Global Marketing News – 4th April 2016
Research reveals biggest digital growers and slowers
Researchers from Tufts University have revealed which countries’ digital economies are growing the fastest.
It measured countries’ digital economies based on supply-side factors, demand-side factors, innovations and institutions.
Based on these measures it categorised countries into four groups: stand out, stall out, break out or watch out.
Stand out countries are those that are highly digitally developed and are continuing to develop strongly, and include the US, South Korea, the UAE, Switzerland and New Zealand.
Stall out countries are those that are highly digitally developed but whose growth is slowing down. Countries such as Japan, Germany, France, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries are in this category.
Break out countries are those that are not very digitally developed but are seeing signs of growth. China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa are in this group. In order to continue their growth, they need to improve their often poor infrastructure.
Watch out countries are those which are not very digitally developed and are not showing any signs of improvement. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Portugal, Hungary and Slovenia are all in this category.
Age and gender differences in Chinese internet use
There are significant gender and age based differences in internet penetration in China, according to research by eMarketer.
Males and young people see higher levels of internet penetration than females and older people.
55% of Chinese males currently access the internet at least once a month, but this falls to 50% for Chinese females.
When looking at age, 92% of young people aged 25 to 34 use the internet at least once a month, but this falls to just 9% amongst the over-65s.
eMarketer predicts that internet penetration will rise over the next 4 years, but that these gender and age based differences will persist.
By 2020, 65% of males and 60% of females are predicted to be online, with the number of over-65s using the internet also set to rise to 14% by that time.
Rural areas to drive Indian ecommerce market growth
The next phase of growth in the Indian ecommerce market is predicted to come from the country’s rural areas.
A spokesperson for the ecommerce platform company Shopclues said at a Bloomberg conference that they predicted that the next 100 million online shoppers in India would be from the country’s smaller towns and villages.
A similar trend is taking place in China, with the Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba putting its recent record-breaking sales down to an increase in the number of rural Chinese users starting to buy items online.
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.
FlySpaces wants to expand across South East Asia
An office space rental company has said it wants to expand across South East Asia.
FlySpaces, which allows small-to-medium sized businesses to rent office rooms on short-term lets, describes itself as an “Airbnb for offices”.
It currently operates in the Philippines and Singapore and plans to launch in Malaysia in the very near future.
A spokesperson from FlySpaces commented on the expansion, saying that they wanted to become a “a true regional South East Asian brand”.
Instagram algorithm panic sparks #TurnMeOn craze
And finally, the upcoming algorithm change that will see Instagram posts no longer appearing in chronological order has sparked a flurry of panic from some users.
Anxiety that the change was imminent prompted some users to take to the #TurnMeOn hashtag, asking their followers to turn on notifications for their posts so that they didn’t miss out their updates.
Instagram responded to the panic by stating that the change had not been implemented yet and that users would be notified when it was.
Instagram is a popular image-based social network, with approximately 400 million monthly active users.
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.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Gemma Houghton
Latest posts by Gemma Houghton (see all)
- Watch the recording: How to identify and seize growth opportunities in international markets - April 20, 2022
- International marketing recruitment: How to drive global growth amid The Great Resignation - February 23, 2022
- 5 trends to include in your 2022 international digital marketing strategy - December 21, 2021
