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Alibaba Opens Offices In France And Germany

By Elin Box on December 4, 2015

Global Marketing News – 4th December 2015

Alibaba opens offices in France and Germany

The Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba is to open offices in France and Germany.

It aims to encourage more French and German businesses of all sizes to sell their products in China via Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall platforms, describing itself as a “gateway to China”.

It already opened offices in the UK and Italy for the same reason earlier this year.

Alibaba is increasingly focusing on cross-border ecommerce as a way to get ahead of its rival JD. JD recently opened an office in the US in an attempt to facilitate cross-border ecommerce between the two countries.

The Chinese cross-border ecommerce market is predicted to grow to over 200 million people in the next five years, when it is expected to be worth around 250 billion US dollars.

BlackBerry launches mobile payments in Nigeria

The smartphone company BlackBerry is to launch a mobile payments service in Nigeria.

BlackBerry users in the country will soon be able to send money and airtime to one another using BBM.

A spokesperson from the company commented on the launch, saying: “BlackBerry has partnered with Interswitch Ltd, Nigeria’s largest payment processor, to enable any Nigerian to transfer money or airtime within BBM, as simply as they transfer photos or files.”

BlackBerry has already launched mobile payments services in Canada and Indonesia.

With falling popularity in many countries, it is focussing its attention on emerging markets. It is not doing this indiscriminately, however, having recently pulled out of the emerging Pakistani market following a disagreement with the Pakistani government over user privacy.

Indian mobile and apps market revealed

Research by MoboMarket has revealed the state of the Indian mobile and apps market.

The research revealed that WhatsApp, UC Browser and the video downloader and live TV app VidMate are the top 3 most installed apps in the country.

Indians are most likely to download apps on Saturdays and Sundays, with the average Indian downloading around 3 apps per day.

Android is the most common operating system, accounting for 90% of mobiles in the country, with Android KitKat being the most frequently used version.

Around three-quarters of Indians access the internet using their mobile phones only, with 10% only using Wi-Fi and 7% using both.

The internet population of India is set to hit 402 million this month, overtaking the internet population of the US for the first time ever.

European online advertising market revealed

The European online advertising market generated over 30 billion Euros worth of revenue for publishers last year, according to a report by IHS.

This is almost a third of all revenue generated in the advertising sector as a whole.

Online advertising is now the second biggest advertising sector in Europe, coming behind only television advertising.

The study also revealed that the digital advertising industry in Europe accounts for 1.4 million jobs.

Separate research by Emarketer has revealed that the UK, Germany, France and Italy are the biggest digital markets in Europe, with those four countries set to account for around 70% of all digital ad spending in Europe this year.

Coca Cola advert slammed for cultural insensitivity

And finally, Coca Cola has come under fire for a recent advert that was deemed to be culturally insensitive.

The advert, which had been posted on YouTube but has since been taken down, showed a group of white youngsters going to an indigenous community in Mexico and handing out bottles of Coke.

The advert has come under attack for being dismissive towards the serious problem of rising obesity amongst indigenous Mexicans.

Coca Cola said it was not its intention to be insensitive to the indigenous Mexican community, with a spokesperson saying it was meant to encourage viewers to “break down prejudice and share”.

Webcertain’s global marketing news bulletins are daily 5-minute videos, providing marketers with the latest international digital marketing news in an easy-to-digest format.

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Elin Box

Content Marketing Manager at Webcertain
Elin is a Content Marketing Manager at Webcertain. She is responsible for Webcertain’s Self-learning platform, producing in-depth guides on a range of international digital marketing topics. She also helps run the Webcertain blog and is the writer of the Webcertain search and social report, an annual report summarising digital marketing best practices in over 50 countries. She is passionate about educating and empowering people to make the best decisions for their business and is proud to help share Webcertain’s wealth of digital marketing knowledge with the world. Elin is from the UK.

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