Global Marketing News – 29th April 2016
China overtakes Japan for Apple App Store revenues
China has overtaken Japan concerning revenue taken from iPhone and iPad apps per year, to take second position behind the United States.
Since January, China has seen a 220% increase in year-on-year growth, to take it into second place.
App Annie, who gathered this information for the first quarter of 2016, has said that this increase is due to China’s huge number of smartphone owners, and the popularity of Apple’s big screen iPhone 6 models in the country.
The report comes after the country overtook the US for the total number of app downloads last year, making China Apple’s fastest growing market in the top three.
The 30% lead the US has over China for the moment is said to be due to American users being more willing to pay for service apps, such as Netflix, as well as making in-app purchases.
Kaiser Kuo leaves Baidu for US podcast business
Baidu’s international communications director, Kaiser Kuo, is stepping down from his position at the Chinese company.
After twenty years in China, Kuo is returning to the United States where he grew up.
Viewed as an essential figure on the Chinese media landscape, Kuo worked in several high level communications jobs before working for Baidu from 2010.
He said that he was gracious for the opportunities he had at Baidu, but that he would now be concentrating on the successful podcast he launched with Jeremy Goldkorn, also in 2010.
However, this podcast was recently bought by a US start-up business, which he says led him to the decision to move back to America.
Changes in the Chinese search engine market
There have been major developments in the Chinese search engine market, as Qihoo and Sohu both enter new territory.
According to information published by China’s National Development and Reform Commission, the privatisation of China’s second most popular search engine, Qihoo 360, has been approved.
In a move worth 9.3 billion US dollars, Qihoo chairman Zhou Hongyi said that the deal was a “strategic choice after considering domestic and market conditions.”
In the meantime, Sohu has just announced its lowest revenue amount since early 2014.
The 10% drop in revenue from last year has been caused by the slowing of the growth of its Sogou search engine, China’s third most popular.
Sohu has experienced declining revenue for eight of the last nine quarters, but these numbers put them below their earlier forecast for the first time.
Amazon to launch Tatkal initiative in India
The e-commerce giant Amazon is set to launch its Tatkal initiative in India.
The service will act as a specially designed studio-on-wheels, offering a range of launch services including registration, imaging and cataloguing.
Tatkal has been introduced in order to supply support to small, or medium sized businesses in Mumbai, who Amazon say are interested in online selling, but are unable to overcome perceived barriers.
The service is said to have been directly designed with the interested sellers’ needs in mind.
Amazon hopes that Tatkal will help businesses overcome constraints, and allow them to sell online within hours.
They will be visiting different areas of Mumbai this week, offering availability to users within an hour of online booking.
Italian ecommerce grew by 19% last year
And finally, e-commerce in Italy grew 19% from 2014 to 2015, research has shown.
The study, carried out by Casaleggio Associati, showed that Italian e-commerce is now worth 28.8 billion Euros.
The sector with the highest growth was online shopping centres, who saw their turnover increase by 140%, whilst consumer electronics saw a decrease of 15%.
Mobile commerce also saw a jump in 2015, where it accounted for 22% of ecommerce, compared to 2014 where it achieved a 13% share.
This was attributed to “Italian people being more confident with mobile devices”, and that they were “more inclined to complete purchases on mobile.”
The research also showed that 66% of Italian merchants prioritise an easy purchasing process, in order to improve conversion rate online, whilst only 5% value optimisation.
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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