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How big are mobile payments in China? Nearly $1.6 trillion in transactions were made in 2013.

Feb18
by on February 18, 2014 at 6:55 am
Posted In: Around the Web, Asia, mobile payments

181281525 520x245 How big are mobile payments in China? Nearly $1.6 trillion in transactions were made in 2013.

There’s been a lot of talk about how mobile payments are on the rise in China – and now statistics from the People’s Bank of China have shed some light on how huge the industry is (hat/tip TechNode).

In 2013, the central bank handled a total of 1.67 billion mobile payment transactions worth a whopping CNY9.64 trillion ($1.6 trillion), according to the latest statistics. In an indication of the skyrocketing popularity of mobile payments in China, the number of transactions soared 213 percent year-on-year while the transaction value leaped by 317 percent.

(The initial number of transactions was noted wrongly and we’ve corrected it accordingly.)

Mobile payments grew the fastest among all the e-payment methods recorded by the central bank last year — which include online payments via computers, as well as telephone payments.

Compared to mobile payments, the value of e-payment transactions in total increased by only 29.46 percent — to reach CNY1,075 trillion ($177 trillion) in 2013. 

Mobile payments have been thrust into the limelight especially after Chinese Internet giant Tencent rolled out an update to its mobile messaging app Weixin (known as WeChat outside of China) that incorporated payments. Subsequently, early this year, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba integrated its payments service with ‘China’s Twitter’ Sina Weibo, so users can connect their Alipay accounts with their Weibo accounts and buy items without having to log in.

Throughout 2013, there has been plenty of evidence that mobile payments in China were gaining importance among Chinese shoppers — just take a look at the statistics provided by Alibaba. In October 2013, Alibaba said that about 25,000 Alipay mobile transactions took place every minute, resulting in a daily transaction value of more than CNY20 billion ($3.3 billion) on Alipay. During its 11.11 shopping festival, Alibaba also revealed that about 21 percent of orders were being placed via mobile devices — up from a mere 5 percent a year earlier.

China ended last year with 618 million Internet users and 500 million mobile Internet users, according to a report published by state-affiliated research organization China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). With the sheer volume of mobile Internet users, this will no doubt aid the mobile payments industry, which is only set to grow rapidly given that e-commerce is shaping up to be the future for chat apps.

Headline image via Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

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Microsoft is mapping shanty towns in Brazil, in a first step to getting them online

Feb18
by on February 18, 2014 at 4:30 am
Posted In: Around the Web, bing, Brazil, Latin America

157634224 Microsoft is mapping shanty towns in Brazil, in a first step to getting them onlineMicrosoft has started a project to map shanty towns in Brazil, known as favelas, as it seeks to “reduce the digital divide across the world.”

According to an announcement made on Microsoft’s Bing blog, bringing mapping infrastructure to these communities means that local economies can take advantage of localized information that is present online — which would help them to “fully participate in the digital town square in ways that many of us in the developed online world take for granted.”

Microsoft is optimistic that by putting Brazil’s favelas on the online map, it could even lead to building out something like Foursquare (which Microsoft just invested $15 million in) — an ambitious plan, but an optimistic glimpse at the future regardless, given that there has already been plenty of organic Internet activity in such shanty towns.

As part of its efforts to narrow the digital divide globally, Microsoft’s search engine Bing is also taking part in the Global Innovation Summit, which brings together stakeholders to explore the potential in these communities.

➤ Finding an Address for the Next Wave of Innovators [Bing blog]

Image via Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images

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VO5 and BRIT Awards become the first UK brands to use Twitter Amplify programme

Feb18
by on February 18, 2014 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider, Social Media

tweet hashtag 520x245 VO5 and BRIT Awards become the first UK brands to use Twitter Amplify programme

UK styling brand VO5 has teamed up with The Brit Awards 2014 to become the first brands in the UK to use Twitter’s ‘Amplify’ program to spur fan engagement across the social network.

This year, the BRIT Awards is being broadcast live on ITV in the UK on February 19 and in a bid to increase awareness, sharing and general virality of the event, 60-90 second video clips from the live show will be posted via the Brit Awards 2014 official Twitter channel. Co-sponsoring the campaign is VO5, which has custom-branded pre- and post-roll clips for each video shared in this way.

As well as providing highlights from the night, the videos will also include highlights from before and after the ceremony and perfomances. Naturally, you can expect all manor of custom hashtags, in-video banners and promoted tweets to all play a part in the proceedings too. Something a little like below, but for music at the BRIT Awards.

In addition to the promoted Twitter activity, VO5 has also created  an interactive hub and collaborative user-generated playlist on Spotify. Ads will also run across Spotify, driving yet more people to the VO5 hub with the chance of winning prizes like a year of Spotify Premium or a year’s supply of VO5 products, or at least that’s the idea. While some previous campaigns have included a small amount of content aimed at the UK, this is the first specific UK deal with a UK content owner and advertiser, a Twitter spokesperson told us.

Since launching Twitter Amplify in May last year with 12 brands, Twitter is now working with more than 30 companies to deliver real-time, in-tweet video clips and the associated marketing, including the French TV channel TF1. However, many of the remaining companies are US-based, like ESPN and the US Tennis Association, so it’s good to see Twitter making some headway with enticing more brands to use Amplify for audiences outside of the US.

Related reading – From Twttr to TV: Twitter’s NFL deal is the perfect tonic ahead of its IPO

Featured Image Credit – Shutterstock

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