Over the past few months COVID-19 has brought the world to a startling halt. Across Canada, strict lockdown measures in mid-March forced Canadians to stay home. We saw the cancellation of all sporting and live events, the closure of bricks and mortar store fronts, and a significant impact to the economy.
In April 2020, 6.1% of home mortgages were in some stage of delinquency (30 days or more past due, including those in foreclosure), the highest overall delinquency rate since January 2016, according to the latest CoreLogic Loan Performance Insights Report. The April 2020 overall delinquency rate jumped 2.5 percentage points from the prior month as the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and resulting recession made it difficult for borrowers to make their monthly mortgage payments.
While April marked the low point of engagement in 2020 to date for travel brands, Comscore’s figures showed an increase in consumer interest across several travel categories beginning in May, signaling that the industry may have started to see a recovery.
COVID-19 has caused commercial real estate leasing activity to fall to historically low levels. Leasing activity usually tends to be resilient in downturns, for the simple reason that leases expire, and tenants have to make decisions about their space. Social distancing and working at home have made coordinating a new lease all the more difficult.
Prior to the Global Financial Crisis, the number of deals completed in a typical week was above 150 in the Americas, a little under 100 for Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) and around 40 in Asia Pacific (APAC). Commercial real estate activity in both EMEA and the Americas slid to a low point in the middle of 2009. APAC had already trickled to just a handful of weekly deals at the start of 2009, staying at a low ebb for six months.
“Try again later” was a phrase that frustrated users all over the world during the multiple online service outages in Q2 2020. Analyzing Downdetector data from Q2 2020, we focused on user-reported service disruptions in five categories: social media, communications service providers, collaboration platforms, gaming and financial institutions.
Now in July, after more than three months of quarantine measures and more than 2.5 million cases across the region, it seems that the governments’ efforts to halt the spread of the disease have mostly been ineffective, leading to a higher infection rate, while putting the economic sustainability of millions in danger.
Gyms were one of the first sectors to close among the spread of the pandemic, and rightfully so. But, as the economy begins to reopen across the country and gyms are permitted to open again, how will they perform? With most people working from home and creating their own “at-home” gyms, will the sector be able to bounce back?
US consumer confidence slightly increased over the past few months but the difference among genders continues. According to data from Prosper Insight and Analytics, 43% of males responded that they were confident or very confident when they were asked on June 2020 about their feelings regarding the chances of a strong economy during the next six months, while only 31% of females felt the same way.
Earnings season is here, and so are SimilarWeb’s earnings insights for companies reporting in the upcoming week. Every week, we’ll publish relevant digital data points ahead of key earnings reports. This week officially opens up earnings season, with expected reports from Netflix, Dominos, JPMorgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Ocado.
Footfall to Restaurants and Pubs in the UK has climbed to a third of pre-lockdown levels, with high-frequency geo-data showing how attendance has continued to rise following ‘Super Saturday’ but remains low overall. According to Huq’s Index for Restaurants and Pubs, footfall reached a new high of 33% of ‘normal’ levels on Friday (10 July).
There are few sectors as central to the retail experience as grocery chains, and the wider space experienced a unique form of upheaval because of the pandemic. We dove into June data to get a sense of the pace of recovery, and which brands are well-positioned for the months to come. Spoiler – we also dug into early July.
For grocery shopping, online ordering for both pick-up and delivery was growing before the crisis. As consumers looked to minimize exposure outside of their homes during the pandemic, this trend picked up considerable momentum. By mid-April, online grocery buying was about 77% higher than before the crisis and in May, 40% ordered groceries online for delivery or carry-out compared to 28% same month year ago.
Last week we were very close, this week we have broken through the 50 million weekly seats mark which is great news, however, at 53.8 million we remain at just 45% of the capacity available in the same week last year. And just to give you some historic context in 1996, the earliest online year for OAG data there were some 52.6million seats; we have come a long way in those years!
As at-home streaming activity saw an immediate uptick during the first stay-at-home orders (mid-March 2020), new research from Comscore (Nasdaq: SCOR), a trusted partner for planning, transacting and evaluating media across platforms, shows home audio streaming usage increased sharply beginning in early April 2020 and continued to rise through mid-June 2020.
As expected, the lockdown caused a dramatic drop in vehicle miles traveled across the United Kingdom. It stagnated for about a month, then began to rise throughout May and June with the reopening of recreational sites and retail locations. Notably, weekend travel remains strong across the UK. Many cities across Europe have yet to recover to pre-COVID levels of travel, despite 10 out of the 19 countries analysed in the study reaching theirs.
Key industrials across Europe are showing signs of stronger recovery, with footfall to manufacturing plants in both staple and discretionary sectors reaching new highs in the last week. According to Huq’s ‘Key Industries Indicator’, which tracks the number of employees attending workplaces across a range of sectors, every industry measured has seen a sharp increase since the middle of last month
Looking at visits to hotel and home sharing sites provides a good indication of interest in holidays. In all EU5 countries there was an increase in visits in May 2020 when compared with April 2020. For Germany and Italy, the visits index jumped above March 2020 levels, with 56% and 36% increases, respectively. For Spain and France visits to hotel and home sharing sites/apps almost returned to March 2020 levels, which is positive. The UK lags behind them.
Southern Japan, like many parts of the world, has experienced extreme weather events that exceeded the capacity of dams resulting in large-scale flooding, evacuation, loss of life and costly restoration of infrastructure. The warmer atmosphere has led to extreme rainfall events that are overwhelming infrastructure that was built to specifications based on rainfall patterns of 20 to 70 years ago. The dramatic changes in weather patterns of the past decade point to the urgent need to integrate modern weather analytics into the design of future bridges, dams, roads and cities.
U.S. consumer spending has been altered by the coronavirus pandemic. Our data reveals that consumers are changing the way they pay for goods and services, with some industries seeing spending shift toward online purchases. Additionally, the pandemic has changed the types of purchases consumers are making, with stimulus recipients increasing their spending on big-ticket items. By analyzing industry-level data, consumer spending trends can provide insight into which sectors of the economy are recovering fastest.
