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Apple immediately followed with 18% market share. AI inside: Artificial intelligence and generative AI (genAI) are a natural next step for smartphone manufacturers. On-device AI pushed demand for Samsung鈥檚 Galaxy S24 family of phones in 2024. Although Apple remains a giant in the smartphone industry, short-term iPhone 16 adoption was slowed by the lack of Apple Intelligence tools at launch.

Amid dizzying policy unpredictability and a grab bag of unpleasant economic possibilities, precise ad spend forecasting is challenging. A scenarios-based approach can help clarify potential outcomes.

This is the Q1 2025 installment of our quarterly 鈥淎d Spending Benchmarks鈥� series, which helps ad buyers and sellers calibrate their spending and revenue mix against the market.鈥�

On today鈥檚 podcast episode, we discuss our 鈥榲ery specific, but highly unlikely鈥� predictions for 2025. What would happen if Google preemptively broke itself into smaller pieces, if online shopping flatlined, and if the audio ad space doubled in size in short order. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Director of Reports Editing Rahul Chadha, and Senior Analysts Blake Droesch and Max Willens. Listen everywhere and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

Latin America鈥檚 ad market will surpass $40 billion this year as it continues to defy economic uncertainty. Rebounds in Argentina and Chile, along with double-digit growth in retail and social media spending, will fuel momentum. Here are the latest trends you need to know.

The news: Snap announced its sixth-generation AR smart glasses at the 2025 Augmented World Expo (AWE). The wearables will be available to the public for the first time since 2016, potentially unlocking a new revenue stream beyond ads. The lightweight consumer smart glasses, called Specs, will launch in 2026 and include an 鈥渦ltra-powerful wearable computer.鈥� Our take: Snap鈥檚 next-gen smart glasses could diversify its revenue streams and show off its AR prowess. But unless the price tag is affordable and competitive, users may continue to just use Snapchat鈥檚 AR filters on their phones.

The news: Smartphone makers and developers may be misplacing their focus on on-device AI as consumer interest nose-dives from already low levels. Only 3% of smartphone owners are willing to pay extra for AI features, per CNET鈥檚 2025 Smartphone Innovation Survey, down from 6% in September. Our take: Enterprise customers may be a better bet for on-device AI adoption considering public consumers鈥� disinterest and privacy concerns. To boost use among consumers, smartphone makers could focus on easy-to-use features that are accessible to those new to AI and roll out AI upgrades incrementally rather than all at once to avoid AI overload.

Retail ended 2024 on a high note as mobile shopping drove ecommerce sales and stores staged a comeback. Will the 2025 holiday season be as fruitful?

Handheld dominance and low VR adoption signal a reality check for immersive tech as gaming habits shift toward flexible, social experiences.

Amazon and Walmart dominate the landscape, but the other half of US ecommerce sales is still up for grabs.

Drivers overwhelmingly prefer voice assistants over drive-thrus, presenting a ripe opportunity for restaurants to cash in on convenience and curbside cravings.

We do not count headsets like the Meta Quest or the Apple Vision Pro as smart wearables, but they are nonetheless competing for consumer attention with the accessories we do count. VR headsets haven鈥檛 lived up to the hype so far, whereas wearables have generally exceeded expectations. This divergence will become starker in 2025 as the popularity of diverse new wearable form factors continues to grow.

Several of the biggest AI players in the world, including Nvidia, Apple, Salesforce, and Anthropic, were accused of scraping thousands of YouTube videos for genAI model training without creators鈥� knowledge. The New York Times, Wired, Forbes, and The Shortcut accused AI search startup Perplexity of content theft and scraping articles without attribution.

As a result, while Amazon and Meta have also scaled back diversity efforts, Apple, and Microsoft have reaffirmed their commitment to diversity initiatives, per HR Grapevine. Our take: Businesses and their marketers must balance consumer expectations with government compliance in a polarized environment where transparency is key.

Features like Apple Card Family grab teens early in their financial journey. Apple can steer them toward Apple Pay and cross-sell to them over time. Only regulatory headwinds may stand in Apple Pay鈥檚 way.