Global Marketing News – 20th July 2015
Skyscanner and Yahoo Japan launch travel search engine
The travel price comparison company Skyscanner and Yahoo Japan have partnered up to launch Skyscanner Japan in an attempt to crack the lucrative Japanese travel booking market.
Skyscanner Japan will be a search engine dedicated to the country’s travel market, which is worth an estimated 71 billion US dollars.
The two companies will invest 2.5 million US dollars in the venture, with Skyscanner owning 51% and Yahoo Japan owning 49%.
Skyscanner will actually power the search results, whilst Yahoo Japan will promote the service to its large Japanese audience, where it is the country’s most popular search engine.
Skyscanner explained its reasons for launching Skyscanner Japan, saying: “Asia is becoming by far the greatest region for outbound travel.”
Skyscanner currently has 35 million monthly users and it hopes that the launch of Skyscanner Japan will help to boost this further.
Last year it bought the Chinese travel search engine Youbibi, which led to a 61% increase in Chinese users, equivalent to an extra 1 million monthly users.
Google accidentally reveals “right to be forgotten” data
Google has accidentally revealed data concerning “right to be forgotten” requests it has received from EU citizens in the last year.
The EU “right to be forgotten” law means that EU citizens can ask search engines to remove links to outdated or inaccurate information about them.
The data revealed that 95% of requests came from ordinary members of the public who were asking for private or personal information to be removed. Just 5% of requests came from criminals, public figures and politicians.
Just under 50% of requests relating to the deletion of personal or private information were granted, with this falling to around 20% for requests relating to criminals, politicians and public figures.
There was some regional variation in both the nature of deletion requests and the numbers of requests being granted.
In France, the Netherlands and Germany, over 97% of deletion requests related to personal and private information, with less than 1% being related to serious crime.
In Italy, however, just 85% of requests related to personal and private information, while 12% related to serious crime.
Deletion requests were most commonly granted in France and Germany, where around half of requests relating to personal and private information were granted. Deletion requests were least likely to be granted in the UK and Italy, where only a third of requests were granted.
Alibaba partners up with Chinese entertainment companies
The Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has entered into a partnership with two Chinese TV and film companies, Hunan TV and DMG Entertainment.
The partnership will see the launch of a single home entertainment package comprising of TV, internet and phone subscriptions.
The scheme will first be rolled out to Hunan TV cable subscribers, equivalent to around 6 million people. Subscribers will have access to DMG Entertainment’s library of foreign films, as well as Alibaba’s TV, film, music, gaming, education and shopping services.
Alibaba is trying hard to break into the Chinese entertainment market, and has also announced that it intends to launch TBO (an online film and TV streaming service) in the next few months.
Alibaba’s main competitors in the Chinese entertainment industry are Baidu’s subsidiary iQiyi, which recently announced plans to acquire 1,000 new Hollywood titles, and Netflix, which intends to enter the Chinese market this year.
Mobile shopping on the rise in Germany
And finally, research reported by E-Marketer has revealed that mobile shopping is on the rise in Germany.
64% of respondents said that they’d made a purchase on a smartphone or tablet this year, compared to 57% last year.
Age, socioeconomic status and parental status were all significant variables, with younger people, richer people and people living with children all being more likely to engage in m-commerce.
80% of German internet users are expected to buy online this year, equivalent to 47 million people.
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Cal O'Connell
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