and by 2018, its share will top 70 percent.
Social Media
We expect to see social media penetration reach one-third of the world’s population—likely by the end of 2015—with new users in developing nations accounting for almost all of this growth.
Sarah Tramm is the Search Marketing Executive at Search Laboratory.
