Global Marketing News – 29th July 2016
Apple sees falling iPhone sales for second quarter
Apple has seen its iPhone sales fall for the second quarter in a row.
The 15% drop follows on from the company’s second quarter announcement that sales of its smartphone had slowed for the first time since its launch in 2007.
The drop in sales has seen Apple’s profits fall by 27% to 7.8 billion US dollars in the second quarter of 2016, whilst its revenue fell by over 14% to 42 billion US dollars over the same period.
However, even though sales have fallen by as much as 33% in China, the 15% fall globally is not as bad as was forecasted.
Apple CEO, Tim Cook, said that the figures showed “stronger customer demand than [was] anticipated”.
Additionally, this surprise caused its shares to rise 7%, after a 20% drop over the last twelve months.
China aims for 38 trillion yuan ecommerce market by 2020
The Chinese government has announced that it is targeting annual ecommerce sales in the country of 38 trillion yuan, or 5.7 trillion US dollars, by 2020.
The announcement also said that it intends to double that figure in the following five years, to 67 trillion yuan.
With ecommerce sales growing substantially in the country currently, the target is expected to be achievable.
According to state news, ecommerce sales in China have grown by 21.2% to 16.2 trillion yuan in the last year.
In order to achieve its target, The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that it will be investing in the 10-year ‘Made In China’ initiative, which aims to improve China’s manufacturing industry.
Twitter sees slowest quarterly sales growth since 2013
Twitter is currently experiencing its slowest quarterly sales growth since 2013, according to a statement released by the company.
Whilst revenue for the second quarter is up 20%, it is a huge drop from the 61% growth that it saw at the same time last year.
However, the site did see a fall in its quarterly loss from 136 million US dollars last year, to 107 million dollars this year.
Twitter has also seen a 3% rise in its monthly active users, which has led to an 18% rise in advertising revenue.
The increase comes following a decision to free up its 140-character limit, which now allows users to include links, images and other tweets without taking up any character space.
PayPal launches in Thailand
PayPal is launching a new payment system in Thailand, in order to focus on the social commerce market.
The service, called Paypal.ME, is slated to be launched in the country in just over one week, and will give users more convenience when attempting online transactions.
Fees for the use of the new payment system will vary depending on transaction volumes.
Aimed at both sellers and buyers, PayPal has targeted the Thai market due to its high growth in social commerce on both Facebook and Instagram.
A PayPal survey found that 71% of Thai businesses offer a payment service on smartphones, whilst Singapore and Malaysia fall behind with around 50% each.
Brands using emojis are perceived positively
And finally, a survey across both the UK and the US has shown that mobile phone users have a largely positive perception of brands that use emojis.
In fact, 72% of respondents thought that brands using them were either fun, normal, relatable or even professional.
The survey, which was conducted by Appboy, looked at consumers aged 14 or over and their attitudes towards emoji activity from brands.
One section of the survey picked up on a substantial recent increase in the amount of brands using them on various platforms.
It was noted that whilst in June 2015 brands sent 145 million emojis out on social networks and other mobile messages, this number rose to 814 million in June of this year; an increase of 461%.
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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