Global Marketing News –11th March 2016
Surprising leaders in French social media revealed
Research by Génération Numérique has revealed the most popular social networks amongst children aged 11 to 18 in France.
Facebook is the most popular social network, cited by 37% of respondents as the social network they used most frequently. Snapchat came second, cited by 27%, with Instagram coming in third place with 17%.
Facebook was more popular with boys, whilst Snapchat and Instagram were more popular with girls.
Social media is extremely popular with young people in France. Around 90% of French people aged 15 to 18 are on a social network.
Connectivity is also very high amongst young French people, with 76% of children aged 11 to 18 having a smartphone, 73% having a laptop and 72% having a tablet.
Google ordered to hand over user IP addresses in privacy case
Google has been ordered by a court in the Netherlands to remove fake Google Reviews and hand over the IP addresses of the people who posted the reviews.
The case involved a Dutch children’s nursery that had been the victim of a string of negative, non-authentic reviews posted by users hiding behind false online identities.
The nursery was able to prove that both the reviews and users were fake by showing that the reviews had been copied and pasted from other websites and the users’ profile pictures had been taken from a website remembering dead Americans.
Google has now been ordered to take down the reviews and hand over the IP addresses of the users so that the nursery can take the users to court personally.
It is the first time that Google has ever been ordered to hand over IP addresses of its users and is a landmark decision regarding the right to privacy in the EU. The search engine giant has not said whether it plans to obey the court order or appeal.
Physical cards preferred over mobile payment systems
Consumers prefer to use physical debit and credit cards over mobile payment systems, according to a study by Juniper Research.
Mobile payment systems, or mobile wallets, such as Apple Pay, WeChat Pay and Samsung Pay, 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.
Despite this, it seems that credit and debit cards are still reigning supreme, with people feeling more comfortable with these traditional payment methods than mobile wallets, especially in the US.
Europe and China are much more promising markets for mobile wallet adoption, according to the research.
Ecommerce regulations may be heading for Qatar
The Advisory Council in Qatar has recommended that the government introduces more ecommerce regulations.
The Council claims that currently there are not enough regulations controlling the sale of food and medicine online, something that could potentially be hazardous to buyers’ health.
The Qatari ecommerce market is worth just over 1 billion US dollars, making it the strongest in the Middle East.
The average Qatari online shopper spends 3,453 US dollars online every year.
Switzerland ecommerce market revealed
And finally, research by VSV has revealed the health of the ecommerce market in Switzerland.
The research found that the Swiss ecommerce market was worth 7.2 billion Swiss francs last year, an increase of 7.5% on the previous year.
The most popular product types bought online were consumer electronics and fashion.
Cross-border ecommerce is popular in Switzerland, with foreign websites accounting for 15% of all ecommerce sales.
Mobile commerce is also popular in Switzerland, with 25% of all ecommerce sales taking place on a mobile device.
The vast majority, 81%, of Swiss online shoppers buy on account, with credit cards and PayPal accounting for just 13% of sales.
The Swiss ecommerce market is expected to continue its growth this year, at a projected rate of 7 to 10%.
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