Mary Meeker presents her annual Internet Trends Report at Code 2018.
Asa Mathat | Vox Media
The most highly anticipated report of the year for tech investors has arrived.
Mary Meeker, a widely followed technology backer and general partner at the venture firm Bond Capital, published her 333-slide “Future of the Internet” report Tuesday ahead of a presentation at Recode’s Code Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Here are some of the highlights from this year’s report:
- More than half of the human population is online, Meeker said on stage at Recode.
- Public and private investments into tech companies is at at a two-decade high, nearing $200 billion last year.
- Wearable technology is booming, and users have doubled in the past four years.
- E-commerce and ride-share driven digital payments are rising.
- Image-based communication like Instagram, is on the rise. YouTube and Instagram are gaining the most for time spent on online platforms.
- Interactive games like Fortnite are gaining ground. Total players have accelerated at 2.4 billion, up 6% this year.
- “Privacy concerns are high but they’re moderating,” Meeker said on stage at Recode.
- Media time spent on mobile hit “equilibrium.”
- China makes up 21% of total global internet users vs. 8% in the United States.
Read Meeker’s entire 2019 report here.
Meeker published her first internet trends report in 1995, when she was an analyst at Morgan Stanley. The 1995 report had a section on features, and “how to use the internet” and highlighted the possibility of recorded music, television online — or as she put it, “lots of upside.” At the time, she was one of the most closely followed internet analysts on Wall Street.
In September, Meeker split with Silicon Valley investing giant Kleiner Perkins after eight years to start a new shop called Bond Capital. The venture firm has raised $1.25 billion, according to a regulatory filing. Meeker’s Kleiner team invested in tech companies like Facebook, Spotify, Square, Twitter and Snap, Slack and Uber. At Bond, she is invested in some of the same companies. Meeker joined the board of fintech start-up Plaid in December.
— CNBC’s Sally Shin contributed reporting.