Statista

Technology enthusiasts from across the globe will set their sights on Las Vegas this week, where the tech industry presents the latest advancements in consumer electronics to the public at CES 2025. With more than 4,000 exhibitors and an expected attendance of around 140,000 visitors, CES is one of the biggest events of its kind, a self-described "gathering place for all those who thrive on the business of consumer technologies". Fitting with this year's overarching theme, which will undoubtedly be AI and its potential in consumer technology, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang gave the opening keynote on Monday night, introducing a flurry of updates on his company's upcoming products, including a desktop-sized AI supercomputer call Project Digits, which will bring new AI capabilities to the masses at a starting price of $3,000. “Placing an AI supercomputer on the desks of every data scientist, AI researcher and student empowers them to engage and shape the age of AI," Huang said in a press release. Taking place at the Las Vegas Convention Center, CES, owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association, attracted 139,000 visitors including 56,000 international guests from 161 countries last year. After an entirely virtual event in 2021 and one severely impacted by the Omicron Covid variant in 2022, attendance levels are now gradually approaching pre-Covid levels, when attendance peaked around 185,000 in 2017. The following chart provides an overview of some of the biggest events in the tech calendar.

2024 was another great year for the so-called "Magnificent Seven", a group of mega-cap tech companies that dominate the headlines and play an outsized role in the performance of U.S. stock market indices. NVIDIA, Meta, Tesla, Amazon, Alphabet Inc. and Apple all outperformed the S&P 500 by a significant margin, with Nvidia by far the biggest winner of them all. Once again, the chipmaker delivered on its promise of blockbuster growth, as other companies, first and foremost the remaining Mag Seven, spend tens of billions of dollars to build AI data centers to be ready for the AI-centric future. The one company that underperformed the S&P 500 and its own ambitions last year was Microsoft. The company's share price saw a more modest 12-percent increase, as investors questioned whether and when Microsoft's huge investment in AI - capital expenditure surged 75 percent to $55.7 billion in the fiscal year ended June 2024 - would pay off. According to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices, the Magnificent Seven accounted for more than half of the S&P 500 25-percent return last year, with Nvidia alone contributing more than 20 percent.

As clear as Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election ultimately was, the election result, as well as the campaign that preceded it, once again painted a picture of a country divided. There now seems to be an almost insurmountable chasm in public opinion on pretty much any issue, be it abortion rights, immigration, climate policy or healthcare, making political compromise – a key ingredient in any functioning democracy – seem impossible. According to a recent poll by YouGov and The Economist, Americans are well aware of this problem and would like to see it addressed. 84 percent of respondents, including 82 percent of Democrats and 89 percent of Republicans, think that Americans of different political views should come together and work out their differences. And yet, despite this rare bipartisan agreement, very few believe that Americans will actually unite. Just 25 percent of respondents, 15 percent of Democrats and 38 percent of Republicans, think that Americans will come together and work out their differences. With respect to the 2024 election, 35 percent of the 1,500 U.S. adults polled think that it divided the country even further, versus 27 percent who think it brough the country closer together.

Eight in ten people agree that the average global temperature will increase in 2025, according to an Ipsos survey of more than 23,700 people across 33 countries, conducted between October 25, 2024 and November 8, 2024. Around nine in ten respondents in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and China said they thought this is the case. At the same time, around seven in ten respondents worldwide said it is likely that there will be more extreme weather events in their country in 2025 than in 2024. Despite this consensus, it’s a more of a mixed picture when it comes to whether people think their governments will introduce more demanding targets to reduce carbon emissions in 2025. Just over half (52 percent) of respondents said they thought it was likely that their governments would act in such a way. Asia stands out as the region where people generally stated a higher level of confidence in seeing their governments enact such policies in the near future. China, which is already at the forefront of the electric vehicle market, had the highest positive response rate with 84 percent of adults saying they thought Beijing would introduce stricter carbon emissions reduction policies in 2025. It was followed by Indonesia (rank 2; 84 percent), Malaysia (rank 3; 75 percent), Singapore (rank 4; 74 percent), Philippines (rank 6; 66 percent), India (rank 8; 60 percent), Thailand (rank 9; 59 percent). Adults in South Korea and Japan were also polled and revealed a lower 52 percent and 38 percent, respectively, picking the option. By contrast, a number of South American nations performed below the 33-country average, with Argentina and Peru at the bottom of the ranking (31 percent and 32 percent, respectively). In Chile, just 43 percent of respondents said they expected tougher climate policies in their country next year, marking a fall of 11 percentage points from one year before. In Europe, Italian and Dutch respondents saw the biggest declines since the end of 2023, with -11 p.p. and -20 p.p, respectively.

