Digital in 2018 Part 1 on Messaging Apps with Simon Kemp

Simon Kemp, founder and CEO of Kepios and global consultant from We are Social, joined us in a conversation to discuss the latest global digital report in 2018. In the first part of our conversation, he discussed the key numbers, trends and new data that is added to this most important annual digital report across the world, and dissected the interesting world map of the messaging apps and its implications for Facebook, Whatsapp, Wechat, LINE, Telegram and many others across Asia Pacific.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Simon Kemp (@eskimon, LinkedIn), Founder & CEO of Kepios, Global Consultant from We Are Social. [0:38]
  • Since our last conversation, what have you been up to? [1:14]
• Global Digital Report in 2018 Part 1 [2:51] (SlideShare)
  • So we now know that there are more than 4B people connected to the Internet, what are the key numbers in this report that are important as compared to 2017? [3:04]
  • What are the important trends that have shown up in 2017 and heading into 2018? [5:44]
  • What are the new data which the team has included into the Global Digital Report 2018 and who are your partners who have added to your rich datasets? [8:36]
  • Zooming down to Asia Pacific, are there any new insights since our last conversation? [10:04]
  • Simon’s perspectives on BL’s observation that even Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp dominated two thirds of the world, but the average revenue per user for Wechat, LINE and Kakao talk are far higher, and it creates an inverse correlation to how monetisation of the Asian messaging apps beat Facebook and Whatsapp similar to how Android has 80% market share but do not have a strong monetisation model as compared to iOS. [12:05]
  • Messaging App trend on Wechat & Asian Messaging Apps vs Facebook is analogous to the iOS and Android OS dominance debate [15:15]
  • What does that mean in the longer term for Facebook and Whatsapp and then for the Asian messaging apps such as Wechat, LINE and Kakao Talk? [18:55]
  • Currently, while Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp dominating two thirds of the world, Tencent has been investing in the local messaging apps including Snap in the US to form a wall against Facebook with the exception of Telegram gaining ground in the process, will the competition for the messaging space evolve with AR/VR and ecommerce as it moves along? [23:52]
  • With Alibaba Group and Tencent busy building their payment infrastructure across Southeast Asia that allows the users there to integrate their payment methods onto their apps, do you see that the dynamics of the war between Facebook and them change in the next few years? [27:23]

Here is the Digital in 2018 Global Review Report:

Here’s the map of the messaging apps which we reference from the Digital in 2018 Global Report during the podcast episode:

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong & weibo) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk on Indiegogo (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Also check out Ideal Workspace’s new standing desk, Altizen and sign up for their mailing list. Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack.