Global Marketing News – 1st April 2016
Periscope reveals its success as it turns one year old
The Twitter-owned live video streaming app Periscope is now one year old.
The social media company celebrated the milestone by sharing some new figures about the live streaming app.
It revealed that Periscope has now been used to create over 200 million broadcasts, and that a staggering 110 years’ worth of video are streamed live on the Periscope iOS and Android apps every day.
It has not revealed how many daily or monthly active users it has, saying that it wants to be judged on the quality of its product, not simply the number of people using it.
Its biggest rivals in the live streaming app market are Meerkat, Twitcasting and Facebook. It is also rumoured that YouTube will soon be launching a live streaming app called YouTube Connect.
Global payments market hotting up
The global payments market is hotting up, with new payment systems launching in multiple new countries around the world.
Google has just launched Android Pay in the UK, Samsung has just launched Samsung Pay in China, and Visa has just launched in Somalia.
Android Pay and Samsung Pay are both mobile payment systems, whereby users can use their smartphones to buy products in any shop with a contactless payment reader.
Mobile payment systems are becoming increasingly popular worldwide, with around 148 million people expected to pay for an item in a shop using a mobile wallet this year, according to a study by Juniper Research.
Visa’s launch in Somalia means that Visa card-holders will be able to use their cards at ATMs in the country, as well as to buy items in shops that have card readers.
Alibaba to invest 100 million yuan in digital flea market app Xianyu
The Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has pledged to invest 100 million yuan in its digital flea market app Xianyu, also known as Idle Fish.
Xianyu allows users to run online stores where they upload pictures, descriptions and promotional voice recordings for items they want to sell.
Other users living nearby can then get in touch with them over the app and pay using Alibaba’s digital payment system Alipay.
Alibaba hopes that by investing in Xianyu, improving the app and helping it to get more users, it will be more able to tap into the growing so-called sharing economy, whereby people share or sell items with nearby people.
StalkBuyLove receives millions of dollars in funding
The Indian ecommerce company StalkBuyLove has received millions of US dollars’ worth of funding.
The undisclosed 7-figure sum comes from venture capitalists such as Europe-based LittleRock, 500 Startups and Singularity Ventures.
The investment shows that the rest of the world is starting to see the potential of the Indian ecommerce market.
The Indian ecommerce market is currently worth 11 billion US dollars and is growing rapidly, with online sales expected to reach 220 billion US dollars by 2025 according to estimates by Merrill Lynch.
StalkBuyLove has said it will use the money to grow its reach, hire more staff and improve its supply and fulfilment structures.
Almost 80 million tablet users in Europe predicted by end of 2016
And finally, a study by eMarketer predicts that there will be almost 80 million tablet users in Central and Eastern Europe by the end of the year, an increase of 12.5% on 2015.
Russia is expected to have the largest tablet population, followed by Turkey, Poland and the Czech Republic in second, third and fourth place respectively.
By the end of 2020, around 101 million people in Central and Eastern Europe are expected to use a tablet.
Webcertain’s global marketing news bulletins are daily 5-minute videos, providing marketers with the latest international digital marketing news in an easy-to-digest format.
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