Global Marketing News – 13th June 2016
Messaging app Line sets sights on global growth through IPO
The South Korean messaging service, Line, is hoping to raise 3 billion US dollars in an IPO, in order to increase investment in new services.
The company is set to be dual listed in New York and Tokyo.
Said to be vital if Line wishes to increase advertising revenue, the money raised will likely be put towards things such as mobile payment services or the acquisition of new technologies.
Whilst the company relies heavily on its successful in-app games or digital stickers, analyst Ahn-Jae-Min of NH Investment, said that “they are now focused on expanding advertisement”.
Efforts from competitors, like Facebook or Tencent, to include a variety of services within a messaging app, look to be what Line is putting itself up against.
However, to be able to competitively rival Facebook’s 1 billion WhatsApp users, or Tencent’s 650 million WeChat users, Line will have to increase on its 218 million users of which two-thirds are from just Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia.
Polish ecommerce site Allegro launches in Germany
Poland’s leading ecommerce business, Allegro, has launched a German version of its site.
The online auctioning platform is looking to expand its success into other European countries, allowing the promotion of Polish retailers in neighbouring countries.
Allegro.de was launched this month and is being used to begin promotion of home-grown sellers, starting in Germany, Europe’s third-largest market.
The beta version of the site has much fewer categories than the Polish version, and does not allow sales from German sellers, but this is expected to change if the site sees enough growth.
In Poland, Amazon and Ebay have a relatively tiny online presence compared to other countries, which has allowed Allegro to grow and now move into foreign markets.
Amazon Fresh launches in UK
Amazon has launched a full grocery delivery service in London, which allows same-day delivery to customers’ doors.
Currently only available in the capital, Amazon has announced plans to roll out Amazon Fresh nationwide, but has not yet announced specific dates.
There will be 130,000 products available to customers online, through a deal made with supermarket chain Morrisons, whilst Amazon claims that prices will more competitive than main grocers in the UK.
The service has been running in the United States since 2007, but Amazon says that it has launched it over a local area to begin with in order to “hone the service”.
However, whilst the majority of the country won’t get the deliveries immediately, retail expert Bryan Roberts that the announcement is a “game-changer up there with the entry of Aldi and Lidl”.
SAP and Yandex to develop new analytics service
SAP and Yandex have announced a new deal to develop a new analytics service.
Aimed at the retail, banking and telecommunication sectors, the cloud-based system will use the capabilities of the Yandex Data Factory whilst offering customers personalised services based on the SAP Hana Enterprise Cloud platform.
Focused on consumers, the system will allow both companies to use the vast amounts of data each have collected individually.
The Yandex Data Factory bases its big data algorithms on matching up consumers with each other based on buying habits, which the company claims saves 10% on the cost of acquiring and retaining customers.
Yandex Data Factory COO, Alexander Khaytin, said that the choice to work with SAP was made to overcome concerns with integration of data with existing systems.
He said that the deal was made “so that we can offer our clients advanced predictive and prescriptive analytics, without additional integration costs”.
Google works with women to provide internet to rural India
And finally, Google has teamed up with the Tata Trust in order to provide internet to outlying villages in rural India.
Using a bicycle, mobile internet and tablets, 500 women around the country have been taught by Google to cycle to the villages and provide internet access to people and train them to increase awareness of how to use the internet.
They will be paid 1000 Rupees for the six months’ work, but Sapna Chadha, head of marketing at Google India, said that women could also “charge something from the villagers to whom she is providing the required information”.
Google has also noted that whilst the initiative was good for local knowledge of the online world, it also carried a lot of potential for them as it would also increase internet usage and so advertising revenue.
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Gemma Houghton
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