Global Marketing News – 8th February 2016
Chinese consumers say Happy New Year to retailers
Today is Chinese New Year and research by Criteo has found that more people than ever before have been using the internet to do their shopping in preparation for the celebrations.
Chinese people traditionally buy new clothes for themselves and gifts for other people to celebrate the New Year and represent new beginnings.
Criteo’s research found that online sales went up by 40% in the fortnight leading up to Chinese New Year, with mobile ecommerce seeing a rise in popularity as affordable smartphones become more widely available in the region.
The study also found that many consumers were willing to buy from foreign sites if prices were lower, so long as fast delivery times were guaranteed.
To coincide with the mass movement of people as people go on holiday to celebrate the New Year, the leading Chinese internet giant Baidu has just announced that it has expanded its Baidu Maps service to several foreign markets.
From today, people will be able to use Baidu Maps in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand.
A Baidu spokesperson commented on the expansion, saying: “Once the service becomes available in foreign countries, it will become their top choice, as the Chinese-language version will hold great appeal to those who can’t speak English.”
Baidu hopes to take back traffic from Google with its maps offering.
India’s mobile internet population to reach 371 million by mid-2016
The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has predicted that India’s mobile internet population will reach 371 million by the middle of this year, an increase of 56% compared to the same time period last year.
The online activities done by mobile internet users is also set to shift. Social media used to be the most popular mobile activity, but this is set to be replaced by online communication by the middle of the year.
Looking at where these mobile internet uesrs live, urban users currently account for 71% of all mobile internet users, and mobile internet use is set to grow at an equal pace in urban and rural populations.
India has the second biggest internet market in the world, second only to China.
Marks & Spencer targets 5 Middle Eastern countries
Marks & Spencer has launched an ecommerce site targeting 5 Middle Eastern countries.
Customers in the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait will now be able to shop online for around 6,000 M&S products.
Users can choose whether they want to collect their items in store or have them delivered to their homes.
In Dubai, users can even have various sizes brought to their homes so they can try them on to ensure a correct fit.
The website is available in English and Arabic and has local payment options.
Marks & Spencer also intends to expand to Egypt and Lebanon next month.
Canadians plan to increase spending on mobile ads
And finally, research by Ad Hoc has revealed that advertisers in Canada are planning to increase the amount of money they spend on mobile ads more than any other kind of advertising.
42% of marketers questioned said they planned to increase their mobile advertising spend this year, compared to 32% who planned to increase programmatic ad spending and 27% who planned to increase video and addressable TV ad spending.
Canadian mobile ad budgets are set to increase by an average of 31% this year, higher than the 29% and 24% budget increases planned for programmatic and video advertising respectively.
Mobile advertising in the country is predicted to reach 2.3 billion Canadian dollars this year, accounting for 48% of digital ad spend and 17% of total ad spend.
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Cal O'Connell
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