Tag: Global Watch

Why Pepsi Has Been Making Branded Smartphones In China

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Pepsi is experimenting with an interesting method of brand marketing in China – by offering consumers a branded smartphone with decent tech specs at a very affordable price. Rumors about a Pepsi-branded smartphone first surfaced in mid-October, and earlier today the soda brand has launched its first Pepsi Phone. Working with Chinese phone manufacturer Koobee, Pepsi China repurposed the new Koobee H7 phone to create the Pepsi Phone, and is selling the base model for just $78. This is not the first time Pepsi has ventured into branded phones. Previously, the beverage giant introduced a limited edition of Oppo N1 phones with Pepsi’s branding in December 2013.

What Brands Need To Do
Nowadays, the smartphone is arguably the tech device that most people rely on and feel attached to. In fact, some consumers would even experience “separation anxiety” if they were kept apart from their phones for a while. By offering a decently equipped smartphone at a very affordable price, Pepsi showcases a new way that brands can transform their loyal fans into brand advocates with a true value offer, and should inspire brands to think of other ways that brands can permeate consumers’ daily life.

 

Source: Engadget

Header image is a promotional image from Pepsi Phone’s page on JD.com

Global Watch: Apple Pay Continues Its International Expansion

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Apple Pay continues its global expansion as it enters two new major international markets this week. Apple’s mobile payment solution officially launched in Canada on Tuesday, and will become available in Australia starting this Thursday. In both countries, however, Apple Pay will be limited to supporting American Express cards for now, as part of Apple’s global partnership with AmEx. Moreover, Apple Pay has also added support for two major British banks Tesco and TSB 4 months after its initial launch in July, further expanding its scope in the U.K. market.

What Brands Need To Do
Since its initial launch over a year ago, Apple Pay has come a long way, gaining growing support from banks and merchants. Last month, Starbucks, KFC, and Chili’s became the most recent companies that added support for Apple Pay in their U.S. stores. As Apple pushes Apple Pay into more global markets, it is set to capture more global users in the process. For brands that have a presence in those aforementioned markets, this presents a good opportunity to target local consumers using Apple Pay’s integration of reward programs.  

 

Source: Apple Insider

Global Watch: Alibaba Acquires China’s YouTube

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
China’s leading ecommerce giant Alibaba has acquired Youku Tudou, China’s leading digital video site, for $3.67 billion. Previously, Alibaba held a 18.3% share in the online video company. Pending regulatory approval, Alibaba will gain access to over 580 million monthly users watching videos on Youku Tudou with this takeover, further bolstering its position in the Chinese digital media market.

Market Impact
To put it as an analogy using their U.S. equivalents, this acquisition is essentially China’s Amazon buying China’s YouTube. This deal provides Alibaba with a new vital channel to reach potential online shoppers and, presumably, to integrate its ecommerce assets, such as payment information and consumer data, to create better, actionable video ads. Meanwhile, Youku Tudou gains Alibaba’s support to help it compete with rival video sites, such as Baidu’s IQiYi and Tencent Videos, and solidify its leading position in the Chinese digital video market.

For brands that have a presence in the Chinese market or looking to enter it, this deal should spell great opportunities to reach Chinese consumers via digital video ads and leverage Alibaba’s consumer data to target the right audience segments for direct sales.

 

Source: Wall Street Journal

Global Watch: Facebook Debuts New “Slideshow” Ad Unit For Emerging Markets

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
In its latest bid to capture its “next billion” users in emerging global markets, Facebook is introducing a new ad unit designed to adapt to the limited mobile bandwidth in those markets. Aptly named “Slideshow,” this new ad product allows brands to replace video ads with 3 to 7 still images to create a slideshow up to 15 seconds long. Coca Cola, the first brand to try out this ad unit, successfully reached 2 million African consumers via Facebook and raised brand awareness by 10 points for its Coke Studio Africa project.

What Brands Need To Do
Facebook has long been working to capture consumers in emerging global markets, starting with the Internet.org project it launched in 2013 to provide free internet access in less developed countries. Earlier this week, the social network announced a new initiative that slows the internet connections at its company headquarters on Tuesdays to give engineers and employees a better understanding of what it’s like to use Facebook with a 2G connection.

