The Big Fat Stats Roundup of the Year – 2022
Another year has flown by, which can only mean one thing. Another roundup post!
Oops! We could not locate your form.
Another year has flown by, which can only mean one thing. Another roundup post!
Another year in the digital space is almost over, and it’s been a doozy. From the Twitter saga and META drama to Amazon becoming the first public company to lose a trillion dollars in market value.
Whilst the tech giants have been in turmoil, we mere mortals have been trying to market our businesses whilst navigating through the constant changes.
So here’s a little roundup of some of the more interesting digital industry stats and releases in 2022.
Starting with WordPress seems natural since we’re a WordPress Agency. So let’s take a look at 2022 for the world’s favourite CMS.
The platform, just like Impact Media, is now 19 years old.
This year we saw 3 new core version releases:
Putting those in context alongside the usual host of maintenance and security updates:
WordPress’s market share has remained pretty consistent in 2022. It currently has a 63.9% CMS market share (down minimally from 65.1% last year) and is behind 43% of all known websites (also 43% last year).
This year, WooCommerce began the transition to High-Performance Order Storage, to improve the platform further.
There are now more than 60,034 plugins available through the WordPress plugin directory, up from 59,707 last year.
As we always suggest, be careful when selecting plugins for your website, selecting trusted and regularly maintained options. Remember that keeping plugins up-to-date is very important in maintaining your site’s functionality and security.
A number of the most popular and well-rated plugins are among our favourites too (besides the ones we custom-build for our clients).
For example:
Globally there are believed to be 5.03 billion active internet users in the world (nearly 63.1% of the global population).
In the UK, there are 66.99 million internet users.
The current global split between devices used to access the internet is as follows:
Across device types, the current browser market share looks like this:
Within those browser popularity statistics, these are the top six versions of those browsers by market share as of November 2022.
The search engine landscape is still heavily dominated by Google, they have experienced a small drop this year, whilst Bing, Baidu, and Yandex have experience small climbs.
Here’s a breakdown of marketshare for some of the major platforms.
In terms of active users, the list looks like this.
There are many important factors which determine how we approach web design. Let’s take a look at some 2022 stats.
Screen resolution is pretty important in the design world. We need to stay on top of the most used resolutions so we can make responsive websites which display well across a multitude of devices.
Here are the screen resolutions that were dominant in 2022.
2022 saw the release of the iPhone 14, the Google Pixel 7, the OnePlus 10, and the Samsung Galaxy S22 & Z Fold4 models.
With anticipated new models coming from Apple, Google Pixel, OnePlus, Samsung, Huawei and Oppo, will we see a big change in trends in 2023?
Whether you’re a Google fan, or think they are the devil, they have an enormous impact on how we interact with the internet, and how we create and market our websites.
It has been a busy year for those in SEO, with what felt like never-ending algorithm updates, releases and changes to stay on top of. To learn more about these, I’ve written a separate post that will be published soon.
2022 was when we finally got a date for the sunsetting of Universal Analytics (July 1st 2023), and the push to get everyone using Google Analytics 4 ramped up.
This hasn’t been the most well-received news, as people find GA4 a less intuitive and user friendly platform to get to grips with.
New features and metrics are gradually being added, and hopefully by July, the differences won’t feel quite so abrupt.
If you’re yet to set up your GA4 account, it is advisable to do so as soon as possible, to ensure you have a least some data built up by the time Universal Analytics tracks its final hit.
There’s been a lot of butting heads between Google and the EU this year, regarding Analytics and GDPR. Italy, Austria, France and Denmark have all ruled the use of Google Analytics unlawful due to the way it processes and transfers data to the US. It also looks like the Dutch may follow.
It’s not entirely straightforward, and not yet clear whether the more privacy-conscious GA4 will also be deemed unlawful in those countries.
It is certainly a situation to monitor over the coming months, and it will be interesting to see if other EU choose to follow the likes of Italy and Austria in this.
What industry related news or stats have you found most fascinating this year?