Hi there,

Grab our free State Of Retail Tech 2021 report here. 

You’ll get 190+ pages of charts and analysis on retail tech’s biggest year ever. 

And now, here is this week in charts.

Taking stock. Global retail tech funding boomed in 2021, passing $100B for the first time, and more than doubling 2020's total. Forty percent of the funding went to companies in Asia, where big deals for grocery delivery companies drove growth.

Top dollar. Microsoft’s $68.7B deal to buy Activision Blizzard is part of a growing string of $1B+ deals by big tech. Major bets like Amazon’s $13.7B purchase of Whole Foods and Facebook’s $22B acquisition of WhatsApp have helped these tech leaders expand into new markets, product lines, and tech horizons. However, not all have been unqualified successes (think Microsoft’s $7.2B Nokia deal or the $12.5B Google paid for Motorola Mobility), and antitrust efforts could affect the viability of deals like Microsoft’s going forward.

Outplayed. Gaming revenues far exceeded box office revenues in 2021. Big tech companies like Microsoft and Meta are increasingly placing their bets on the industry, as highlighted by their recent acquisitions. With their growing audiences, virtual worlds present huge branding and monetization opportunities for companies — a trend we dig into in our recently released tech trends report.

In tech we trust. Tech’s still got it. According to the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer report, the tech sector received a trust score of 74% based on the responses of 15,000 people around the world. That’s 4 points higher than last year. Social media, on the other hand, dropped by 2 points to 44%. Tech’s increasing integration into people's lives during the pandemic may help explain the bump.

Yes, no, maybe so. Huh? Also, why do publications do inane polls like this?
 

I love you.

Anand

@asanwal

P.S. Our analysts are breaking down 2022’s tech trends to watch. Submit your questions here, and sign up for the roundtable discussion on February 10 here.

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