When it comes to payments and technology innovations, some industries are seeing massive growth, and others are seeing declines. Sectors like corporate travel, cannabis and cannabis-adjacent companies are seeing increased consumer interest, and others — like blockchain — appear to have hit somewhat of a wall.
Today in PYMNTS’ data, global corporate travel spend is on the rise, cash is still king in the United Kingdom, the cannabis industry is growing at exponential rates, Amazon is having a very merry holiday shopping season and blockchain is struggling in a world otherwise filled with constant technological advancements.
Here are the numbers:
$1.2 trillion | Amount the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) estimated global travel and expense management market corporate travel spend was worth in 2015.
$70 billion | Total number of banknotes in circulation in the United Kingdom in 2016, representing a 10 percent increase over 2015 numbers and the payment method’s fastest growth in a decade, according to the Bank of England.
$6 billion | Total revenue brought in by the cannabis industry in 2016, a figure that some estimate will grow to as much as $50 billion by the year 2026. By comparison, U.S. consumers spent roughly $55 billion on smartphones last year.
44 percent | The amount of all 2017 online commerce in the U.S. (4 percent of total retail) for which Amazon could be responsible. The eCommerce giant was home to 50 percent of all online sales made on Black Friday this year, according to some estimates.
8 percent | Portion of blockchain projects that have actually seen some type of activity in the last six months, according to Deloitte research released earlier this month. In addition, approximately 90 percent of blockchain projects that begin on GitHub become idle and inactive within a year.