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Western companies lose confidence in China as consumer spending softens: Weaker-than-expected August retail sales are just the latest data point to push retailers to reevaluate their investments.

The deal cover all traditional and digital media platforms across 22 countries, a territory in Southeast Asia and Central Asia, which have a combined population of nearly one billion, so it's a big deal in general.

Time spent with mobile devices favors smartphones by a wide margin in Southeast Asia. Time with mobile reached 4:29 daily this year in Southeast Asia, 1:34 more than time with PC/laptop/tablet. Almost every country in the Middle East and Africa experienced a drop in time spent with online TV/streaming. It was the largest global drop, as the average regional time decreased by 13 minutes to 1:40.

China and the US are so far in front that the status quo at the top will likely remain the same for decades to come.

A handful of countries and subregions—most notably Southeast Asia—will buck the positive trend and decelerate, but a wide-angle view shows good news across the map. To view the full forecast, click here. Total media ad spending is nearing the $1 trillion mark. Thanks to digital media’s relentless growth—especially in emerging markets—the global ad industry is fast approaching a jaw-dropping milestone.

59% of executives worldwide say CTOs are the leaders responsible for driving generative AI (genAI) strategy, according to April 2024 data by Google Cloud and the National Research Group.

Southeast Asia will be its top priority, followed by the UK and US. But there are serious regulatory hurdles to clear in the US, preventing TikTok from successfully creating a payments infrastructure there in 2024. X won’t become a super app in 2024.

Nearly 50% of social network users in Thailand will be TikTok users, giving the country the highest TikTok penetration in the world, according to our forecast. The US will rank second, with 45.3% of its social users on TikTok. We expect penetration in the US will be as high as 49.1% by the end of 2026.

And also, millennials are getting to the age now where they are hitting 40, so they're basically in their thirties and maybe a couple of a sea of years, late twenties, but they're running out of free time because of whatever responsibilities.

Fuel from Southeast Asia: Though it’s banned in India, TikTok will have much of its growth in Asia-Pacific driven by Southeast Asia. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam together will account for about half of TikTok users in Asia-Pacific, excluding China. And all of those countries except Singapore will see their TikTok user base rise more than 10% this year.

PC ownership in the region was 53.6% in H1 2022, almost 5 percentage points lower than in Southeast Asia (58.3%). Ownership in leading regions like Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe was equal to about three-quarters of internet users. Game console ownership in Asia-Pacific, at 14.2% in H1 2022, trails that of most other regions significantly.

Amid global economic gloom, Asia-Pacific remains a region of digital opportunities in 2023, highlighted by the increasing momentum of the metaverse in China, surging retail sales in India, and burgeoning livestream commerce in Indonesia.

Apple’s manufacturing shift from China: The iPhone maker is looking to India and Vietnam to manufacture its most profitable products—a sign that Apple’s long time reliance on China’s manufacturing could be coming to an end.

From the rise of sophisticated AI-driven tools to new policies reshaping data privacy and competition, 2025 promises to be a year of relentless change. Companies that adapt will thrive, while others risk being left behind in a swiftly moving market.