Global Marketing News – 13th August 2015
Facebook launches Indian ecommerce website
Facebook and the media agency GroupM have joined forces to launch a special ecommerce site for the Indian festival Raksha Bandhan.
The website will be live between the 12th and 29th August, with Facebook driving traffic to the website.
Companies that want to sell their products on the website will have to pay a fee.
Around 110 million Indians use Facebook, meaning that the campaign has the potential to reach a huge audience.
A media planner speaking to the India Times commented on the campaign, saying: “Online shopping festivals have become a popular trend in India, especially with the rise in the number of ecommerce companies, which are driving the growth of online shopping in the country”.
Raksha Bandhan is an annual Hindu festival celebrating love and duty between family members.
56,000 new Vietnamese domains registered this year
The Vietnam Internet Network Information Centre has released data revealing that almost 56,000 new Vietnamese domains were registered in the first 6 months of this year.
This means that Vietnam has registered more country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) than any other South East Asian country during that time period.
Around 35,000 new domains written in Vietnamese were also registered, meaning there are now just over a million Vietnamese language domains in existence, with around 18% being active.
Vietnam’s internet population is increasing rapidly, with 36 million people now using the internet.
With a total population of around 90 million, however, Vietnam’s internet market is far from mature, meaning that there is still plenty of opportunity for growth to come.
Use of ad-blocking software increasing worldwide
A study by Adobe and PageFair has revealed that the use of ad-blocking software is on the increase worldwide.
Ad-blocking software, such as the popular Ad Block Plus plug-in, stops adverts from appearing on web browsers.
Users install them for a variety of reasons, for example because they find adverts annoying or because they are worried about their data being collected.
The study found a staggering 41% increase in ad blocking software installations over the last year, with around a third of internet users worldwide now using ad blockers.
Ad blocking software is especially popular in Europe, where 77 million people have installed the software. It is also rising in popularity in the US, where 45 million people use it.
The findings have caused concern amongst advertisers and publishers, who rely heavily on ads for their income.
The majority of ad blocking software only works on desktop browsers. However, with an increasing number of people accessing the internet primarily from their mobile devices, ad blockers are developing software for use on smartphones.
PageFair predicts that when these mobile-based ad blockers become available, there will be a huge increase in ad blocking software installations.
New ecommerce platform launches in Nigeria
A new ecommerce platform has launched in Nigeria.
Efritin.com allows users to buy and sell used or unwanted items on the platform.
All items and sellers are verified by staff before their ad goes live on the site, a measure that aims to reassure users that the platform is safe and secure.
Nigeria is the leading African nation for ecommerce. Out of Nigeria’s 50 million internet users, a staggering 90% either shop online currently or plan to do so in the future.
Baidu launches medical AI
And finally, the Chinese search giant Baidu has launched a medical symptom-checking service.
When users feel ill, they can talk to the app, listing their symptoms, which will then come up with diagnostic suggestions and directions to the nearest specialist.
The app has 520 diseases stored in its database, which cover 90% of all illnesses, according to Baidu.
The service is currently only available on desktop, although a mobile version is due to be released soon.
Baidu has said that this symptom-checking AI is just its first step into the digital healthcare market, saying that its “long-term goal is to build a medical robot”.
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