Global Marketing News – 22nd June 2016
ICANN Expansion Of Domain Names Largest In History
The non-profit internet organisation, ICANN, is looking to enable the largest expansion of the domain name system in history.
The organisation is hoping to increase the number of gTLD’s from 22 to over one thousand, primarily aimed at Asian markets.
Samiran Gupta, ICANNs Head of India, said that the Asian market has been chosen as it will be a “key contributor” to the service, and to the “next one billion users on the internet”.
This expansion will also continue steps taken in 2009 that introduced International Domain names, those with characters beyond just the Latin Alphabet, by introducing symbols and letters in Hindi and other languages. IDNs already existing in Arabic and Chinese.
It is expected that the change will encourage people across India and other non-English speaking communities to “spearhead further development”.
Android Growth Slowing Down
Kantar Worldpanel ComTech has released a report that suggests that Android’s growth is now slowing down.
In a report that brought good and bad news for Google, it showed that Android’s share in major markets like Europe, was as high as 76% of all smartphone sales; up from 70% the year before.
The results also showed that it is still making ground on its competitors as most users who leave Windows phones behind, are then picking up Android phones and in markets like urban China, the operating system continues to grow faster than others.
However, Android is now losing users to Apple’s iOS devices at a higher rate than they are joining, but loyalty amongst users remains high, with 91% of Android buyers having owned one before.
Asian B2B Buyers Look For Demonstrations
According to a new report from Hubspot, over a third of B2B buyers in the Asia-Pacific region want the opportunity to see a product in action before they buy it.
The survey showed that buyers usually consumed as much information as possible about a potential buy, in the research and awareness phase of the journey.
Hubspot noted however that sellers were aware of this trend, and were successfully using a demonstration as a final closing action on sales, which in many cases this was a video on a website.
Kipp Bodnar, CMO at Hubspot, said that in past years B2B marketers had underestimated “the importance of brand”, but were now moving towards sharing the same attitude as B2C companies.
Ted Baker Ecommerce Push Is A Success
Clothing designer Ted Baker has announced that its ecommerce sales have increased by a third in the opening few weeks of the financial year.
In the time from the start of the year to June the 11th, the company announced an increase of 32.3% in sales online, spurred on by the launch of its German language site.
Whilst the increase was high online, Ted Baker also showed improvement in retail sales with 12.7% over the same period, with expansions into countries like Azerbaijan and Egypt.
Founder of Ted Baker, Ray Kelvin, commented that he was pleased by the results and that they showed the success of its “multichannel growth strategy”.
South African Ecommerce Sales Increase
Whilst South African shoppers still prefer to shop on the high street, this is being changed by the internet.
Speaking at the Consumer Goods Forum in Cape Town, South Africa’s Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa has said that developments in technology were allowing new businesses to compete with well-known established businesses.
He said that new ecommerce retailers would find success due to “deep-seated changes in consumer behaviour”.
Whilst only half on South Africa has internet access and just a third shop online, the current increase in demand for online shopping, and the opportunities that offers, can be seen in the fact that the top three online fashion retailers were all launched after 2012.
Due to this to this change, online sales are predicted to grow by over 10% this year, and break the barrier of 1% of total retail sales.
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