Over the past year and a half, the world has shifted significantly into the digital realm, especially with the rise of Covid-19, which has created a stay-at-home culture that sees a staggering amount of people turning to apps for entertainment, social media connection, and access to the financial markets. In fact, mobile media consumption has risen by 460% over the last 10 years, with an average daily use of 252 minutes, up from its previous 45 minute mark. People are often looking to make connections with others, find out the latest news, be entertained, and even engage in online trading with app based platforms of such instruments as CFDs. As a result, there has been a substantial impact for apps such as Tik Tok, Netflix and iFOREX UK. Let’s take a look at why apps like these have grown in popularity and why, if you pursue online CFD trading, you should start with a review of FCA regulated brokers.
Social media
Tik Tok entered the market with a bang just four short years ago and has since made a spectacular name for itself. It was the first fully Chinese-owned app to hit the shores of the US and in just three years it’s certainly made its mark, not only on the American market, but the world. The apps’ short videos have gained popularity amongst celebrities, who have helped further its success with challenges and videos gone viral. Tik Tok has been so successful that its parent company ByteDance had a 93% increase in gross profit over 2020 and a 111% increase in revenue. This saw the company totalling $34.3 billion in revenue and $19 billion in gross profit. The pandemic seems to have been a big driver for users of Tik Tok and other social media apps, on which people can be entertained, share news or connect with each other from the comfort of their own homes (or anywhere they get service, for that matter). Tik Tok hit a total of 1.9 billion active monthly users at the end of 2020, and analysts have estimated that ByteDance’s value comes in at a solid $100 billion. While ByteDance remains a privately owned company with no current plans of releasing an IPO, many find themselves waiting with bated breath for this to change.
Entertainment
Since the beginning of the pandemic, it’s been the battle of the streaming companies, but Netflix has continued to take the cake. Even rival Disney+ hasn’t managed to knock Netflix off its top spot, pandemic or no pandemic. With over 200 million subscribers, Netflix is dominating the streaming services. The pandemic’s culture shift led to a whopping 26 million new subscribers in the first half of 2020, and then a further 10 million in the second half of the year. Naturally, Netflix’s growth rate hasn’t continued at quite the same furious pace this year, however it has still maintained an upward trajectory, adding one million new members in the first quarter of 2021, and predicting a further million in the second quarter. Netflix continues to innovate and the company will now be branching out into the video game space. Mike Verdu, a former Electronic Arts and Facebook executive, has joined the Netflix team to head up this effort, with the goal of having video games up and running on the Netflix platform within a year. In the markets, Netflix stocks have risen by 1.3% this year so far, hitting a price of $563.45 in mid-July.
Online trading with app platforms as CFDs
The world of CFD online trading with app platforms has boomed over the last year and a half, as people who are stuck at home are using the time to learn more about the financial markets. CFDs or Contracts For Difference allow you to take advantage of price changes in both directions—increases as well as decreases—of a wide variety of financial instruments, such as shares of companies like Netflix, without having to purchase the underlying asset (in this case any actual shares).
