Industries That Will Thrive In 2021 Thanks To Millennials
How Millennials lead the digital transformation of business
Millennials are one of the largest generation groups according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2021, the youngest of them is turning 25 and the oldest 40, the majority of them are economically active, many of them already have kids. All of these points along with COVID-19 pandemic, economical instability and some other factors are influencing Gen Y’s buyer behavior and their personal concerns.
Being such a massive consumer group, millennials can’t be ignored in the digital market as they already shaped it a lot and continue to do so. In this regard, we’d like to analyze some business sectors that millennials affect the most in terms of digitalization. We’ve focused on the industries that have managed to adjust to the demands of this generation group and accelerate development, largely by means of digitalization and technology.
1. Food ordering
Millennials tend to work hard, that’s why they also are time-conscious. With their fast-paced life, millennials prefer to eat meals on the go and order takeout.
Today more and more fast-casual restaurants, including Subway, Five Guys, Chipotle, etc, offer fast ordering, app-powered pickup, and self-service kiosks to address the needs of Gen Y. But no segment of the industry is growing faster than online delivery, which now accounts for 5–10 % of total restaurant business, according to industry reports. Many delivery companies like Deliveroo, Glovo, UberEats are thriving today thanks to millennials.
2. On-demand transportation
Carsharing and ride-hailing continue the list of technologies that make life in the big city much easier. Millennials always strive to be in more than two places at the same time, and they almost get this with the help of apps like Turo, and companies like Uber and Lyft.
There is also a huge increase in the popularity of such innovative solutions like Lime, which shares electric scooters through their rental apps. This phenomenon of so-called “sharing economy” is going to be the norm in the future according to many sources.
3. Travelling
Millennials travel more than any other age group as per Expedia’s poll. Indeed, we can’t deny that AirBnB-like services have almost become commonplace. But at the same time, millennials are money-conscious people — for example, they spend less on vacation rental than Baby Boomers according to Tripadvisor. So, in order to save money, millennials actively use online ticketing and price comparison platforms like Kayak and Kiwi.
4. Finance
According to CB Insights, millennials make up the majority of users of web and mobile personal finance apps that help people to better organize and improve their finances. The most popular trend here is digital-first challenger banks like Revolut, Chime, Nubank, etc, so now the customer doesn’t need to spend their time queuing at a bank office. As for investment, millennial’s passion for technology has also boosted the growth of robo-advisors like Betterment and Wealthfront that help making your own investment decisions based on computer-generated recommendations.
These are the main digital trends that are shaping our future and the “new Millennial economy”. We hope it can be useful in terms of predicting the buying decisions of this generation group given its size and spending power. If you have some analytics regarding this topic, please don’t hesitate to share!
