Mary Meeker’s periodic rapid-fire macro-views of the tech industry are closely watched. We got our hands on the Kleiner Perkins partner’s latest slide deck prior to her presenting it at the Web 2.0 Summit today and have extracted some of the main points.
International: 81 percent of users of top global Internet properties come from outside the United States, Meeker said, citing comScore data. In three years, China added more Internet users than exist in the U.S.
Still, American companies like Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook have “unprecedented” intensity, focus and innovation and lead the world, Meeker said. But popular applications like Shazam, Spotify, Waze and SoundCloud originated outside of the U.S. before coming stateside.
Mobile: Meeker is bullish on the growth of smartphones, and highlighted their growing contributions to app usage, search and advertising, though she said it’s still “early innings.”
Sound: As for transformative interfaces, “the next big thing(s),” Meeker proposed, are “those two big things on the side of your head.” That is: Your ears. Meeker called out headsets, voice recognition and music sharing as examples.
Commerce: Meeker highlighted growth in e-commerce, especially mobile commerce, which has created a local renaissance. She said eBay, PayPal, Target, Amazon and Square all will have more than $1 billion in gross mobile sales in 2011.
Empowerment: “The mega-trend of the 21st century is empowerment of people via connected mobile devices,” Meeker said, using the examples of Japanese earthquake tweeting and mobile farming subsidies in India. Wireless signals now have greater global reach than the electrical grid — 85 percent versus 80 percent, she said, citing the United Nations.
Of course, you can find a lot more detail and analysis packed into the full presentation, which is here:
