Thursday 31 July 2014

Xiaomi is the 5th largest smartphine vendor in the world

"According to the latest research from our WSS (Smartphones) service, global smartphone shipments grew 27 percent annually to reach 295 million units in the second quarter of 2014. Xiaomi was the star performer, capturing a record 5 percent marketshare and becoming the world’s fifth largest smartphone vendor for the first time ever.
Global smartphone shipments grew 27 percent annually from 233.0 million units in Q2 2013 to 295.2 million in Q2 2014. Smartphone growth was mixed on a regional basis during the quarter, with healthy demand in Asia and Africa counterbalanced by sluggish volumes across North America and Europe due to changes in the operator subsidy mix."
Source:  Data from Strategy Analytics, reported in their blog, 31st July 2014
Note - lots more info in the full release

Wednesday 30 July 2014

Google's paid clicks went up 25% Y-o-Y in Q2 2014

"Paid Clicks - Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our Network members, increased approximately 25% over the second quarter of 2013 and increased approximately 2% over the first quarter of 2014. Sites paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads we serve on Google owned and operated properties across different geographies and form factors including search, YouTube engagement ads like TrueView, and other owned and operated properties like Maps and Finance, increased approximately 33% over the second quarter of 2013 and increased approximately 6% over the first quarter of 2014. Network paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on non-Google properties participating in our AdSense for Search, AdSense for Content, and AdMob businesses, increased approximately 9% over the second quarter of 2013 and decreased approximately 5% over the first quarter of 2014.
Cost-Per-Click - Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our Network members, decreased approximately 6% over the second quarter of 2013 and remained constant from the first quarter of 2014. Cost-per-click for Google sites decreased approximately 7% over the second quarter of 2013 and decreased approximately 2% over the first quarter of 2014. Network cost-per-click decreased approximately 13% over the second quarter of 2013 and increased approximately 3% over the first quarter of 2014."

The typical online media order process



Source:  Bionic Ads, May 2011, retrieved July 2014
Note - the point it's making is that it's very complicated, and that since a dozen roles carry out 42 stages, there is a benefit to more automated or 'programmatic' trading

Mobile ad revenue is 81% of Twitter's total ad revenue

"Revenue – Revenue for the second quarter of 2014 totaled $312 million, an increase of 124% compared to $139 million in the same period last year.
Advertising revenue totaled $277 million, an increase of 129% year-over-year.
Mobile advertising revenue was 81% of total advertising revenue.
Data licensing and other revenue totaled $35 million, an increase of 90% year-over-year.
International revenue totalled $102 million, an increase of 168% year-over-year.
International revenue was 33% of total revenue."
Source:  Twitter's Q2 2014 Results, 29th July 2014

Twitter has 271m monthly active users, and 211m mobile monthly active users

"Average Monthly Active Users (MAUs) were 271 million as of June 30, 2014, an increase of 24% year-over-year.
Mobile MAUs reached 211 million in the second quarter of 2014, an increase of 29% year-over-year, representing 78% of total MAUs.
Timeline views reached 173 billion for the second quarter of 2014, an increase of 15% year-over-year.
Advertising revenue per thousand timeline views reached $1.60 in the second quarter of 2014, an increase of 100% year-over-year.
Advertising revenue totaled $277 million, an increase of 129% year-over-year.
Mobile advertising revenue was 81% of total advertising revenue.
Data licensing and other revenue totaled $35 million, an increase of 90% year-over-year.
International revenue totaled $102 million, an increase of 168% year-over-year.
International revenue was 33% of total revenue.
Net loss – GAAP net loss was $145 million for the second quarter of 2014 compared to a net loss of $42 million in the same period last year. Twitter's GAAP net loss included $158 million of stock-based compensation expense."
Source:  Twitter's Q2 2014 Results, 29th July 2014

Monday 28 July 2014

The number of cinema screens in China grew by nearly 9,000 in 18 months

"Hollywood’s fascination with China is only just beginning. In the past year and a half since the end of 2012, the number of movie screens in China increased by more than the total number of screens in France, growing from 13,185 to 22,000, according to a report of the China Film Industry. Crucially, for the moment Chinese audiences are not too choosy. “The film market in China is like an experimental supermarket – with more and more racks but only one product” says Zhang Xiaobei, founder of a review programme on CCTV. “The viewers don’t care what they see as long as it’s a film. They’ll watch whatever is put in front of them.”"

Facebook ad prices more than doubled last quarter

"The News Feed is becoming expensive territory as more users spend time on mobile devices where that’s the only advertising space. (no right-hand rail advertising on the small screen.)
The more than doubling of the cost of ad units was “driven by the shift toward mobile usage where people are shown fewer ads compared to desktop,” David Wehner, Facebook’s chief financial officer, told analysts in a call today following results.
Facebook showed 25 percent fewer ads last quarter, so the boom in revenue comes even as the number of ads decline.
Facebook has more than 1 billion mobile users and 62 percent of ad spending falls under that category—$1.66 billion last quarter."

Shakira is the first person to reach 100 million 'Likes' on Facebook

"Shakira has become the first person to attract more than 100 million fans on Facebook, becoming the most "liked" celebrity on the social network in the process.
The Colombian singer, who recently performed at the closing ceremony of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, stands ahead of Eminem and Rihanna, who have amassed 91.9 million and 89 million fans respectively.
The number of fans a person has on Facebook is measured by how many people have chosen to "like" their page and follow updates from it."
Source:  The Guardian, 20th July 2014
See her page here

Fewer than one third of online American consumers use digital wallets

"A surprisingly high number of U.S. consumers recognize digital wallets as an alternative to cash-based transactions however usage remains at less than one-third, according to a new study from Thrive Analytics, a local search and digital marketing research and customer engagement strategy consulting firm. The 2014 Digital Wallet Usage Study revealed that despite nearly 80 percent of consumers being aware of digital wallets—including major players like PayPal, Google Wallet, Apple Passbook—security concerns remain the main barrier to adoption, followed by lack of usability vs. credit cards/cash (37 percent) and not being top of mind as a form of payment at the time of purchase (32 percent).
Results of the 2014 Digital Wallet Usage Study were compiled by Thrive Analytics from an online survey of more than 2,000 U.S. smartphone, tablet and desktop users in June 2014.
“An overwhelming majority of consumers acknowledge the presence of digital wallets, however a minority have actually used them despite fewer shoppers carrying cash today,” said Jason Peaslee, managing partner, Thrive Analytics. “This paradox presents a vast opportunity for both digital wallet providers and retailers to educate consumers on the unique benefits of the digital wallet shopping experience. The key to increasing consumer and overall market adoption is understanding and operationalizing critical demographic usage profiles and purchase patterns.”
Demographics Matter; Consumers Carry Less Cash than Ever Before
Looking further into digital wallet usage, demographics matter. Key findings from the survey indicate consumers are carrying less cash today, especially on-the-go females, with 50 percent of all consumers carrying less than $20 on a regular basis. Of the survey respondents who carry no cash at all, three out of four are under the age of 40. Also, nearly 60 percent of all digital wallet users are male despite carrying more cash than females. Females (18-29) tend to use merchant digital wallet apps such as Target, Macy’s and Home Depot more often than males to look for discounts/coupons (72 percent) and price shop (56 percent). When males use merchant apps, they tend to browse and engage in service related activities like paying bills and looking up retailers’ product and contact information.
Device Usage and Vendor Platforms Matter
Other critical study findings showed that the majority of digital wallet transactions are conducted on mobile devices (60 percent) and 3 out of 4 transactions under $10 are done weekly via a mobile phone. Typical products purchased with digital wallets include coffee/drinks, retail items, games and books, as well as groceries.
The top digital wallets used are PayPal (79 percent) Google Wallet (40 percent) and Apple Passbook (17 percent) with Google Wallet leading the large transaction pack with purchases of $30 or more (35 percent). Further, 70 percent of digital wallet users take advantage of one or more digital wallets at least monthly, and daily digital wallet users tend to use more types of digital wallets (3) than infrequent users (1).
Added Peaslee, “Retailers need to expand payment acceptance options via leading digital wallets to capture all possible sales and show customers their commitment in investing in a variety of secure mobile payment types.”"

Sky has 5.7m connected TV homes in the UK

"Sky connected three million Sky+HD boxes to broadband between June 2013 and 2014, more than doubling the base of connected homes to 5.7 million.
This means more than half of all Sky TV subscribers can now stream content over the web to their main television set.
"Our focus in the last 12 months has been on driving take-up and usage of connected TV services to enable more customers to benefit from a much richer entertainment experience," Sky stated.
"The investment we have made to put Sky at the heart of the ‘connected home’ has delivered results."
Sky said the rapid roll-out of connected TV has driven a threefold increase in on-demand viewing.
The service provider claimed its expanded Box Sets offering has proved "particularly popular".
"Box Set usage grew rapidly throughout the year to hit 86 million downloads in Q4 2014, a fourfold increase year-on-year," Sky noted.
"With more than 250 Box Sets now available on Sky and more of the latest titles than anyone else in the market, titles like '24' and 'Grey’s Anatomy' achieved over ten million downloads each.""

Thursday 24 July 2014

American Facebook users spend around 40 minutes a day using the service

"American Facebook users spend way more time on the social network than exercising. Mark Zuckerberg said today on Facebook’s Q2 earnings call that “people on Facebook in the US spend around 40 minutes each day using our service”, while the CDC recommends Americans exercise 21 minutes a day but only 20% of people meet that goal.
Zuckerberg said that the 40 minutes a day on Facebook account for one in five minutes spent on mobile in the US. Yet Facebook’s CEO sees plenty of room to grow, as he said “overall people in the US spend nine hours per day engaging with digital media with TV, phones and computers” and called this a “Big opportunity to improve the way people can share”. With 204 million monthly users on Facebook in the US and Canada, it could earn a lot of money by inching up that engagement time per day."

Facebook's revenue per user by region in Q2 2014


Source:  Charts from Facebook's Q2 2014 Results, 23rd July 2014

Facebook has 399 million mobile-only active monthly users



Source:  Charts from Facebook's Q2 2014 Results, 23rd July 2014

Facebook makes 62% of its ad revenues from mobile ads

"Facebook Inc. on Wednesday put to rest any lingering doubts about its ability to transform its business into a mobile-advertising juggernaut.
The social network reported that profit more than doubled and revenue topped estimates for the ninth straight quarter. About 62% of Facebook's ad revenue now comes from advertising on mobile devices, which this year is expected to eclipse newspapers, magazines and radio in the U.S. for the first time, according to eMarketer.
Facebook also continued to show it can weather concerns that it is losing its "cool" factor among teens or irking users worried about privacy. Facebook added another 40 million users in the second quarter, with one-fifth of the world's population now logging into the social network at least once a month.
"This is a good quarter for us," said Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on a conference call with analysts Wednesday, but "there's still so much room to grow," he said.
Facebook's revenue rose 61% to $2.91 billion in the second quarter, generating a profit of $791 million, up from $333 million a year ago."
Source:  WSJ, 23rd July 2014

Facebook has 1.32bn monthly active users, inc 1.07bn mobile monthly active users

"Daily active users (DAUs) were 829 million on average for June 2014, an increase of 19% year-over-year.
Mobile DAUs were 654 million on average for June 2014, an increase of 39% year-over-year.
Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.32 billion as of June 30, 2014, an increase of 14% year-over-year.
Mobile MAUs were 1.07 billion as of June 30, 2014, an increase of 31% year-over-year."

Apple sold 35.2m iPhones and 13.3m iPads in Q3 2014

"Apple has released its financial results for Q3 2014 (the three-month period ended 28 June), with revenues of $37.4bn (£21.9bn), up 5.9 per cent year-on-year but falling short of analysts’ expectations of $38bn.
Net profits for the quarter stood at $7.7bn, up 11.6 per cent.
Apple sold 35.2m iPhones, up 13 per cent over last year, and 13.3m iPads, down nine per cent. Apple reported that 59 per cent of the quarter’s revenues came from international sales, with particularly strong growth in the Middle East, China, and India.
Software and services revenue was $1.9bn, up 19 per cent, with the App Store topping a cumulative 75bn downloads."

Wednesday 23 July 2014

Over 25,000 people earn an income from doing TaksRabbit tasks

"TaskRabbit is revolutionizing how work gets done. And we’ve already come a long way this year – since January, our task posting volume has grown by 50 percent. Last year, we acquired 1.25 million new users and are on track to double that in 2014. We now have over 25,000 people earning an income on our site, with 10 percent running tasks as a full-time job."

Desktop accounts for 70% of paid search spend

"Desk­tops now rep­re­sent 70% of paid search (com­pared to 77% in August 2013) while mobile/smartphones account for 30%. Cur­rent trends indi­cate that the share for desk­tops will con­tinue to decline and hit 60% of paid search by the end of 2014 due to the organic increase of smart­phone adop­tion. The uptick in smart­phone adop­tion and usage can be attrib­uted to bet­ter WiFi avail­abil­ity, greater mobile data band­width, and improved mobile land­ing pages, site and app expe­ri­ences con­ducive to bet­ter facil­i­tate mobile shop­ping. For the UK, mobile adop­tion has out­paced the U.S. (64%) with desk­tops only account­ing for 56% of all paid search spend. Tablets account for a quar­ter of all search spend and mobile rose to almost 20% (from just 11% ten months earlier)."
Source:  Data from Adobe, reported on it's blog, 16th July 2014
Methodology
"Based on adver­tiser data across key ver­ti­cals in the U.S., U.K. and Ger­many, we looked at the var­i­ous ad for­mats from Google includ­ing Prod­uct List­ing Ads (PLAs) – which are becom­ing part of Google Shop­ping – to see how they’re per­form­ing for adver­tis­ers. The analy­sis is based on the most com­pre­hen­sive set of indus­try data includ­ing $2+ bil­lion of annual man­aged search spend of 500+ Adobe Media Opti­mizer cus­tomers and 200+ bil­lion search impressions."
Note - lots more data in the blog post

China has 632m internet users, including 527m mobile internet users

"The number of people who surf the Internet via mobile devices in China has for the first time exceeded the number using computers to go online, an industry report said on Monday.
The number increased by 14.42 million over the past six months, so that now 83.4 percent of China’s Internet surfers are using mobile phones to go online, according to the report issued by the China Internet Network Information Center, a government-backed industry administrative body.
The total number of Chinese netizens was 632 million by the end of June, 527 million of whom logged onto the World Wide Web through their smartphones, the report said.
It is the first time that the number of mobile Internet users has surpassed that of those surfing the Web in traditional ways, such as with personal computers and laptops, said Liu Bing, deputy director with the CINIC.
"In other words, the mobile phone can be regarded as the key terminal device for Chinese to get online,” he said.
As the mobile network has taken the lead in the country’s Internet development, its status has also become firmer among netizens, he said.
The increasing number of smartphone owners has driven a rapid rise in e-commerce, instant messaging and entertainment applications, “which reflects a diverse demand of netizens”, he said.
According to the report, the number of users who use mobile phones to make payments has increased 63.4 percent from January to June, with the growth of payment apps likewise surging in that period.
{...}
People aged 20 to 40 are the main mobile Internet users, Yin said, adding that they are more likely to try new applications.
She said she does not think that mobile devices will replace computers. “Instead, different Internet users will find their own channels to get online and apps will be promoted in accordance with their various demands,” she said."

Vulfpeck's silent album Sleepify eearned $20,000 in royalties from Spotify

"Los Angeles groove band Vulfpeck’s silent album ‘Sleepify’ may have been a mere prank intended to rack up play counts and royalties, or perhaps it was a more sophisticated act of digital performance art. It's definitely been a rocky road -- but either way, the inaudible ten-track recording has delivered the band a very real payout from Spotify of nearly $20,000, and the band is proceeding with plans to book a U.S. tour.
During its seven-week life on Spotify during March and April, ‘Sleepify’ garnered about 5.5 million plays, according to a royalty statement shared by keyboardist Jack Stratton. At payouts that varied from $0.0030 to $0.0038 per play for the short tracks, the band’s final two-month take from Spotify was $19,655.56 -- not bad for a record consisting of about five minutes’ quiet time. (That figure doesn’t count the payouts for Los Angeles-based Vulfpeck’s more tuneful records, which received smaller play counts and royalties. One cut from the band’s 2013 album ‘My First Car’ has surpassed 120,000 total plays, and several others have more than 40,000.) Moreover, Stratton said the band is anticipating another $0.0002 per stream for copyright payouts -- about $1,100."

Monday 21 July 2014

McKinsey & Company projected that there would be 900,000 mobile subscribers in the US by 2000

"In 1980, McKinsey & Company was commissioned by AT&T (whose Bell Labs had invented cellular telephony) to forecast cell phone penetration in the U.S. by 2000. The consultant’s prediction, 900,000 subscribers, was less than 1% of the actual figure, 109 Million. Based on this legendary mistake, AT&T decided there was not much future to these toys. A decade later, to rejoin the cellular market, AT&T had to acquire McCaw Cellular for $12.6 Billion. By 2011, the number of subscribers worldwide had surpassed 5 Billion and cellular communication had become an unprecedented technological revolution."
Source:  A blog post by Professor Angel Lozano, retrieved 21st July 2014
Note - lots of other great examples of faulty prediction in the same post

3 Tweets a day should mean 30% of followers are exposed to one of an account's tweets each week

"[...] We saw that brands that tweet two to three times per day can typically reach an audience size that’s equal to 30% of their follower base during a given week. This indicates that Tweet consistency is a key factor when it comes to maximizing your organic reach on Twitter.
When brands pair consistent tweeting with engaging content, there’s potential for even higher organic reach. In fact, Wheat Thins (@WheatThins) achieved organic reach equal to 95% of their follower base by tweeting 2x a day per week, while Trident (@TridentGum) saw organic reach that was 5x greater than their follower base by tweeting 3x per day."

The average US smartphone user spends over 30 hours a month using apps



Source:  Data from Nielsen, reported in a blog post, 1st July 2014
Note - Total time spent with apps per user - 30 hours, 15 minutes - is 50% higher than two years ago
Note - Apps includes games

More than 2 million 'Yos' are sent each day

"Since its launch in April, the Israel-founded startup has grown to more than 2 million downloads. Co-founder Moshe Hogeg says users are sending more than 2 million "Yos" per day. A new version of the app will be launched before the end of the month. Yo currently has three employees."
Source:  Business Insider, 18th July 2014

Wednesday 16 July 2014

Relative crime levels by district correlate with the relative number of Uber rides

"You’ll notice that we do the most San Francisco trips in the downtown and SoMa areas. These also happen to be large, densely populated regions, so that’s to be expected. So in our spatial demand predictions we clearly need to take into account population density.
But there’s a catch. While neighborhood population density might account for some of the variance in our demand, we also need to take into account where people are hanging out, going to work, etc. This is different from census data. Where people live, where people work, and where people play are (usually) in very different neighborhoods in a densely populated city.
So we needed a simple surrogate metric for where people are. We could do that by counting the number of businesses or bars or whatever in a neighborhood… but we had a better idea.
Crime.
We hypothesized that crime would be a proxy for non-residential population density.
According to the data from San Francisco Crimespotting (HUGE shout-out to Stamen Design for the data; you guys are awesome!), there were 75,488 crimes in San Francisco since Uber’s launch on 2010 June 01. These crime data are broken down into 12 categories: murder, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, arson, theft, vehicle theft, burglary, vandalism, narcotics, alcohol, and prostitution.
If it looks kind of like the trips map to you, that’s because the two are decently correlated (r = 0.56, p < 0.001). (For you math sticklers, crime and trip data are log distributed by neighborhood, so all correlations are Spearman rank correlations, but log-log Pearson correlations give approximately the same results).
Neighborhoods with more crime (more people hanging out) have more Uber rides.
But we also wanted to know if any specific crimes might be better predictors of rides than others.
To examine this we looked at the correlation between the number of each type of crime and the number of trips we’ve done in each neighborhood. All types of crime except murder, vehicle theft, and arson were positively correlated with number of trips. After correcting for multiple comparisons, four crimes remained significantly correlated (p < 0.05, Bonferroni corrected):
Prostitution
Alcohol
Theft
Burglary
In other words:
The parts of San Francisco that have the most prostitution, alcohol, theft, and burglary also have the most Uber rides! Party hard but be safe, Uberites!"
Note - the key point is that crime levels are a good proxy for non-residential population density

Monday 14 July 2014

Online ad spend in Russia grew 27% in 2013

"IAB Europe, in association with IHS Technology, has launched the AdEx Benchmark 2013 Report* – the definitive guide to the state of the European online advertising market.
The report is a comprehensive perspective of online advertising spend across Europe which is growing ever important in light of the development of digital business, policy formulation, the increasingly pan-regional nature of digital advertising investments and the contextualisation of European markets within a wider global framework. This report is a response to these challenges and requirements. Since its inception in 2006, the number of participating countries has doubled, recognising the importance of this task.
This year the report reveals that online advertising grew 11.9% to a market value of €27.3bn in 2013 and it is not only the developing markets which are leading this growth. Mature markets which have benefited from innovation in online advertising technology are also driving growth, demonstrating the industry’s sustainability.
Top 10 Rankings – year-on-year growth
1. Russia – 26.8%
2. Turkey – 24.3%
3. Slovakia – 17.3%
4. UK – 16.2%
5. Hungary – 16.0%
6. Austria – 15.7%
7. Norway – 14.7%
8. Serbia – 13.4%
9. Italy - 13.3%
10. Romania – 13.0%
Since IAB Europe began documenting the size of the European online advertising market in 2006, spend has grown every year. Online remains second largest media category in Europe for the second year in a row and the gap between online and newspapers is expected to widen in 2014.
Online advertising grew across all formats in 2013. Format standardisation, advancements in targeting and the upsurge of online video advertising increased confidence in display advertising triggering new spend, particularly from brand advertisers.
Display advertising saw the highest level of growth (up 14.9% from 2012) with social media and mobile driving this rise. In 2013, for the first time, mobile accounted for a double-digit proportion of total display ad spend at 11.8%. Mobile is now an integral part of advertiser’s budgets – with mobile internet penetration increasing significantly across all of Europe the mobile medium is a more attractive space in which advertisers can reach their audience.
Townsend Feehan, CEO of IAB Europe “The report shows not only continued migration of some traditional media spend to digital, but more importantly the creation of new advertising opportunities within digital via the increasing penetration and sophistication of programmatic trading, mobile and video advertising. As brand advertisers realise the potential of the online channel IAB Europe envisages an increase in programmatic trading of premium digital advertising, including video.”
Online video advertising showed strong growth, increasing by 45.4% in 2013, to nearly €1.2 billion. Video advertising is attracting more brand advertisers online with video advertising resembling TV advertising in terms of creative format, campaign objectives and measurement metrics.
Daniel Knapp, Director of Advertising Research at IHS Technology and author of the research, said, “Online advertising is more resilient against macroeconomic turmoil than other media. Total advertising across all media declined 2.9% in Europe in 2013, but would have experienced a steeper fall at 8.3% without the contribution of online. Performance-based models, increase in brand spend and the use of data-driven targeting and automation along with the rise of mobile and social media advertising has enabled online to outperform other media even in tough economic times.”"
Source:  Press release from IAB Europe, 11th July 2014
See the initial press release announcing the total spend here

People who are careful with money have fewer car crashes

"The [insurance] industry has started quietly trawling customers’ finances and other sources of “big data”, after proving that those who are careful with their cash have fewer car crashes.
The correlation is so strong that Lloyds Banking Group has begun offering prudent account holders savings of as much as 20 per cent on their car insurance.
Lloyds’ insurance arm Scottish Widows has not established why consumers who stay within overdraft limits or avoid bounced debit card payments have fewer accidents, but insiders suggest the thrifty tend to be more responsible.
The development shows how access to so-called big data are revolutionising the insurance industry. Companies are now accessing a wide range of information on everything from financial probity to shopping habits to determine the risk premium for individual customers.
Tesco, which tracks consumer behaviour through its Clubcard loyalty scheme, offers those it deems less risky based on their shopping habits discounts of as much as 40 per cent on home and car insurance.
Aviva has calculated the optimal distance from the street at which a property is least likely to be burgled – not too secluded nor too exposed.
Elsewhere, executives at Aviva’s Canadian business have established that houses within a radius of a few hundred metres from cinemas are more likely to be vandalised.
“This is not just a backroom theoretical exercise,” said Maurice Tulloch, who runs Aviva’s UK’s general insurance business. “If our analyst finds something new on a Monday, that can be live and impacting our prices on the Tuesday.”
Simon Douglas, director of AA Insurance, said: “The winners in the insurance market will be the ones that have got the data insights that others don’t have. It could be supermarkets, banks or social media companies.”"
Source:  Financial Times, 12th July 2014

Hulu is paying 'in excess of $80m' to screen South Park episodes for 3 years

"Onstage with Hulu at the Television Critics Association’s twice-yearly convention on Saturday afternoon, Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker announced a three-year deal that gives the service exclusive rights to stream the huge back catalog of “South Park,” which now consists of more than 240 episodes, as well as the current season’s episodes immediately after they are broadcast on Comedy Central. (Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone will continue to stream 30 selected episodes on their own site and host new episodes there, too.)
The deal, worth in excess of $80 million, according to a person involved in the negotiations, means Kenny and the boys will continue to frolic for years to come. It also points to a couple of broader trends that the titans at the gathering in Sun Valley might want to put on their agendas. (The actual creators of content have rarely been a big part of the guest list.)"

Thursday 10 July 2014

Netflix has 31 nominations for the 2014 Emmy Awards



Source:  Quartz, 10th July 2014

Better digital targeting helped Burberry grow sales 9% Y-o-Y

"Burberry has reported a quarterly sales hike of 9% to £370m compared to the same period last year, a figure driven by strong online sales and "more targeted marketing".
Underlying retail sales in the three months ending 30 June 2014 were up 17% compared to the same period last year, when sales were £339m.
Burberry attributed the strong performance - during a period it said was historically the smallest for retail - to digital’s ability to "outperform in all regions, reflecting more targeted marketing and continued strong customer response to services such as orders taken on iPads in-store and collect-in-store"."

Wednesday 9 July 2014

World Cup 2014 Stats

It's probably easier to do a catch up on one page.  Listed chronologically from publication date

Average age of players, and number who play in the Premier League - 4th June

More interactions on Facebook in the first week than Super Bowl, Oscars and Sochi combined - 20th June

Suarez Bite - 2m Tweets - 24th June

TV viewing records broken around the world - 27th June

300m Tweets during the group stage - 27th June

More Americans streamed the USA vs GER match than the Super Bowl - 29th June

1 billion interactions on Facebook so far - 30th June

Akamai stats on video streaming - 3rd July
Mobile app use much higher than normal during games - 9th July

Records broken at Eurosport.com - 10th July


There were 3 billion interactions on Facebook - lus a big round-up on top matches etc - 14th July

The World Cup final was the most talked about event ever on Facebook - 14th July

Facebook World Cup infographic - 14th July

Visible Measures' online video stats - 'The biggest video event of all time' - 14th July

adidas was the most mentioned brand on social media, with 1.59pm mentions on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and Tumblr - 14th July

Nike was the brand with the most online video views at 240m views across 8 different films - 14th July 2014

A full World Cup review from Twitter - 672m Tweets during the tournament - 14th July

Some TV viewing figures by market for the final day - inc an all-time high audience of 41.89m in Germany - 15th July

Brands that saw big digital lifts - adidas, Visa, Listerine and more - 15th July

Tumblr stats - 15th July

Stats from Weibo - 1.96bn World Cup interactions - 16th July

World Cup sponsors out-performed their competitors for recognition as an official sponsor - 21st July

Data on multi-screen usage & viewing from Conviva - 23rd July

20m illegal viewers on pirated streams - 25th July

Google's World Cup recap

Tuesday 8 July 2014

The demographics of Snapchat users

"Snapchat has significant scale: We estimate it reached 82 million monthly active users globally as of May 2014. That's about one-third Instagram's size.
The majority of Snapchat's users are female, and 70% are between the ages of 13 and 25, according to our estimates. Young women are a difficult-to-reach and influential demographic.
Engagement is high: Two-fifths of 18-year-olds in the U.S. use it "multiple times daily" to communicate with family and friends. That's a higher proportion than those saying they use voice calls multiple times daily.
Visual sharing on Snapchat is exploding. Sharing of Snapchat Stories increased 100% in the last two months. Stories are now getting 1 billion views daily, while 760 million disappearing photos and videos are sent daily."

There are more than 100 million subscriptions to IPTV

"Global IPTV subscriptions have topped the 100 million mark for the first time, according to Point Topic. The market grew by 4.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2014, which matched the growth rate  achieved in the last quarter of 2013. There were 4.6 million new subscriptions during the Q1 2014 period, taking the total number of subscriptions to 100.9 million.
Eastern Europe reported the highest level of IPTV growth in Q1 2014 with net additions of 0.63 million resulting in growth of 11.6 per cent. East Asia, predictably given the size of the market, leads the way for net additions with 2.58 million new subscriptions being added in the quarter, an increase of 5.7 per cent on the Q4 2013 number.
The top ten IPTV countries for Q1 2014 remains broadly static although the gap between the UK and the Netherlands is slightly larger than previously, with those two countries having swapped places a couple of times in recent times.
1. China – 32.7 million
2. France – 14.8 million
3. USA – 12.3 million
4. South Korea – 9.1 million
5. Japan – 4.5 million
6. Russian Federation – 3.6 million
7. Germany – 2.7 million
8. UK – 1.9 million
9. Netherlands – 1.8 million
10. Vietnam 1.6 million"
Source:  Advanced Television, 3rd July 2014

US TV viewing broken down into live, time-shifted, and VOD



Source:  Data from Nielsen, reported on their blog, 30th June 2014

Mobile accounts for nearly 2/3 of AutoTrader's traffic

"Auto Trader found that that the tipping point came twenty months earlier than anticipated, with market research director Nick King saying that car buyers are “blazing a trail in the use of mobile devices.”
“Nearly seven in every ten full-page advertisement views were made on tablet or mobile last month,” said King. “That should be a rallying cry for dealers who question the value of optimising their websites for mobile devices.”
Latest figures from June 2014 reveal that mobile use now accounts for nearly two thirds of Auto Trader traffic, up 21 per cent year-on-year. 63 per cent of searches have now gone mobile (20 per cent on tablet and 43 per cent for mobile devices) compared with 37 per cent for PC."
Source:  The Drum, 7th July 2014

Transformers: Age of Extinction became the top grossing film of all time in China in ten days

"In only 10 days in release, Paramount’s Transformers: Age of Extinction has become the top-grossing movie of all time in China with $222.7 million in ticket sales, eclipsing the $221.9 million grossed by James Cameron's Avatar. The 3D tentpole achieved the milestone over the weekend.
Michael Bay’s cyborg action flick, which has a strong Chinese flavor aimed at wooing audiences here, has outperformed its box office performance in North America."

Smartphone operating system shares by market


Source:  Press release from Kantar Worldpanel, for 3 months ending May 2014

Thursday 3 July 2014

16.4m Tweets were posted during the Brazil vs. Chile World Cup match

"Last night’s World Cup match against Brazil and Chile broke Twitter records as it became the most tweeted about sports event ever.
The match was ultimately decided on during a penalty shoot-out and Gonzalo Jara’s missed penalty, which handed Brazil the win, generated 389,000 tweets per minute (TPM), eclipsing the record previously set by the Super Bowl where the peak was 382,000 TPM
A record total of 16.4 million tweets were also sent around the game, making it the most-discussed match of the World Cup so far."

