Thematic Intelligence: Social Media Sector Scorecard Q2 2024 Update

Thematic Intelligence: Social Media Sector Scorecard Q2 2024 Update

Summary

As users increase their video consumption, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube remain on the rise. In particular, Instagram continues to grow in popularity in terms of viewer engagement and short-form videos, and in March 2024, it overtook TikTok as the most downloaded app. Meanwhile, the future of TikTok remains uncertain in the US following concerns about the Chinese influence and its ban in India (though similar apps, such as Moj, Chingari, and Josh, are emerging in the latter country).

Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) risk hefty fines under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA). The European Commission opened proceedings under the Act between May and June 2024. Elon Musk's X has been warned that its blue-tick system for users-which allows anyone to pay to gain a blue checkmark-is deceptive and in breach of its social media rules. Previously, Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, was accused of encouraging addictive behavior among children and damaging mental health through its platforms. Both social media companies are expected to fight back the accusations and defend themselves, but if the Commission's findings are confirmed, they face fines of up to 6% of their total worldwide turnover.

Scope

• This sector scorecard provides a top-down, comprehensive outlook for the key players in the social media sector over the next two years, based on the key themes set to transform their industry landscape.

• Companies that invest in the right themes become success stories. Those that miss the important themes in their industry end up as failures.
• GlobalData’s thematic research ecosystem is a single, integrated global research platform that provides an easy-to-use framework for tracking all themes across all companies in all sectors. It has a proven track record of identifying the important themes early, enabling companies to make the right investments ahead of the competition, and secure that all-important competitive advantage.
• At GlobalData, we have developed a unique thematic methodology for ranking all major companies in all major sectors based on their relative strength in the big themes that are impacting their industries.
• Our thematic engine tags over 180 million data items across six alternative data sets-patents, jobs, deals, filings, social media, and news-to themes. The vast datasets within our thematic engine help our analysts to produce sector scorecards that identify the companies best placed to succeed in a future filled with multiple disruptive threats.