E-commerce
This image came from adobe’s digital economy index. It shows that clothes sales online are in the USA at least at 22%. Deflation online has also caused prices to fall, this may change over the coming year but at presence e-commerce is going through a massive surge as a billion people can’t visit bricks and mortar stores.
Read the full report here -
https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2020/Adobe-Unveils-First-Digital-Economy-Index/default.aspx
Image credit - https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2020/Adobe-Unveils-First-Digital-Economy-Index/default.aspx
Gaming
Gaming has seen a huge surge as people need an escape from Covid-19. In the west we’ll have to wait until data becomes truly available but games studios are reporting hug spikes in analytics especially in the mobile gaming field.
In asia reports are now coming out of the data surges during the lockdowns. It basically shows a 45% surge in mobile gaming (Adcolony statistics) during the lock down. It would be interesting to see how this affected revenues.
See the report here -
https://www.brandinginasia.com/mobile-gaming-surges-45-in-the-asia-pacific-during-coronavirus-crisis/
Impact on Shares (Example Tencent)
At its height (mid march 2020) this surge sent Tencent shares up by 0.5%. Tencent had a rough time with increasing competition and a saturated market so this was bucking the trend and a welcome surge into the green.
(Admittedly this image is a photo of Bloomberg doing it’s analysis in mid march
We can expect the same in the west and although we won’t have as solid data as asia there are reports from ISPs of huge spikes in traffic as Call Of Duty: Warzone was downloaded record times -
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/03/call-of-duty-warzone-linx-sees-record-uk-internet-traffic.html
Tele-commuting
Companies are now increasing their move to digital transformation in terms of increasing e-commerce presence but it’s been widely reported companies are adapting to remote working. I’m not a recruiter so I can’t comment on the way it will change our day to day in terms of job roles but I suspect that what’s been normal in the tech industry (remote working) will permeate into our working lives.
This is a ‘slack’ snapshot so used to sell their products but they have some interesting key data - 66% of knowledge workers are working from home.
Read it here -
https://slackhq.com/report-remote-work-during-coronavirus
Stock
Zoom’s stock has surged during the Covid -19 but is now dropping off as USA begins to open up in places.
(Sudo?) Conclusion
Being not an economics specialist or a pure statistician we can get a bit of a conclusion out of all this, there will be subscription services that people will continue to use even after lock down. E-commerce will drop a little as countries open up but there will be a water mark, I predict it will be higher and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict that.
Gaming (especially mobile) will remain at high usage for a while after a gradual open up as addictive and fun experiences will take on more whales, drive revenue and metrics associated with active users.
Tele-commuting may drop but again a watermark will exist, this will depend on corporate culture. It may also impact on the number of middle managers as workforces learn how to collaborate without physical direction.
In essence in a locked down world people are seeking ways to connect, acquire goods and escape the restrictive experience of a locked down world. Technology is making this happen when we need it most, however the most human behaviours such as sharing a physical space and touching a physical product will be hard to replicate in a digital world.
