Global Marketing News – 16th February 2016
Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba takes new musical direction
The Chinese internet giant Alibaba has bought a 4% stake in the South Korean music company SM Entertainment for 30 million US dollars.
SM Entertainment is the biggest music, film and talent agency in South Korea.
The mutually beneficial partnership means that SM Entertainment will be in a better position to target the Chinese music market, and Alibaba will be able to use SM Entertainment’s music on its music streaming apps Tiantian and Xiami and on its Ali Music platform.
It is Alibaba’s latest attempt to crack the lucrative Asian music industry. Last year it acquired Youku Tudou, the most popular online video platform in China, with around 500 million monthly active users.
Swedes are least worried about online surveillance
Swedes are the least worried when it comes to online surveillance, according to research by F-Secure.
The study asked people from 11 countries across 4 continents whether they had altered their online behaviour due to worries about data privacy.
Just one quarter of people from Sweden said they had altered their behaviour. In contrast, 55% of Americans, 48% of Germans, 47% of French people and 43% of Brits said they had changed their online behaviour.
Swedish people were also the least likely to know where their personal data was stored online and the least likely to worry about the security of the internet of things.
F-Secure commented on the findings, warning that Swedes may want to reconsider their relaxed attitude to online security, saying: “We have good privacy legislation in Sweden and people in Sweden probably think these privacy rules protect internet privacy as well, but this is a misconception… [Swedes shouldn’t be] overconfident that their personal data will stay private while being exchanged online.”
Research reveals Russian internet landscape 2016
Research by Gemius and AppAnnie has revealed just how different the Russian internet landscape is to the rest of the world.
While giants like Google and Facebook dominate the online landscape in most countries, Russia bucks the trend in favour of home-grown alternatives.
Looking at the search engine market, Yandex is the most popular option by far, with a market share of 57% – way ahead of Google which trails behind in second place with a market share of 36%.
In the social networking sphere, local giants VK and Odnoklassniki take first and second place respectively, with Facebook only managing to come in at third.
Turning to mobile internet, Android phones are much more popular than iPhones in Russia, with the former outnumbering the latter at a rate of around 2-to-1.
The most popular apps are those related to social media, messaging, gaming, health and fitness.
Online furniture buying is popular in France
Online furniture buying is popular in France.
Data from IPEA reveals that 12% of furniture sales in the country currently happen online, double the European average of 6%.
This is expected to rise to 15% by 2020, and could even hit 50% with 25 years.
The 3 most popular online furniture retailers in France are Conforama, IKEA and But.
The French online furniture market racked in a staggering 1.1 billion Euros last year.
The French ecommerce market is worth 43.6 billion US dollars overall, with a digital buyer penetration rate of 79%.
Instagram to introduce view counts to videos
And finally, Instagram has announced that it will soon introduce view counts to videos.
These will show how many people have watched a video, with a view being counted as watching a video for 3 seconds or more.
Instagram hopes the addition of the view count will help to attract professional videographers and advertisers.
View counts are expected to be rolled out to users over the next few weeks.
Instagram is a popular image-based social network, with approximately 400 million monthly active users.
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Cal O'Connell
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