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Tablets in Vietnam

New data published by GfK shows that there has been double-digit growth in sales of entry level tablets.

Three out of every four tablets sold in 2015 cost less than US$300 compared to just one in two in 2014.

This has caused the overall value of the tablet market to shrink by around 5%, despite an increase in demand for the devices.

Top end tablets (those costing more than US$500) now account for 14% of the market, down from 29% last year.

Amazon invests US$5bn in India

Amazon is set to invest US$5bn in a bid to expand its presence in India.

The ecommerce giant reportedly wants to make India its biggest market outside the US.

Most of the money will be spent on building additional warehouses and data centres.

According to the Economic Times Amazon is also planning to launch Amazon Prime in India later this year.

Unengaged followers

Brand-based social media updates achieve extremely low levels of engagement in Southeast Asia according to new data from Edelman.

Only Vietnam scores double-digit engagement rates for brand-based content (25%), compared to 1.17% in Thailand, 0.29% in Indonesia and 0.55% in Singapore.

Flipkart goes app-only

India’s largest ecommerce firm has announced that as of September it will only operate via its mobile app.

Flipkart said that it aims to reduce costs by getting rid of its desktop site, which will help to it create new revenue streams within the app.

The company already achieves around 75% of total traffic from its mobile app.

Aussie brands fall short on CX

Australian brands are failing to implement a coherent customer experience strategy, according to a new survey from Salmat.

A poll of 288 customer experience professionals found that more than a third (37%) of customer interactions are currently self-service, a figure that is predicted to grow to 61% by 2020.

However only 22% of respondents said they had a proper strategy for dealing with this change, with 38% of this group admitting that their plan doesn’t fully address the customer lifecycle.

A further 31% said they had a plan that isn’t always followed, while 13% have no strategy at all.

Walmart seeks to grow Chinese online presence

Walmart has bought the remaining 49% of Chinese ecommerce site Yihaodian as it seeks to increase its online presence in the country.

According to an official statement:

With full ownership of Yihaodian, Walmart plans to invest in both accelerating ecommerce and creating a seamless experience for customers across online, mobile and stores.

Mobile use in China

Mobile will account for a third (32.9%) of the average Chinese person’s daily media time, according to a new report.

This equates to more than two hours per day. Digital media in general now accounts for just over half (50.4%) of China’s daily media time.

China is now ahead of both the US (46.7%) and the UK (48.6%) in this regard.

Since 2011 the amount of time spent on digital media in China has grown from 1 hour 47 minutes to 3 hours 5 minutes.

Hong Kong residents use mobile search mainly while commuting

People in Hong Kong mainly use mobile search while commuting (75%) or in the home (73%).

While at work usage of mobile search falls to 58%, according to a study of 1,000 mobile users published by Yahoo Hong Kong Advertising.

The research also found that 58% of respondents would click on a search ad and nearly two-thirds (65%) said the small screen deters them from scrolling down for more results.

Australians quick to adopt programmatic

Australia leads the world in the programmatic ad space, even beating out the US market in digital video programmatic advertising.

Programmatic display adspend in Australia is predicted to reach US$274m in 2015, recording year-on-year growth of 24.9% and accounting for 73.6% of online display advertising.

Globally the market is worth $9bn, a figure that is predicted to rise to $30bn by 2019.

Alibaba and Unilever join forces

Unilever has formed a partnership with Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba as part of its expansion plans in the country.

The partnership will go beyond product sales to include innovation in distribution channels, big data analytics, cross-border commerce, logistics and digital advertising.

It will give Unilever greater access to China’s rural population.

To celebrate the new deal Tmall hosted Unilever Week from July 22 to 24.

4G drives Chinese mobile growth

Smartphone adoption in China as a proportion of overall mobile connections reached 62% in Q1 2015 and is predicted to rise to 68% by the end of the year.

The data comes from GSMA Intelligence, which said that the increase has been driven by investment in 4G networks by Chinese mobile operators.

Chinese phone manufacturers are also contributing to the increasing use of 4G, as 70% of new handset models support the faster data speed compared to a global average of 40%.