GAFA et al

• [New] Computing as a service (public cloud including services such as Amazon Web Services and Alibaba and Aure) will grow 35% to $120 billion in 2021.
• [New] Some of the world's largest technology companies, including Google, Facebook and Amazon, are eyeing financial services as a lucrative opportunity.
• [New] The global public cloud infrastructure market will grow 35% to $120 billion in 2021 and that Alibaba Cloud will take the No. 3 revenue spot globally, after Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.
• [New] There will be a reshuffling of the top three public cloud providers in 2021, with China's Alibaba Cloud displacing Google Cloud to take the No. 3 spot for revenue in the global public cloud infrastructure market.
• [New] While Amazon Pharmacy is only available in the US for now, its likely the service will be rolled out internationally soon as Amazon tries to cash in on the online pharmacy market, set to be worth $131 billion worldwide by 2025.
• [New] Google, Temasek, and Bain expect Indonesia's digital economy to almost triple to $124 billion by 2025, though down from a previous estimate of $133 billion.
• [New] OEM Pay, where payments are made by a smartphone manufacturer-backed wallet, such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, will see a surge in use, with purchase volumes for remote goods anticipated to grow by 730% globally between 2020 and 2025.
• [New] Given the majority of low-hanging fruit has now been captured, we expect retail adoption growth rates to decline in 2021, in combination with Apple Pay consumer usage rates accelerating year over year.
• [New] In 2019, Apple announced a contribution of USD 350 billion to the U.S. economy by 2023 and promised 2.4 million jobs, over the next five years, which comprises of new investments and its existing spending with domestic companies for supply and manufacturing.
• The global air purifier market is expected to grow over 42% by 2025, and Google Trends indicates that searches for air purifiers are at a five-year high.
• Amazon's experiments with automating in-person shopping at a small number of grocery stores in Seattle could help retailers elsewhere create touchless in-store experiences consumers are demanding.
• The Indian digital payment market is expected to more than double in value to $135 billion within the next four years.
• Amazon will invest about $2.8 billion in Telangana to set up a new AWS Cloud region in the southern state of India.
• Amazon, Chick-fil-A and Apple ranked as the brands whose overall social engagement would make consumers most likely to support them in 2021.
• Hyperscale cloud providers such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have announced 2030/2040 climate roadmaps to be carbon-free, while countries such as China have pledged carbon neutrality by 2060.
• Last year, deforestation in the Amazon hit the highest rates on record, and it is predicted by the WFF that, at the current rate of deforestation, by 2030, over a quarter of the Amazon will be lost.
• The Amazon equivalent in China is Alibaba and their live streaming e-commerce platform Taobao generated more than $15 billion in sales in just 2019: The pandemic will fuel the live streaming ecommerce market to grow even bigger and faster than it has over the past few years.
• Amazon's deal with the Germany-based auto giant is a crucial move toward its aim of carbon neutrality by 2040.
• Global cloud computing market is expected to reach USD 712.83 Billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 18.46% from 2018 to 2025.
• By the end of 2020, Alibaba will have generated €36.5bn ($43.2bn) in online health and beauty sales and Amazon will have totted up €24.3bn ($28.8bn), representing 6.1% and 6.2%, respectively, of the total health and beauty e-commerce global category.
• Researchers are worried that the recent spike in deforestation and land grabbing will worsen the damage done by the Amazon fires in 2020.
• Apple is expected to begin to shift away from its keystone smartphone towards a smart glasses concept this decade.
• In 2017, the federal Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act was passed, which beginning in 2021 will open up the hearing aid market to the consumer technology industry, incentivizing companies like Bose and Apple to innovate and sell hearing aids and related technologies directly to consumers.

Last updated: 29 November 2020