Global Marketing News – 24th February 2016
In which country is Twitter more popular than Facebook?
Twitter has more monthly active users than Facebook in Japan.
The social networking companies have just released their user figures for the end of 2015, revealing that Twitter has 35 million monthly active users in Japan, compared to Facebook’s 25 million.
It is thought to be the only country in the world where Twitter has a larger user base than Facebook, although the companies have not confirmed this.
Worldwide, Facebook is the most dominant social network by far, with 1.59 billion monthly active users, compared to Twitter’s 320 million.
Twitter’s user growth has been slowing since 2013, so the latest news from Japan will be good news for the company.
Twitter also revealed that advertising revenues grew at twice the global rate in Japan last year, with big names such as the ecommerce company Rakuten and the mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo choosing to advertise on the platform.
Japan is a very mature internet market, with an internet penetration rate of 86%, equivalent to 109 million people.
Visa Checkout to expand to 6 new countries in 2016
Visa will expand its digital payment service Visa Checkout to 6 new countries this year.
Visa Checkout allows customers to just register their shipping and payment information once. Customers can then simply pay for items online with just one click, without having to fill out the information every time.
The 6 new countries will be the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Poland and India.
Visa has commented on the expansion, saying: “We’ve seen great results in the U.S., and we know that as our global expansion continues, we can help drive positive results for more merchants and their consumers everywhere.”
With global ecommerce growing by 23% last year, the demand for global online payment solutions is higher than ever.
WeChat to allow content creators to charge readers
The Chinese social app WeChat will soon allow content creators to charge for users to read their content.
If a content creator with a public WeChat account wants to charge for their content, they will be able to choose a “charge” option before publishing.
Users will be able to see the first few lines for free but will have to pay to see the full article.
Content creators will be able to charge up to 30 US dollars per user per article.
The feature is currently in beta testing, and it is unknown if or when it will be rolled out to all users.
WeChat is the most popular social messaging app in China, with around 650 million monthly active users.
South African ecommerce and logistics growing rapidly
Ecommerce is growing in popularity in South Africa and is expected to be worth 37 billion South African rands this year, according to research by PayPal.
The rise in ecommerce is being supported by the rise of logistics solutions in the country.
New logistics companies such as Shepherd, ParcelNinja, FastVan and Pargo have launched in the last few years with the sole aim of delivering ecommerce items.
ParcelNinja alone saw a staggering 450% growth rate in 2015, highlighting the critical role of logistics in the booming South African ecommerce market.
Around 70% of South Africans with an internet connection engage in ecommerce, but with internet penetration levels being so low, this accounts for only around 1% of total retail sales, according to estimates by World Wide Worx.
Research reveals Danish ecommerce landscape
And finally, research by FDIH has examined the ecommerce landscape in Denmark.
When looking at online shoppers’ most recent purchases, the top product category was clothing, shoes and jewellery, followed by entertainment items such as films, music and toys, with travel and culture coming in at third.
The most popular payment method by far was debit and credit card, with 81% saying they paid by card.
Three-quarters used a desktop or laptop computer to make their online purchases, compared to 18% who used a tablet and 7% who used smartphones. This shows an increased comfort in mobile commerce compared to the previous year, when desktop and laptop computers were more popular.
The Danish ecommerce market is worth around 90 billion Danish krone annually.
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Cal O'Connell
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