Global Marketing News – 3rd June 2015
China Mobile to team up with Alibaba and Tencent
China’s leading telecoms company, China Mobile, has said that it wants to team up with the ecommerce giants Alibaba and Tencent.
Telecoms companies have been struggling in recent years as the internet and instant messaging apps have taken much of the profits away from their traditional text message and phone call business.
China Mobile therefore wants to expand its business model to be more focused on mobile internet use, with the latest announcement showing it has a particular interest in tapping into China’s booming ecommerce industry.
China Mobile has also been in talks with Apple about the sale of its Apple smartwatches in China, although the exact details of these talks are unknown.
China Mobile has revealed, however, that it has almost 200 billion yuan set aside to spend on its mobile internet services this year.
Majority of Japanese smartphone-owning Facebook users interact with ads
Research from JustSystems has revealed that the majority of smartphone-owning Facebook users in Japan have interacted with an ad on the social network.
The study examined almost 150 Japanese Facebook users who had viewed a Facebook ad on their smartphone.
It found that over 60% of respondents said they had interacted with an ad, with the most common interactions being clicking on a link to visit a website, viewing a video ad, and “liking” a Facebook page.
A similar set of results was found for Twitter users, with 53% of Japanese Twitter users reporting that they interact with Twitter ads, with clicking on promoted tweets being the most commonly reported activity.
Just over 1 in 5 Japanese mobile users use their mobiles to access Facebook at least once a month, with this figure expected to reach 1 in 4 in the next 4 years.
Daum Kakao buys social network app Path
The Korean search engine Daum Kakao has bought the social networking app Path.
The deal, the financial details of which have not been released, sees the Path and Path Talk apps both going to Daum Kakao.
The social network Path has been successful in Indonesia but has not particularly taken off in any other country, a trend it hopes will change with its acquisition by Korean giant Daum Kakao.
Path founder Dave Morin released a statement in which he implied that he hoped that Daum Kakao would be able to introduce Path to other markets, saying: “We have reached a tipping point on our journey and for Path to truly grow we need more resources and a larger local team that deeply understands Southeast Asian markets.”
Daum Kakao is the second most popular search engine in South Korea, coming only after Naver.
Seznam revenue increases by 7.5%
The Czech search engine Seznam saw its annual revenue increase by 7.5% last year to over 3 billion Czech Republic Koruna, equivalent to around £78 million.
This is twice the growth rate it saw in 2013, with the strongest growth coming from Seznam’s search advertising arm Seznam Sklik which grew by a staggering 20%.
Seznam Sklik’s search advertising profits accounted for 40% of Seznam’s overall revenue, with display advertising accounting for 33% of revenue.
Seznam is a popular search engine in the Czech Republic, where it has around 20% of the search engine market.
Google to prioritise cheap smartphones in emerging markets
Google has said it will make getting affordable smartphones to emerging markets a priority going forward.
Over 1 billion smartphones are expected to be sold in the emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, China, India and Indonesia in the next 2 years, and commentators have pointed out that if Google can ensure that the majority of these new smartphones are running its Android operating system, it will have over a billion new customers using its search and advertising services.
To achieve this goal, Google is running its Android One initiative, which aims to produce affordable smartphones running on the latest version of Android. Android One is currently running in 7 countries, including India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Turkey.
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Gemma Houghton
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