Digitization continues to accelerate to this day. Due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, consumers’ behaviour has been altered dramatically. We can observe this through a visible pattern of digital disruptions that’s made creating new revenue streams around the world possible.
Particularly, two industries – entertainment and media, and e-commerce – have been propping up the digital economy. Agile consumers are investing more time and money into entertaining themselves via digital means such as online and mobile phone.
Let’s take a closer look at how people’s lives – and society at large – is kept afloat through rising digital trends.
Gaming, Video Streaming, & Online Shopping Takes Off
The digital acceleration has forged several noteworthy industry tipping points:
Gamer numbers, playtime and spending has increased exponentially
In previous years, the gaming scene saw a steady increase with evolving technology and new game releases. However, when the pandemic hit, the number of active gamers skyrocketed.
According to Game Analytics, the traffic increased by nearly half (46%), from 1.2 billion people playing every month to a 1.75 billion in Q1 2020. On average, it was recorded that the total amount of playtime hit a peak of over 90 million hours in March, which was 62% higher than the start of 2020.
More people playing video games have contributed to the growing number of individuals spending on in-game purchases. The logic behind this is that the longer people play, the higher chance someone will spend something. The following infographics reflects this upward trend.
What is most compelling is that mobile constitutes the biggest gaming segment for revenue gains year-on-year. Though purchasing games for consoles could be seen as expensive across the world, avid gamers have found it more viable to play relatively cheaper games via their mobile phones.
The market for premium video-on-demand (VOD) is competitive and growing
Streaming services built their biggest audiences back in 2020 when most countries went into lockdown and people were confined to the home for their health and safety. While those audience numbers may decline when society returns to normal, premium video-on-demand is unlikely to lose popularity anytime soon.
Communication research firm Interdigital predicts that video streaming is expected to constitute 82% of all internet traffic by 2022 due to the increased accessibility of premium video-on-demand which fuels its continued growth. Cloud computing has made it easier than ever for viewers to access content from their television, gaming devices, laptops and smartphones.
As streaming media companies adjust their business model to include new and existing customer bases, they’ve also expanded their content portfolio and partnerships to stay competitive. The growing digital landscape requires every enterprise to be more agile, responsive and adaptive than ever before.
For example, Sony signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Netflix in April 2021 to show all their theatrical titles on the massively popular streaming platform. Compared to their competitors, Sony is the only major media entertainment conglomerate to not have developed their own SVOD platform.
E-commerce has become the lifeline for many businesses
Physical business locations were forced to shut down. Many business owners had to seek alternative means to support their companies through tough times. They created new revenue streams. Consumers were unable to travel, so they relied on online shopping to meet their needs.
These sets of circumstances boosted the attractiveness of the e-commerce industry and led to new revenue gains for companies able to make the switch. It has become a more sustainable option for many companies to drive business growth.
In the new report, COVID-19 and E-Commerce: A Global Review, by UNCTAD and eTrade, the findings showed a strong uptake of e-commerce across several regions in 2020. Here are some examples:
- Latin America’s online marketplace Mercado Libre sold twice as many items per day in the second quarter of 2020 compared with the same period the previous year.
- African e-commerce platform Jumia reported a 50% jump in transactions during the first 6 months of 2020.
- China’s online share of retail sales rose from 19.4% to 24.6% between August 2019 and August 2020.
- In Kazakhstan, the online share of retail sales increased from 5% in 2019 to 9.4% in 2020.
- Thailand saw downloads of shopping apps jump 60% in just one week during March 2020.
These e-commerce gains are likely to continue throughout the recovery period.
Generate New Revenue Streams via A New Platform
So is there an easy way to capitalize on these digital trends, find new revenue streams and increase ARPU for existing channels? The answer is YES!
Introducing Forest Interactive’s Digital Voucher Platform (DVP), a comprehensive one-stop portal for various kinds of digital vouchers. DVP allows mobile operators to streamline and deliver many of their own and partners’ products directly to end-users. Leveraging DVP to cross-sell various goods allows capitalizing on the demand for trending products. This helps capture a share of the revenue gains.
Get in touch today for help in creating new revenue streams via mobile commerce.
If you’re interested in reading more insightful statistics, please click the button below to get your own free copy of the full report.