For global brands that wish to conquer these emerging markets, Facebook’s approach provides a great example of how brands can work around the technological and infrastructure limitations in those markets and design a user experience that’s tailored to the realities of those consumers.

 

Source: AdAge

Global Watch: Uber Nears 1 Million Daily Rides In China

Posted on by Richard Yao

According to a leaked email from Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, Uber is seeing tremendous growth in the Chinese market, logging in 1 million daily rides, which is as many as Uber has in all of its global markets combined. Encouraged by the promising prospects, Kalanick revealed the company intends to raise $1 billion specifically for Uber’s expansion in China.

While the numbers may seem impressive as a standalone, they pale in comparison to Uber’s competitors in China. Kuaidi and Didi, two most popular cab-hailing apps in China backed respectively by domestic giants Alibaba and Tencent, both report that they each book up to 6 million rides a day. And a surprise merger of the two announced back in February created Kuaidi-Didi, a mammoth that now cover over 95% of the market share.

For now, Uber only operates in 11 cities in China, and its recent fast growth is likely due to its newfound alliance with Baidu, who, interestingly, is looking to launch a driverless car later this year. In the face of the formidable Kuaidi-Didi and other obstacles such as crackdowns from local authorities, Uber sure has an uphill battle to fight if it were to win over the Chinese market.

Update 06/15/2015: Right on the heels of UberChina’s $1 billion fundraising plan, Didi Kuaidi counteracts by seeking $1.5 billion in new funding round.

Global Watch: China’s Tencent Launches TOS+ And Bets On Mobile Gaming

Posted on by Lab Team

For years, apps created by Chinese Internet behemoth Tencent has run on all major operating systems, including iOS, Android, and even Windows OS. But propelled by the potential for its uber-popular messaging app WeChat to become a full-fledged platform, Tencent is now looking to develop its own operating system, specifically to capture the nascent IoT market.

Earlier this week, the Shenzhen-based company launched Tencent Operating System, or TOS+ for short. Designed to run on a wide range of connected devices including smart TVs, smartwatches, gaming consoles, and even virtual reality headsets, the Android-based OS will be free to use for manufacturers and developers if they agree to share revenue with Tencent. Unsurprisingly, it also comes with its own mobile payment system. With its own operating system, Tencent is now in direct completion with Alibaba (which developed YunOS) and Xiaomi (which also touts their own MIUI firmware) for a rapidly growing Chinese market.

In related news, Tencent has continued its push for mobile gaming with a minority stake in Glu Mobile, the game publisher behind popular iOS games such as Deer Hunter and Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. In addition to its online and mobile gaming clout in Asia, Tencent already owns two mobile game companies Epic Games and Riot Games that have been quite successful in the US market. Whereas TOS+ obviously has a long way to go before it can compete with the likes of iOS and Android, it looks like mobile gaming could serve as a nice entry point for Tencent to break into western markets.

Header image taken from Tencent’s TOS Site

Global Watch: How Xiaomi Broke Its Own Flash Sale Record

Posted on by Lab Team

Just in time for the company’s fifth anniversary, rising Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi reported yesterday that it broke its own flash-sale record, selling more than two million phones within 12 hours, reportedly generating around $335 million in revenue. The secret to its success besides hunger marketing? A loyal fan base built from smart marketing.

The flash sale, as part of Xiaomi’s “Mi Fan Festival”, is a tried-and-true tactic for the company to leverage its zealous fan base. Besides flash sales, the company also builds up loyalty by routinely hosting exclusive parties and sponsoring festivals for fans across the country, and systematically rewarding fans that volunteer to answer questions on online community forums.

Moreover, savvy social media marketing has also played a big role in Xiaomi’s outreach and community-building efforts. Xiaomi’s page on the Chinese microblog Weibo currently has over 10.7 million followers, and the company typically announces its flash sales and other updates on its social media platforms as well as on popular messaging app WeChat.

