MIDiA Research Predictions 2017 The Year Of The Platform

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The 20,000 Foot View: As we correctly predicted, 2016 was the year video ate the world. 2017 is going to be shaped by the battle for consumer attention through formatting and distribution wars. VR is likely to cede further ground to AR, bots will become established, while messaging apps add to their dominant position (even though user growth will slow). The pace of change will further accelerate as the big technology companies go for all-out war in their bid to own the user, achieving what they can before the inevitable series of regulatory clampdowns. 2017 promises to be unpredictable and dramatic for big tech and media companies alike, with the cost of failure ever greater. We will see ever larger strategic ambition for global platform companies, each seeking to extend their reach across and into as many competitor platforms as possible, and each looking to own as much of the digital lives of their users as they can. 2017 will be the year in which you, the user, becomes the battleground.

Key Predictions:

• Platform competition among the tech majors will see the emergence of Mobile Life Ecosystems
• Many companies will look to services revenue growth to distract attention from slowing sales in hardware, data and advertising
• Digital audience activity will grow more quickly than digital advertising budgets, resulting in supply outstripping demand and lower ad rates
• The major platforms will go all out to disrupt each other through bot deployment, ad-blocking, and OTT messaging app promotion
• A tech major will get hit with the first stage of an anti-trust suit
• Premium video content will come to messaging platforms
• eSports will finally become a recognized premium content offering reaching        billion in revenues
• Music streaming will continue its acceleration into consumers’ everyday lives through Spotify’s IPO and perhaps even the launch of an Apple music iPhone
• The escalating OTT/pay-TV battle will hold off the coming of ‘peak TV’ for yet another year

Companies and services mentioned in this report: Access Industries, Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Disney, Clash Royale, English Premier League, ESPN, Facebook, Fox Networks, Google, Microsoft, Napster, Netflix, Outbrain, Pokémon Go, Snapchat, Spotify, Taboola, Tencent, Three Italy, Three UK, Uber, Samsung,  Tidal, Twitch, YouTube