The news: TikTok launched a beta suite of Songwriter Features, designed to credit and showcase the creators behind hit songs.
Songwriters can now tag their profiles, curate music in a dedicated tab, and share the stories behind their work within TikTok鈥檚 music discovery ecosystem.
On today's podcast episode, we discuss the state of some of our 2025 predictions, including GenAI鈥檚 influence on business growth, the influence of China鈥檚 e-commerce disruptors, the squeeze on retail media networks, and more. Then, we offer a few more slightly spicier predictions for the remainder of the year ahead. Listen to the conversation with our Senior Analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts Vice President Suzy Davidkhanian and Senior Analyst Carina Perkins.
The news: ByteDance is working on lightweight mixed-reality goggles that could directly challenge Meta鈥檚 products, per The Information.
Our take: If ByteDance can leverage its content ecosystem, creator network, and powerful algorithm, it could carve out a foothold with younger, social media鈥搒avvy users. Brands could sponsor AR lenses and place products within digital overlays to turn everyday activities into shoppable moments.
The situation: Despite persistent US-China trade tensions, the Chinese economy is proving more resilient than many expected.
Our take: China is navigating a high-stakes global environment more deftly than expected鈥攁 promising sign for Chinese retailers.
Stronger-than-anticipated export growth, solid GDP performance, and growing trade diversification point to a more stable macroeconomic backdrop. That creates an opportunity for Chinese retailers and manufacturers to tap into rising domestic demand while expanding into alternative export markets.
If this momentum holds鈥攁 big if鈥攖hey could potentially outpace the 2.0% YoY retail sales growth that we currently forecast.
Social network user growth will be slow on a worldwide level, but 2025鈥檚 meager 2.9% increase will still equate to more than 115 million new users. Facebook remains in the lead in most countries and regions, even though its share of internet users is declining.
Despite high penetration of social networks among internet users in Asia-Pacific, population-wide adoption lags. As such, we expect 209.6 million new social media users in the region between 2025 and 2029.