Global Marketing News – 28th October 2015
Yandex gives official response to Iran entry rumours
A Yandex spokesperson has confirmed with Webcertain TV that the search engine is not planning to enter Iran.
The Yandex Press Office commented on speculation that the search engine was about to enter the Iranian market, saying: “We are always ready to discuss new opportunities for partnership, but currently we have no plans to open new offices.”
Rumours had been circulating that Yandex was about to enter Iran, following a meeting between the Russian and Iranian communication ministers last week.
Recently Yandex opened an office in China, to help it better serve Chinese customers targeting the Russian market.
Twitter introduces Promoted Moments
Twitter introduced an advertising option for its Moments feature; a move which is strikingly similar to the service offered by Chinese messaging app, WeChat.
Twitter will allow one advertiser every day to run a Promoted Moments campaign for 24 hours. The Promoted Moments channel will be “prominently displayed” on the site, with advertisers having the ability to curate tweets, pictures and videos.
The first Promoted Moments ad campaign will run this week, promoting the new film Creed.
This is just the latest of a slew of new features that Twitter has announced in recent weeks. Earlier this month, Twitter introduced a poling feature, as well as conversion lift reports which allow advertisers to see how effective their ads really are.
Amazon to open Diwali stores on US and UK sites
The ecommerce giant Amazon has opened Diwali stores on its US and UK sites to cater for the large numbers of Indian immigrants in the countries.
Indian sellers will now be able to sell their products on the Diwali stores targeting the two countries, with an Amazon spokesperson saying that India has the potential to become a great exporter on the platform.
Online shoppers in India are expected to spend around 8 billion US dollars on ecommerce sites over the Hindu holiday season, with Hindus in the US and UK also predicted to spend a significant amount of money on gifts bought online.
Dried fruits, sweets, clothes, jewellery, watches, electronics and artwork are common Diwali gifts.
Study explores Middle East B2C ecommerce market
A recently published report by yStats has explored the Middle Eastern B2C ecommerce market.
The research found that the United Arab Emirates had the most mature ecommerce market, with the highest levels of online shopping, smartphone, credit card and internet penetration in the region.
Saudi Arabia had the second biggest B2C ecommerce market, with mobile ecommerce being particularly popular in the country. Over two-thirds of online shoppers in the country used smartphones to engage in ecommerce.
Bahrain has the fastest growing B2C ecommerce market, with the Iranian market also growing at a significant pace.
Internet penetration was rising fast in Jordan and Oman, but ecommerce had not taken off in these markets.
Less than 20% of Qatari internet users bought online, with high online prices being blamed for the lack of uptake. A similar story was seen in Israel, where lowering prices was also seen as key to increasing rates of ecommerce.
Souq was the most popular ecommerce site in the Middle East, with Amazon, eBay and AliExpress also being popular options.
Indian ecommerce market to be worth over $100 billion by 2020
And finally, Goldman Sachs has updated its predictions for the Indian ecommerce market.
It now predicts that the Indian ecommerce market will be worth over 100 billion US dollars by 2020, up from its previous prediction that it would be worth 81 billion US dollars by that time.
A spokesperson has commented on the updated prediction, saying: “Higher growth in this space is due to the higher-than-expected internet and smartphone penetration, digital wallet adoption, last-mile logistics investments, continued discounting and better execution.”
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