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Skechers goes private in challenging time for footwear industry: The $9.4 billion deal will give the company breathing room to navigate punishingly high tariffs.

Consequently, feature phone ownership (9.5%) for this region was tied for No. 2 globally with South and Southeast Asia, just behind Central and Eastern Europe (10.7%). Similarly, smart wristband ownership in the Middle East and Africa region trailed all other regions. At 9.0%, it was about half the rate of ownership in East Asia and Oceania, which was the global leader at 18.1%. Egypt.

Trump鈥檚 tariffs roil the retail industry: Reciprocal measures will touch virtually every sector, leading to higher prices for the consumer.

A nearly $1 trillion loss in a day signals market panic. Apple leads the fall, with ripple effects threatening AI growth, ad revenue, and cloud service pricing.

Emerging markets from Southeast Asia and Latin America will fill out much of the rest of the top 10. India and South Korea will be the only two countries in the top 10 for both ecommerce growth and total ecommerce sales. Click here to view our full forecast for retail ecommerce sales growth, by country. Our country-level projections have not changed much in 2024.

It鈥檚 a strategy that should build trust with prospective customers amid the sea of medical misinformation flooding social media. Look to D2C healthcare and pharma companies as digital innovators. Consumer-focused brands are prioritizing a convenient online experience with an emphasis on price transparency (which is easier when insurance isn鈥檛 accepted).

Its penetration in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa exceeds its worldwide figure. Conversely, X (formerly Twitter) and Snapchat are particularly weak in those regions. Click here to view our full forecast for social network user penetration, by country and by platform. If TikTok is banned in the US, its business will rely heavily on Latin America and Southeast Asia.

If ad dollars shrink, Meta and others may need to ditch risky side projects and focus on scalable, affordable services to survive the slowdown

Southeast Asia is one of the leading regions in terms of penetration, but Asia-Pacific as a whole lags. Nearly 2 in 5 internet users in both Latin America and the Middle East and Africa will use TikTok at least once a month this year, per our forecast. In North America, more than 1 in 3 will use the platform monthly.

Brands whose social strategies revolve around jumping on trends risk becoming part of a sea of sameness. Instead, brands looking to create shareable content should consider strategies that are specific and unique to them. Social media consultant Rachel Karten predicts a future where brands invest in 鈥渢rend-agnostic鈥� strategies that are rooted in a brand鈥檚 own characters and storylines.

These policies represent a sea change鈥攐r, as The Wall Street Journal described it, 鈥渁 profound vibe shift鈥濃�攊n social media content moderation. They are also an acknowledgment that earlier methods of policing content were ineffective and potentially biased in numerous ways:. They were costly and unsustainable. On YouTube, for every minute of real time, there are over 30,000 minutes of video to review.

Facebook is projected to lose users in several major markets: Meta may need to lean more heavily on its other platforms to sustain growth.

Digital鈥檚 share of total media ad spending in Asia-Pacific will reach a milestone in 2025, surpassing $200 billion for the first time. The region鈥檚 digital ad spending will increase 8.6%, led by India, while China鈥檚 growth will slip noticeably amid the country鈥檚 economic struggles before a rebound the following year.

For example, the YouTube Shopping affiliate program is only available to creators in the US and some Southeast Asian markets. But the overall impact of the program has been positive. Nearly half of marketers surveyed by Influencer Marketing Hub in August 2024 said Shopping Collections had significantly boosted sales. Implications for brands. YouTube is down the list for creator commerce.

Stormy seas: The struggles at Primark and Poundland are particularly noteworthy given that both should鈥攊n theory鈥攂e poised to benefit from cautious spending trends, particularly as more retailers threaten to raise prices to counter rising insurance and labor expenses. But the slide in consumer confidence has led to a sharp pullback in discretionary spending. Holiday sales were subdued.