After years on top of the global electric vehicle market, Tesla has lost the title of world’s largest EV producer to Chinese powerhouse BYD. In 2024, Tesla made 1,774,442 electric vehicles, 4,500 shy of BYD’s 1,777,965. After first surpassing Tesla’s quarterly vehicle production in Q4 2023, BYD fell back behind its U.S. competitor in subsequent quarters. In Q4 2024, however, China’s number 1 car brand outproduced Tesla by almost 150,000 vehicles, making it the world’s new leading EV manufacturer. While few people outside of China had heard of BYD just a couple of years ago, the Shenzhen-based electronics and manufacturing giant rose to international fame in recent years, as its largest business unit/subsidiary BYD Auto became one of the largest makers of electric cars in the world and expanded beyond its home market. BYD successfully pivoted from international combustion vehicles to what’s known as “new energy vehicles” in China, i.e. battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. The company did so at breakneck speed, ramping up production of its electric passenger vehicles at a pace matched only by what is now its largest competitor at the global scale: Tesla.

Despite ongoing conflicts, uncertainty over what the next Trump era will bring and the imminent climate catastrophe, global optimism is seeing an uptick for 2025. According to the latest data from Ipsos, an average of 71 percent of respondents across 33 countries said they felt optimistic that their 2025 will be better than 2024. This is one percentage up from last year and 16 percentage points up from 2023, which had the lowest score on record since Ipsos started running the survey. Of course, a global average hides the differences between countries. For instance, when looking at national breakdown, Indonesia has a high share of people feeling positive about their coming year. Out of the 33 countries polled, it comes out on top, with 90 percent of respondents feeling more optimistic about 2025. This is down one percentage point from last year when 91 percent of respondents said they felt optimistic looking ahead. At the more cynical end of the spectrum stand France and Japan, with only 50 percent and 38 percent of their respondents, respectively, feeling more positive about next year. South Korea had a high 84 percent of people saying that 2024 was a bad year for their country. The survey was taken even before Yoon’s declaration of martial law and subsequent impeachment. Yet, hope still won out among 56 percent of Koreans who said that 2025 will be better. Optimism has faltered slightly in the United Kingdom, down three percentage points from last year, while 70 percent of U.S. respondents said they felt optimistic about the coming year (+5 p.p.). India is the country to have seen the greatest fall in optimism, losing 11 percentage points to stand at a still-positive 76 percent. This comes off the back of a year considered to be particularly bad for the country by 71 percent of Indians in 2024.

Like last year's rally, the S&P 500's strong showing in 2024 was largely fueled by the excitement surrounding artificial intelligence, as chipmaker NVIDIA, which quite literally powers the transition to an AI-centric future, saw its share price surge 171 percent through the year. Due to the fact that the S&P 500 is a market-cap-weighted index, the performance of mega cap companies such as Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft, all valued at more than $3 trillion, is particularly important to its overall performance, which also explains why Apple was the second largest contributor to the index's total return in 2024, despite the company's share price increasing by a more modest 31 percent - at least by Apple's standards. According to Howard Silverblatt, Senior Index Analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices, Nvidia's 171-percent return in 2024, contributed more than 22 percent to the S&P 500's overall return, putting it miles ahead of Apple, Amazon and Meta, who accounted for 7.4, 5.9 and 5.5 percent of the index' full-year return, respectively. At the other end of the scale, Intel, which was the largest negative contributor to the index's performance, followed by Adobe, Boeing, CVS Health and Nike. All of these companies saw their share prices drop by 25 (Adobe) to 60 percent (Intel), but due to their limited weight in the index, their performance only accounted for minus 4.2 percent of the index's overall performance, dragging its full-year return down 0.83 percentage points on aggregate.

Exercising more is again one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions in the United States. Past data shows that January tends to see a higher number of gym sign ups than other months as people act on such aspirations, but also that the goal falls by the wayside for many soon after. According to data from a Statista Consumer Insights survey, just over one in ten respondents in the U.S. said they had paid for a gym membership in the 12 months prior to the survey. How many have actually used the service regularly within the last year is another question. French respondents were even less enthusiastic about the gym, with only six percent of survey participants saying they have invested in a gym membership. By comparison, going to the gym was far more popular in India and Brazil, with 27 percent and 24 percent, respectively, saying that they had paid for a fitness subscription in the 12 months prior to the survey. In the United Kingdom (20 percent) and China (18 percent), around one in five respondents had paid for membership to a studio.

Despite a late-year dip that saw the S&P 500 fall 3.4% from its early December high, 2024 was another strong year for U.S. stocks. The S&P 500 gained 23.3% for the year, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose nearly 30%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted a more modest 13% increase. Remarkably, 2023 and 2024 marked the first back-to-back years of 20+% gains for the S&P 500 in 25 years. Such impressive returns shouldn’t be taken for granted, as history shows that prolonged rallies can end abruptly, as seen during the dot-com bubble burst in 2000. Thankfully, consecutive down years for the S&P 500 are rare, occurring only three times since 1957. Out of 18 years with negative returns since then, the index rebounded the following year 15 times, underscoring its resilience.

Veganuary is an international campaign that encourages individuals to adopt a vegan diet throughout January. The initiative aims to raise awareness about the environmental, health, and ethical benefits of a plant-based lifestyle. By participating, people can explore vegan food options, reduce their environmental impact, and make more conscious dietary choices. Veganuary has gained global popularity, with millions joining each year to experience the positive effects of a vegan lifestyle.