Global Marketing News – 22nd August 2016
US relinquishes control of the Domain Naming System
The United States will hand over the Domain Naming System (or DNS) to ICANN in October, after 20 years.
DNS is the system that attaches a website’s name, such as google.com, to its IP address.
The US has had control over the international system since its inception, but will hand over control of the system to the non-profit organisation ICANN soon, after the agreement was made in 2014.
The changeover, confirmed last week, has been criticised by the former Presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, for opening up the internet to “China or Russia”, after being “protected by the US”.
After being controlled by the US government, ICANN will now report to a range of stakeholders including countries, private businesses and technical experts.
Prof Alan Woodward from the University of Surrey said that the change was a good thing, and that it was no longer “governed by one nation”, but had become a properly overseen “global asset”.
China to become world’s top retail market by end of 2016
China is due to overtake the US to become the largest retail market in the world by the end of this year.
It will be the first time that the country has been top of the list, and is forecasted to see total sales of 4.88 trillion US dollars in 2016, compared to 4.82 trillion US dollars in the United States.
The forecast from eMarketer also says that the country will have the highest level of online sales, with 18% of its retail market being accounted for by ecommerce.
The booming market in China comes following the successes of Alibaba, Tmall and JD which have used new digital features such as mobile payment systems to increase, and deliver on, customer demand.
China’s online retail market is currently the largest, with ecommerce sales in the country representing nearly 50% of all digital sales on Earth.
Alipay and UnionPay to expand to Western markets
Chinese mobile payment systems are expanding into Western markets, following their huge success in Eastern markets.
Both Alibaba’s Alipay and the UnionPay mobile payment system will be available in the West very soon, with Alipay being available in Europe for Chinese customers, and UnionPay being available to all consumers in Canada.
UnionPay says that it will focus on “daily spending”, with the system having a 100 Canadian dollar spending cap, adding that there are already 70,000 merchants with the capabilities to use the feature.
Similarly, Alipay is pushing further into Western markets after signing a deal with the Ingenico Group, who themselves processed 3.5 billion transactions last year.
The payment feature will only be available to Chinese tourists, of whom 10 million travel to Europe each year, spending around 21 billion US dollars during their time abroad.
Oculus Rift given mid-September launch date in selected countries
Facebook has announced that one of the most anticipated products of recent times, Oculus Rift, has been given a launch date of mid-September in some countries outside the US.
The social media site also said that it had added localisation to the product, enabling it to “better suit regional” needs, as well as helping games and software developers with localised features.
Available in the US since March, there were delays in shipping due to a “shortage of components”.
Oculus, who Facebook acquired for 2 billion US dollars in 2014, will allow transactions on its site in multiple currencies whilst distribution will be available to the UK, France, Germany and Canada.
Number of smartphone users increases in Peru
Peru has seen its number of smartphone users continue to increase.
Currently, the country has the least developed mobile market of the six major economies in Latin America, meaning that digital advertising budgets are rarely focused on mobile.
According to the Peruvian regulator, the number of total mobile connections has reached 35 million, an increase of over 7% from just last year.
Peru already has a mobile penetration rate of 117% and, with the recent increase of mobile connections, it is expected that advertisers will increase mobile budgets in order to target the growing audience.
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Cal O'Connell
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