Events in 2020 have brought profound changes into our everyday lives, and many of us have had to rely on the internet more than ever before. Whether we’ve been working from home, keeping in touch with family, shopping, or watching movies, we’ve all contributed to an astonishing 47% increase in internet usage during the first quarter of 2020.
In fact, our online activities have skyrocketed to such a degree that many households have earned their place in the “4 comma club” by exceeding 1TB (1,000,000,000 bytes) of data usage in one month alone.
The sudden rise of businesses requiring their employees to work from home caused many companies to seek alternative means to communicate with staff. With video conferencing having become the norm for many home workers, there’s been a whopping 2,900% rise in Zoom participants, an 80% rise in new paid customers for Slack, and 2.7 billion minutes spent on Microsoft Teams. Other B2B platforms, such as Amazon Web Services, have earned a 70% increase in revenue. Microsoft even reported a 775% spike in usage in regions with the most social restrictions in place.
However, it’s not all work and no play; the gaming industry have reported record profits for this year. Bunch Live had managed to notch up 1 million users over seven days for their social gaming app, whilst Nintendo have knocked it out the park with a 41% increase in annual profits.
Housebound citizens are spending much more time in front of their computers. In one day alone, the American population racked up a total of 50,000 years of streaming time. Services, such as Netflix, accumulated 22% growth in subscribers whilst Disney knocked it out of the park with 54 million new subscribers in May – beating their own projected forecasts.
Of course, it’s no surprise that social media giants have also capitalised on our increased internet consumption. Facebook have also reaped the rewards with a 27% increase in daily website traffic, and LinkedIn have similarly noticed an increase of 26% in user interactions. TikTok has also risen in popularity as their app received a 25% increase in monthly downloads, whilst calls and messages have doubled on the What’s App platform.
This infographic produced by Inferna shows just how much the online world has grown in such a short space of time. As a result of our heavy internet consumption, online businesses are undoubtedly booming, and there’s little sign of this trend slowing down anytime soon.
