Global Marketing News – 19th February 2016
Ecommerce has limitations warns international retailer
The German electronics retail company Media-Saturn Group has said that it wants to expand its network of physical stores after admitting that ecommerce has its limitations.
8% of Media-Saturn’s revenue currently comes from online sales, and the company wants to boost this to between 15% and 20% in the long run.
When questioned over whether it was focusing all its efforts on the internet, however, Media-Saturn said that it strongly believed in the omni-channel approach and that it was also putting energy into developing its network of physical stores.
Media-Saturn wants to open 50 new stores across Europe, and will focus particularly on the Russian, Polish and Turkish markets.
Tumblr is struggling in the USA
The microblogging social network Tumblr is struggling, according to research by Emarketer.
23 million Americans currently use Tumblr, equivalent to 13% of social media users in the US.
This is far less than competitors Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest, which have 163 million, 89 million, 57 million and 55 million US users respectively.
It is also predicted to see very low levels of growth over the next 4 years, compared to other social networks.
In 2020, Tumblr is expected to see just a 4% increase in user numbers compared to the previous year, with the other social networks expected to gain millions more extra users than Tumblr.
Amazon buys Indian online payments company Emvantage
Amazon has bought the online payments company Emvantage in an attempt to gain an advantage in the Indian ecommerce market.
Emvantage has an online credit and debit card payment gateway, a mobile payment tool and a prepaid wallet.
Online payments are still relatively uncommon in India, with cash-on-delivery still being one of the most popular payment options.
Amazon hopes that acquiring Emvantage will give it an edge in the fiercely competitive Indian ecommerce market. Its main competitors in the market are Snapdeal and Flipkart.
The Indian ecommerce market is currently worth 11 billion US dollars and is growing rapidly, with online sales expected to reach 220 billion US dollars by 2025 according to estimates by Merrill Lynch.
Alibaba buys stake in Groupon
The Chinese internet giant Alibaba has bought a 5.6% stake in the coupon and discounts company Groupon for over 100 million US dollars.
In a statement, Alibaba said that it would share its expertise about the Chinese market with the coupon company.
This may help to revive Groupon, which has been struggling in recent years, and shows that it is not giving up.
Groupon has recently pulled out of several European, Asian, Latin American and African markets due to sluggish growth.
Groupon allows users to get discounts using their smartphones.
The pay TV subscription market in Argentina
And finally, research by Ibope has found that pay TV subscriptions are holding steady in Argentina.
There are expected to be 4.2 million households with a pay TV subscription in the country this year, the same figure as last year. This represents 81% of Argentinian households.
While these figures may suggest that pay TV is stagnating in Argentina, other metrics suggest that its popularity is continuing to grow.
Last year, 53% of all TV watching time was spent watching pay TV in the country, a big increase from 35% 10 years previously.
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Cal O'Connell
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