LINE vs WhatsApp

Techinasia.com produced some stunning charts to demonstrate the revenue generated by Asian messenger apps.

Though the Facebook-owned WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world, it pales in comparison to LINE when it comes to revenue.

LINE’s revenue comes from digital stickers, merchandise, virtual goods, and advertising, and is a function of just how broad messaging app functionality is in APAC.

chat app users

line revenue

Virtual reality revenue in China

Analysys International Enfodesk reports that revenue associated with virtual reality hit nearly $29m in 2015.

This is a 400% increase on 2014 spending, with a similar increase predicted in 2016.

Over 8bn WeChat ‘red envelope’ payments on Chinese New Year

Considering there are only 1.25bn people in China, this is a staggering statistic.

Many publishers added some context by comparing to PayPal’s 4.9bn payments over the entirety of 2015.

Chart via Quartz.

wechat payments

Japanese Adspend survived flat economy in 2015

Dentsu’s survey of advertising in 2015 showed a 0.3% increase on 2014 spending (up to nearly 6.2bn yen), despite no economic growth.

Advertising online was the driver for growth, with traditional media suffering drops in spending.

The breakdown by medium is as follows:

  • Newspapers – down 6.2%.
  • Magazines – down 2.3%.
  • Radio – down 1.4%.
  • Television – down 1.2%.
  • Internet advertising – up 10.2%.

Aussies would welcome mobile ads in return for cheaper tariffs

37% of Australian smartphone users aged 14 and over would welcome cheaper bills subsidised by ads served when unlocking their phone.

The study, by Roy Morgan Research and reported in B&T Magazine, suggests that this value exchange could be set to grow, building on the example of Lebara.

In October 2015, Lebara partnered with Unlockd in Melbourne, allowing users to install an app and watch ads in return for rewards.

Chart via B&T

aussies mobile users that would accept ads for cheaper bills

Magazines in Australia are suffering

Another useful article in B&T Magazine details the hits in sales taken by some Bauer Media titles in the last six months of 2015.

Here are the declines in sales for a number of its mags:

  • Australian’s Women’s Weekly – down 7.3%
  • Woman’s Day – down 13%
  • Cosmopolitan – down 21.7%
  • Dolly – down 30.8%
  • Girlfriend – down 16.5%

The rise of Tmall Global

Tmall Global revenue rose 179% in the quarter to the end of 2015, compared with the same period in 2014.

The platform allows Western merchants to sell directly to mainland Chinese consumers.

tmall global

ANZ advertising

AdRoll’s State of the Industry 2016 survey report revealed the following key insights about marketers in Australia and New Zealand:

  • Marketers are investing in programmatic. 68% of those surveyed spent between 10%-50% of their ad budgets on programmatic.
  • 53% of marketers using mobile retargeting, showing a majority that think mobile-first. Half of these plan to increase investment in 2016.
  • Attribution is still seeing adoption issues. 49% of marketers say better multi-touch attribution modelling is the future of attribution, though only 39% currently use this method.

Social media usage by country

Finally, one we missed from last month. Digital agency We Are Social presents GlobalWebIndex data from Q4 2015 showing average hours spent on social media per day by nation.

As you can see, the Japanese spend a healthy 18 minutes per day on social, whereas those in the Philippines are cracking on for almost four hours on social media every day.

(click to enlarge)

wearesocial data