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And remittance providers are partnering with tech giants in China to tap the country鈥檚 massive user base. Mastercard expanded its relationship with Alipay this year to include remittances, while Visa partnered with Tencent in 2023 to enable remittances in WeChat Pay wallets. MoneyGram and Western Union have forged similar partnerships.

However, a large share (38%) of chronic condition patients are more likely to turn to online influencers and social media for medical information, per a joint survey by Hall & Partners and Think Next. 10,500 adults from China, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US were surveyed online in 2022. Drilling down on patients: Age is a determining factor for most patient engagement on social media platforms.

China has been reluctant to allow a sell-off of the app鈥檚 US business, suggesting the possibility of a stalemate. Toeing the line: TikTok鈥檚 rapid user growth, discoverability, and strong brand activity made it a go-to platform for influencers looking to reach wider audiences, though they're typically active on several platforms. Even so, advertisers haven鈥檛 stopped spending on the platform.

TikTok aggressively courts sellers: The company aims to grow its social commerce sales by offering merchants free listings and shipping, along with zero commissions.

Social commerce and shoppable media are helping retailers and brands extend their reach. The rise in social commerce is giving mcommerce a boost. In 2023, we forecast social commerce sales will reach $68.92 billion鈥攁 29.8% increase over 2022. Most of those sales will take place on mobile devices: Over 90% of US social network users access social networks via smartphones.

Social commerce has yet to reach its potential in the UK. Social buying is still on the rise鈥攁nd there is plenty of headroom to grow spend.

Thirty-eight percent of patients with chronic conditions in the US, UK, China, Germany, and Japan do not use their doctor as a default source for medical advice, per the Hall & Partners/Think Next survey. They鈥檙e more likely to seek information from social media and influencers. Doctors should consider building their social media presence.

鈥淚 think there鈥檚 a big entertainment factor to livestreaming in China that the UK and the US haven鈥檛 quite got[ten] right yet,鈥� said our analyst Carina Perkins. 鈥淗osting livestream shopping is quite a different skill from the more sort of traditional influencer content that we鈥檝e seen thus far.鈥�. Some brands have figured out this entertainment factor.

On today's podcast episode, in our "Retail Me This, Retail Me That" segment, we discuss whether TikTok Shop will face the same challenges as Instagram's social commerce efforts, how much Amazon's partnership with Meta's social media platforms will affect TikTok, and if TikTok Shop is ruining TikTok. Then in a newish segment, "Loyalty Point, Counter Point," we discuss whether Instagram or TikTok has a better overall ecommerce experience. Join our analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts analysts Sky Canaves and Blake Droesch.

The threat of a TikTok ban is enough to make waves: ByteDance, Meta, and Chinese competitor Kuaishou are all taking steps to anticipate a ban.

Social commerce penetration is highest among the 18-to-24-year-old cohort, per our forecast: 60.7% of the population in this group will be social buyers in 2024, and the share will rise to nearly 65% in 2027.

On today鈥檚 podcast episode, we discuss how AI is shaping internet search, what social commerce will look like in two years鈥�, how hotels are planning for shifting travelers expectations, a new approach to combating retail theft, the origins of London, and more. Tune in to the discussion with Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Vice President of Content Suzy Davidkhanian, Principal Analyst Bill Fisher, and Senior Analyst Carina Perkins.

As we know in China, the super apps really took off, WeChat in particular because mobile payments were integrated into the app and it became very easy for people to pay, especially people who didn't have credit cards. In China, credit card adoption was much lower and of course, most teens don't have credit cards, so I think that will be a really big one.

South China Morning Post. Wall Street Journal.

Approximately 1,000 respondents were surveyed in each country: Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, the UK and the US.

And China, and the internet, and eCommerce have developed in a very different way than we have developed in the West. And you can see that in social commerce. And everyone is desperate for live-streaming to be a success in the US and in Europe. But is it a success? Not so much because consumers aren't sort of desperately wanting that.

And the combined footprint of the two apps (Douyin in China and TikTok in the rest of the world) will stand at 1.70 billion monthly users in 2023, amounting to 36.5% of worldwide internet users and 45.2% of social network users. By 2026, Douyin will have almost the same number of users as China鈥檚 popular super app, WeChat鈥攁nother sign of ByteDance鈥檚 growing dominance.

Click here to view our full forecast for Douyin users in China.

However, Canada is in line with the worldwide average of 12.5%, excluding China. A mix of factors is behind Canada鈥檚 lagging position. These include limited competition in Canada鈥檚 retail sector compared with other markets, a decade-long reticence among key national retailers to invest in tech, and logistical realities.

And in the ultra-low-cost segment, China-based ecommerce platforms Temu and Shein are increasing their beauty product assortments. But even with more beauty products in more places, many retailers will struggle to gain traction. Growth will be concentrated in a few key channels, according to McKinsey data.

As Axios puts it, TikTok may be less worrisome for propaganda pushed by the Chinese government than for the misleading and harmful content that US citizens post in exchange for likes and shares鈥攚hether it鈥檚 an air fryer Velveeta recipe or tax counseling.

To put it into perspective, we talk a lot more about social commerce, and social commerce, we expect that the growth in social buyers, people who are buying on these platforms, will be under 4% growth this year. When you look at live-streaming e-commerce buying, it's at over 19%. So again, a lot of conversation about social commerce is what we talk about more frequently here at 蘑菇AV.

Key takeaways: Banks haven鈥檛 embraced China-owned TikTok quite as readily as US-based social media platforms, likely for security reasons. However, those that have are using the platform to target young consumers, per American Banker. Banks with successful TikTok strategies should already be thinking about how to follow young customers to other platforms if the ban goes through.