26 March 2015 – Global Marketing News
Jumia sales up 900%
Sales on the ecommerce site Jumia went up by a staggering 900% in Kenya last year.
Jumia, which was originally launched in Nigeria and has since spread across several African countries, has grown to be the most popular ecommerce site in Kenya, and is in the top 15 most popular sites overall.
The biggest competitor for Jumia in Kenya is the country’s thriving physical market, with low internet penetration, lack of trust in the internet and lack of addresses also being touted as reasons why some Kenyans are unwilling to embrace Jumia.
In an attempt to tempt more Kenyans to the platform, Jumia has formed a partnership with the popular courier service Aramex and is also allowing small physical shops to open up stores on its marketplace.
Android owners ditching their phones for Apple
Research by Cowen has revealed a growing trend for Android smartphone owners to ditch their devices and switch to iPhones.
The study looked at 3,000 people from the US, UK, China and Japan.
It found that 20% of respondents who had the latest iPhone had bought this as a replacement for a competitor’s smartphone, with 83% of the replaced phones being Android.
China was the country with the highest proportion of people replacing their Android phones with an iPhone, where 30% of iPhone owners had done so.
This reflects the recent success of Apple in China, where sales went up by 70% last year, compared to just 14% in Japan and less than 10% in both the US and UK.
Analysts have speculated that Apple’s success in the Far East is due to the Asian preference for the larger screened iPhones.
The trend of Android owners defecting to Apple is predicted to continue, with more than 40% of respondents who said they intended to buy an iPhone in the next year currently owning a non-Apple smartphone.
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Indonesia pledges to improve internet infrastructure
Indonesia is looking to improve its internet infrastructure, with the Indonesian government set to pour over 400 billion US dollars into it in the next 5 years.
One of the main plans is to lay fibre optic cables across the whole Indonesian archipelago.
The demand for high speed fibre optic connections is high, with 2,000 people a day signing up for a combined fibre optic package of internet, phone and television.
The government hopes that rolling out fibre optic internet will close the digital divide and push the average internet speed from its current 84 exabytes to 656 exabytes.
Indonesian mobile operators are also involved in the digital push, with the 3 main operators having recently launched their 4G networks.
The mayor of Indonesia’s second largest city has said that she hopes the introduction of 4G in the city will encourage it to become a so-called “smart city” that integrates the internet into all areas of its functioning.
Phablets most popular in Asia-Pacific region
Phablets (smartphones with a width of at least 5.5 inches) are most popular in the Asia-Pacific region, according to research by GfK.
The research revealed that nearly 20% of all smartphones sold in the Asia-Pacific region last year were phablets, compared to just over 10% in the Middle East and less than 10% in Europe, Africa and Latin America.
Worldwide, phablets have doubled in popularity every year for the last 2 years, from making up just 3% of smartphones in 2012 to 13% last year.
E-Marketer predicts that this growth will continue, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, where they predict more than half of all smartphones will be phablets by 2018.
Apple Pay to be launched in China
An Apple mobile payment system may soon be launching in China, as reported by Kapron Asia.
Apple is rumoured to have struck a deal with China UnionPay, with the system reportedly being launched on 28th April.
Apple Pay is predicted to have a significant impact if it is launched, with one quarter of all smartphones in China running on iOS.
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