Still, Xiaomi’s ambitious expansion into certain international markets so far has been met with lackluster responses, and a major reason behind such underwhelming performance is that its marketing doesn’t translate well across nations. Without a fan base to hype up its products, Xiaomi suffers from low brand recognition and loyalty in oversea markets. It’ll be interesting to see if the company sticks with its usual marketing tactics, or try something more localized instead.

 

 

Global Watch: Apple’s Big Bet On The Chinese Market

Posted on by Richard Yao

Yesterday’s Apple Event brought a few surprises, such as a skinny gold MacBook and a new SDK for medical researchers. One thing, however, was clear from the start—Apple is really going after the Chinese market.

From the prominently featured Chinese consumers in various promo videos shown throughout the event, down to the deliberate choice of Tencent’s WeChat in the on-stage Apple Watch demo, Apple is sending a clear message to the Chinese market. And the Cupertino-based company certainly has good reasons to do so. As the biggest global market with over 520 million active smartphone users, China has become the fastest-growing and third-biggest revenue source for Apple, partly thanks to its recent retail expansion in the country.

Even though the gold Apple Watch Edition is already being widely ridiculed for its $10,000 price tag, luxury experts are pointing out the target market that Apple has in mind could very well be the 2.4 million newly-minted Chinese millionaires, a number that’s expected to double by 2018. Add in the fact that Chinese culture has a longstanding appreciation for gold as status symbol, Apple might just hit jackpot in China with the gold watch.

Guess Which Major Global Market Is Getting Free Internet From Facebook

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TechCrunch

Following recent launches in Colombia and several African countries, Facebook’s charitable plan of entering emerging global mobile markets continues, with India becoming the newest country to receive free mobile Internet services provided by Facebook’s Internet.org project. Partnered with local operator Reliance, the service is currently limited to six states, but Facebook states that it is looking to provide Internet access to over one billion unconnected Indian consumers soon.

 

Global Watch: What Baidu’s $600M Investment Would Mean For Uber

Posted on by Richard Yao

Despite the storm of controversies surrounding its privacy policy and a string of recent PR crisis, Uber still managed to raise an impressive $1.2 billion in funding earlier this month. Last week it was reportedly set to receive up to $600 million investment from China’s Google, Baidu Inc., presumably for its long-rumored expansion into the Asian market. Today Baidu has confirmed its investment.

Why Baidu Wants Uber

The Chinese ride-on-demand market is currently dominated by Kuaidi Dache and Didi Dache, respectively backed by Alibaba and Tencent. Up until this point, Baidu is the only one out of the BAT— Baidu-Alibaba-Tencent, a popular acronym in China denoting their dominance as top Internet companies—that has been holding off on entering the burgeoning market. By bringing in Uber, Baidu would not have to build a ride-hailing app from scratch, but would  instead use Uber’s well-built app and mature infrastructure to compete with its rivals.

Additionally, Baidu is most likely hoping that Uber would improve the lukewarm performance of its mobile payment app, Baidu Wallet, so as to compete with Alipay, the formidable digital payment system backed by Alibaba, or even WeChat Wallet, embedded by Tencent in its massively popular messaging app.

Why Uber Needs Baidu More

For Uber, investment from Baidu would mean it might finally be getting the localization it desperately needs to conquer the much-coveted Chinese market. Beijing, for example, only has around 66,000 licensed cabs at service for its vast population of over 20 million. The Alibaba-backed Kuaidi app alone posted online payment revenue of $2 billion over the past year. And Uber could definitely use Baidu’s massive local clout to navigate this huge, yet highly regulated market. One more benefit for Uber is the integration of Baidu Map. Google Map, which Uber currently uses for across all markets, isn’t the best on the market, similar to Apple Map here in the US.

The Bottom Line

Baidu needs Uber as a convenient proxy to make its long-awaited first move in the on-demand car market, just as much as Uber needs Baidu’s local dominance and expertise. The market might already be congested considering the two local apps from formidable rivals have taken off, but with Baidu’s help, Uber’s ride into the Chinese market might just get significantly less bumpy.

Photo courtesy of Uber