Global Marketing News – 8th June 2016
Google Accelerated Mobile Pages expand to 6 new countries
Google has expanded the use of its Accelerated Mobile Pages technology, or AMP, to 6 new countries. Until now it had only been available in the US version of its Google News app.
The AMP technology which prevents pages being slowed down by ads or heavy content, is used within Google News to deliver news within the app faster and enable it to use less data.
The expansion will see the technology being delivered in several countries around Europe and South America: France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia, and the UK.
Google’s AMP technology is currently an open-source software, allowing third party users to help Google with the development of the idea, who are expanding the use of the software by joining it with their app on iOS last week.
Naver launches One Store app store
South Korea’s number one search engine, Naver, has teamed up with the country’s three biggest mobile carriers to created their own app store.
The ‘One Store’ was released this month and is hoped to crack the market currently dominated by the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, after Naver invested 2.3 million US dollars in a joint venture by SK Telecom, LG and KT.
Although it aims to claim 40% of the app store market in three years, 85% of the market is currently held by Apple and Google.
However, One Store’s success could come from larger investment from Naver, whose CEO Kim Sang-heon hopes to invest around 8.6 million US dollars into, in three years.
Israel has world’s highest internet buyer penetration rate
eBay has released the results of a study that shows that Israel has the most connected shoppers in the world.
Conducted by eBay Israel and consulting firm eMarketer, the research shows that 95% of Israelis who are connected to the internet bought something online in 2015.
When compared to larger countries, such as the US or Germany, only 77% and 81% of those connected to a computer or device bought something online respectively, last year.
When questioned about these results, two-thirds of Israelis said that online shopping helped them save money, and gave them access to lower prices abroad. Over 60% of Israeli purchases are made from foreign websites, with 60% of all those sales taking place in the US and Canada.
Elad Goldberg, CEO of eBay Israel, said that “Israeli consumers are important members of the online buying economy, and they are gaining the attention of some of the biggest online retailers in the world”.
Time spent on social media apps falls globally
Time spent on social media apps is dropping in countries around the world, according to a study from SimilarWeb.
When comparing the time spent on leading social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat in the first quarter of 2015 and then the same period in 2016, they found a drop had occurred for each one.
In the countries studied, which included the US, UK, Germany and South Africa, Instagram saw the largest drop in usage of 23.7% on last year, while Facebook saw the smallest drop of 8%.
However, over the course of the year, the amount of installs on all devices increased for Snapchat in Germany, Spain, India and particularly in Brazil where there was an increase of 22%, whilst Instagram saw a rise in France, Germany and the US.
Samsung Pay launches in Spain
And finally, Samsung has launched its Samsung Pay service in Spain, with plans to unveil the mobile payment app across Europe.
With the service already available in the US and in certain countries across Asia, it allows users to add up to ten different bank accounts to their devices and make payments at contactless terminals.
With Google launching its similar Android Pay service in the UK recently, Samsung is looking to take the first-mover advantage by launching in Spain first, before any competition.
Celestino Garcia, Corporate Vice President at Samsung Spain, said “we are proud that Spain is the first European market to introduce Samsung Pay, an innovative new service that we believe will mark a turning point in Spaniards’ payments behaviour”.
It is expected that the UK will be the next market to receive the mobile payment service.
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Gemma Houghton
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