Global Marketing News – 11st August 2015
Netflix embarks on aggressive global expansion
The online TV company Netflix has announced that it will be launching in the Japanese market on 2nd September.
Its launch in Japan will be its first foray into the Asian online TV market.
Netflix is currently focussing on expanding internationally, with plans to launch in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Iceland in October, and China and the Czech Republic next year. It has said that by the end of 2016, it wants to be operating in 200 countries.
As part of its international strategy, it is beginning to create its first original dramas in languages other than English.
Its efforts seem to be pulling off, with 2.4 million of last quarter’s 3.3 million new subscribers being from non-US markets.
Netflix is one of the most popular online TV and film companies in the world, with around 66 million subscribers globally.
Chinese tech giants team up to challenge Alibaba
Three of China’s biggest companies have joined forces to challenge Alibaba in the Chinese ecommerce market.
Baidu, Tencent and Wanda have just launched their own ecommerce site, Ffan.
The companies poured 1 billion US dollars into the joint project, although commentators have said that the resulting site is sparse and “odd-looking”.
Ffan currently has just 2 product categories, film tickets and food, meaning that it is unlikely to usurp Alibaba as a general-purpose ecommerce retailer any time soon.
One feature that sets it apart however is its focus on local products. When a user goes onto the site they are asked to provide their city, with the results then returning local products and services.
Yahoo Japan revenues grow 10%
Yahoo Japan’s revenues grew 10% year-on-year last quarter, reaching almost 111 billion yen, equivalent to 890 million US dollars.
Mobile advertising accounted for 20% of revenues, with this trend being put down to ever increasing smartphone penetration. Smartphones actually overtook desktops as the most popular device to access the internet in the country in May.
Search and listing ads accounted for 17% of revenues and ecommerce from Yahoo Japan’s shopping website accounted for 15% of revenues.
Around 185,000 new stores were added to the shopping platform last year, with the amount of products being listed going up by 68% compared to last year.
Crocs sees boost in global online profits following marketing campaign
The shoe manufacturer Crocs has seen an increase in its global online profits following a boost in its online marketing efforts.
Crocs’ global online sales reached almost 38 million US dollars last quarter, up 21% on the same period of time last year.
Traffic to the company’s website grew by a similar amount, increasing 20% compared to the previous year.
In North and South America, online sales grew by 28%, but the main growth was in the Asia Pacific region, which saw online sales grow by a staggering 49% last quarter compared to the same period last year.
A spokesperson from Crocs praised the efforts of the marketing team, saying: “Q2 e-commerce results, which can be attributed to our improved marketing as well as operational improvements in our online customer experience and in stock position, tell us we’re making the right moves from a marketing perspective”.
GoDaddy Online Store launches in India
And finally, GoDaddy has launched its GoDaddy Online Store service in India.
Indian businesses will now be able to use the GoDaddy Online Store software on their websites, allowing them to sell products around the world.
It will be especially useful for small businesses and entrepreneurs, and will cost 999 Rupees per month, equivalent to around £10.
The Indian ecommerce market is currently worth an estimated 25 billion US dollars, but this could hit 250 billion by 2025 as the market grows at a compound annual growth rate of 35%.
GoDaddy is an international company and currently operates in the US, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Brazil, Mexico, India and Singapore.
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Gemma Houghton
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