What are the latest trends of 2019 in Digital?

Did you know that nearly 70% of the world population use their mobile phone everyday? We Are Social and Hootsuite have gathered some interesting figures as well as international trends of digital, social media, mobile and e-commerce on their Global Digital Report 2019.

Here we are going to focus more specifically on the use of mobile and how to take advantage of it.

Key Figures

TOP 10 of social platforms where users have active accounts

Trends to keep in mind

5G :
A new wireless standard is expected to revolutionize IoT and mobile communications introduced as the next-gen cellular technology replacing 4G LTE. Here are some figures selected from Cisco’s study on the deployment of 5G:

• Cisco announced that there will be more than 12 billion mobile devices and IoT connections by 2022, with only 422 million connection coming from 5G devices, which will account for nearly 12 percent of global mobile data traffic.  
• Also the average 5G connection (22 GB/month) will generate about 3 times more traffic than the average 4G connection (8 GB/month) by 2022.
• The company also expects this technology to improve energy efficiency, cost optimization and IoT connection density.

WiFi 6 :
WiFi6 is the name for the next generation of the wireless standard following WiFi5 and which was launched at the beginning of this year.

In addition to being a new wireless technology, WiFi6 is expected to be up to four times faster in device-dense areas and offer higher bandwidth than WiFi5. On the business side, the new speed of WiFi6 could enable a faster guest WiFi for customers which will provide additional services to shoppers. It could potentially lower costs on networks and devices which will give the possibility to even small businesses to enjoy this new technology. Even at home, WiFi6 would allow to have more devices connected at once while using less energy. By 2020, experts forecast that nearly 31 billion IoT devices would be installed around the world.

Indeed, WiFi6 and 5G are expected to shake up the Internet of Things in 2019 by providing faster speeds. However according to Cisco, WiFi will remain the way most people connect to the internet for a while longer. The company claims that 59% of total mobile data traffic will pass through WiFi networks, compared to 54% in 2017.

Recommandations

As we previously saw in the Global Digital Report, some consumer habits have evolved through the years and new technologies are also expected to reshape IoT at home but also in business. In order to cope with these trends, companies need to follow these recommandations:

• Rebuild trust with customers: brands must be transparent with their customers especially concerning why they are collecting data and for which purpose. They must be clear about the fact that it aims to create personalised and one-to-one experiences that offer new value to customers. In Europe, companies are incited to communicate around the respect of GDPR which gives them more credibility and a trustworthy image.
• Being relevant and consented: to go beyond the ad blockers system, companies are encouraged to opt for channels and communications aligned with the user’s consumption habits. Moreover, determining specific levels of interaction will avoid them being detected as spam.  
• Make a unified view your imperative: as previously seen, mobile users have accounts on an average of 8 different social and messaging media. It is unavoidable for companies to adapt their strategy to this trend and to define it around mobile services and applications to promote their brands.
• Break down marketing silos: on the business side, 54% of organisations report that departments beyond marketing are now using social media. In order to set common objectives with the other departments, marketing teams can define specific KPIs with the rest of the team and use social media to communicate on the brand and catch customers’ attention.These actions will contribute on the digital transformation of their organisation.