Mary Meeker's annual internet trends: e-commerce sales grow, time online rises, and smartphone shipments stagnate as average selling price drops
in 294 slides Rani Molla / Recode : China now has nine of the world's biggest internet companies — almost as many as the U.S. Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch : Here's where it's cheaper to take an Uber than to own a car Mike Murphy / Quartz : Mary Meeker's 2018 internet trends report: All the slides and highlights Shannon Liao / The Verge : Smartphone shipments declined for the first time in 2017 Brandy Betz / Seeking Alpha : Meeker report: Amazon gains market share, China gains on US Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet : Mary Meeker's 2018 Internet Trends report: Key takeaways Harry McCracken / Fast Company : Here are all 294 slides of Mary Meeker's internet trends report Khari Johnson / VentureBeat : Mary Meeker: China's AI expertise is ‘focused and organized and gaining’ Melia Robinson / Business Insider : MARY MEEKER'S TECH STATE OF THE UNION: Everything happening on the internet in 2018 Dan Primack / Axios : More than half of world population now uses the Internet Facebook: Roger James Hamilton : What's the biggest trends of 2018? Each year, legendary tech … Tweets: @pranavdixit : Last year, a huge chunk of Mary Meeker's Internet Trends report was about India. This year, India doesn't even figure once in nearly 300 slides. http://www.recode.net/... http://twitter.com/... Bill Gurley / @bgurley : Mary's annual presentation is content dense, and as such she moves very fast. Example: The Fortnite slide got 2.5 seconds. http://twitter.com/... Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : For the things that have mattered (mobile, Facebook, Google), the charts are flattening out and becoming boring. For the things that are going to matter (cars, AI, Blockchain) there are no charts that tell us anything yet. Jack Clark / @jackclarksf : Mary Meeker's annual round-up of all things tech now includes tons of slides on a) AI and b) China. Here she shows how we're starting to see symptoms of Chinese state investment in AI ecosystem via more winning entrances in international AI competitions. https://www.recode.net/... pic.twitter.com/g6NwittnBa @recode : They're here. Here's all 284 slides of Mary Meeker's 2018 internet trends report. The slides cover everything from smartphone behavior in the U.S. to tech company competition in China. #CodeCon http://www.recode.net/... http://twitter.com/... Ken Yeung / @thekenyeung : Mary Meeker highlights privacy paradox tech companies and government are dealing with. pic.twitter.com/g8vixBQwuK Sam Ro / @bysamro : err'body loves Slack http://bit.ly/1hvdjiv pic.twitter.com/itugxfe0Tb Ken Yeung / @thekenyeung : Check out this chart: 6 of the top 15 R&D/CapEx spenders in the US are tech...with Amazon, Google, Intel, Apple, and Microsoft leading. Facebook is further down. pic.twitter.com/K6fdlLZLDt Ken Yeung / @thekenyeung : We're watching more digital media and mobile is leading the way, but interesting that “other connected devices” are growing...like maybe our smart fridges or assistants?? pic.twitter.com/U7TM0qGsXb @recode : Work is changing rapidly, and technology is helping so far. Job expectations are evolving to incorporate flexibility. Estimated 6.8 million U.S. on-demand platform workers this year, up from 5.4 million last year. #CodeCon http://twitter.com/... Joe Weisenthal / @thestalwart : Men who aren't in the workforce watch way more TV (Chart from Mary Meeker's thing) https://www.documentcloud.org/ ... pic.twitter.com/dSPbamULak Ken Yeung / @thekenyeung : Telegram, @square cash, and @spotify get first product shoutouts from Mary Meeker for being easy-to-use. pic.twitter.com/ezlnCC46gE @recode : US homes are getting bigger while residents per home are falling. Office space is getting denser. Many consumers may try to increase utility of the space they have, such as Airbnb: #CodeCon http://twitter.com/... @recode : Americans are also spending more out-of-pocket on healthcare. Will technology show up and finally lower consumer costs? #CodeCon http://twitter.com/... @recode : Americans spending less on vehicle purchases and more on other transportation. It's cheaper in many cities to commute via UberPool. #CodeCon http://twitter.com/... @recode : 91% of Uber drivers do it to earn extra income. 87% to set their own hours. #CodeCon http://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
A year after Mary Meeker's 2017 report flagged slowing smartphone sales and a Google-Facebook duopoly taking 85% of online ad growth, the 2018 edition confirms the hardware turn: 2017 was the first year smartphone shipments declined, and average selling prices are falling alongside. The growth story has moved to what happens on the devices — more time online, growing e-commerce, and Amazon taking share.
The other arc is geographic: China now hosts nine of the world's biggest internet companies, nearly matching the U.S., and its AI expertise is described as increasingly organized and internationally competitive. Meeker kept publishing through the 333-page 2019 edition before going quiet, returning only years later with an AI-focused report — making this 2018 data point the hinge where the industry's center of gravity shifted from units sold to engagement and platform scale.
First-order effects
- Handset vendors led by Apple now face a shrinking unit market with falling average selling prices, so revenue must come from mix, services, and pricing rather than volume.
- Amazon's continued market-share gains put direct pricing and delivery pressure on remaining U.S. retail competitors, while the on-demand workforce behind platforms like Airbnb and ride-hailing grows from 5.4 million to 6.8 million American workers.
Second-order effects
- With user growth flattening but time online rising, Google and Facebook's ad dominance gets defended through higher engagement and pricing rather than new users, squeezing smaller ad-dependent publishers hardest.
- China's concentration of top-tier internet companies forces U.S. platforms to treat Chinese rivals as global competitors rather than regional ones, particularly in AI where the report notes sharpening organization and international competitiveness.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the industry's value chain permanently decouples from device units: hardware becomes a commoditized access layer while profits concentrate in commerce, advertising, and the platforms that own consumer attention.
- The report's own trajectory foreshadows where analyst attention goes next — after tracking smartphones and e-commerce through 2019, Meeker's eventual return centers on AI, suggesting the megatrend baton passes from mobile distribution to machine intelligence.
The trend: The internet economy is decoupling from device-unit growth, with value migrating to engagement, e-commerce, and platform scale even as smartphone shipments stagnate and China closes the gap with the U.S.