Internet use in Brazil dropped when Brazil was playing World Cup games

"Soccer is religion in Brazil, some say. But don't take their word for it, just check the numbers.
When Brazil plays its World Cup games, available ad inventory in the country plummets 37%, according to ad-tech company Triggit, which serves nearly 2 million ads in the country each hour.
There are, of course, many websites without ads, so this is just a rough indicator. But it's a strong signal that far less web surfing occurs as the games get played.
"Normal ad data is pretty esoteric stuff and it's neat to see the real world playing out in our numbers," said Triggit CEO Zach Coelius.
When the games end, available ad inventory spikes to an average of over 27% above normal in the next two hours, meaning the country jumps back on the net in a hurry."

Smartphone users check their screens 120 times a day

"Google said that smartphone users check their screens 120 times a day on average, and that smartwatches could replace some of the interaction. The watches could give “intelligent answers to spoken questions”, and act as a “key in a multi-screen world”, it said."
Source:  Financial Times, 26th June 2014
Similar - Unlock the device 110 times a day - Locket 2013
Similar - Look at their phone 150 times a day - Tomi Ahonen 2013 'a figure he's heard at conferences since 2010'

The ten most influential British journalists on social media

1 - @PiersMorgan            
2 - @CaitlinMoran                      
3 - @PaulWaugh                                    
4 - @JohnRentoul                                  
5 - @FleetStreetFox                            
6 - @PaulMasonNews (Paul Mason)      
7 - @Mehdirhasan (Mehdi Hasan)    
8 - @PeterJukes                                            
9 - @AlexTomo (Alex Thomson)          
10 - @RodneyEdwards        
Source:  UK Press Gazette, 2nd July 2014
Note:
"The top-50 journalists who have made the most impact will be decided by:
Reader votes (on Twitter using the hashtag #smj_influence)
The votes by an expert judging panel
And by counting up journalists' followers on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook."
Note - 40 other journalists also listed alphabetically

Wednesday 2 July 2014

The first week of the World Cup generated more Facebook interactions than The Super Bowl, Sochi and The Oscars combined

"In the lead up to the World Cup, Facebook launched ‘Trending World Cup’ and ‘Facebook Ref’ to keep fans informed and engaged throughout the world’s most popular sports event. We’re just one week into the tournament, and even Facebook must be surprised by the results so far: Between June 12 and June 18 more people have talked about the World Cup on Facebook than the number of people who talked about this year’s Super Bowl, Oscars and Sochi Games, combined.
With three weeks left of games, the World Cup will surely set the bar (and an extremely high one at that) for event-based social engagement. Here’s how the first week of World Cup Facebook chatter stacks up to the aforementioned events:
World Cup Week 1 (June 12 – June 18): 141M people – 459M interactions (posts, comments and likes)
Super Bowl XVIII on Feb. 2:  50M people – 185M interactions (posts, comments and likes)
Sochi Games, Feb. 6-23:  45M people – 120M interactions (posts, comments and likes)
86th Academy Awards on Mar. 2:  11.3M people – 25.4M interactions (posts, comments and likes)"

SMS use is falling in China

"WeChat is pretty much ubiquitous in China these days, and the rise of the popular messaging app is seen in the huge impact it’s had on how people use SMS. Or, rather, how people have largely stopped using SMS. New figures from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) show that people in China send an average of 39.8 text messages per month – which is barely more than one per day (well, 1.3 to be precise). In these new figures for January to May 2014, MIIT says that people in China sent 314.62 billion SMS in that period, which is down 18.4 percent from the same period in 2013. In that timeframe, the nation saw 27.25 million new phone subscribers – but not even all those new accounts can stop SMS from dying off. The country now has a total of 1.26 billion registered phone subscribers, though a number of people have multiple SIMs. MMS – those annoying, often spammy, usually faulty multimedia messages – fell even more sharply. 26.09 billion MMS were sent from January to May, which is down 30.6 percent on the same period last year."
Source:  Tech In Asia, 23rd June 2014

Chinese mobile device owners downloaded 23 billion apps in Q1 2014

"According to a data obtained by China’s Analysys International, Chinese mobile device owners downloaded 23.4 billion apps during the first quarter of 2014. Of that figure, more than 41 percent of those downloads came through one of Baidu’s app distribution channels, which includes its flagship app store, and popular 91 Mobile  and Hi Net (which Baidu took under its wing when it acquired parent company 91 Wireless for US$1.9 billion last year). Qihoo trails behind Baidu with 27 percent market share, followed by Tencent at 16 percent market share and the independent Wandoujia at 7 percent market share."

52 million smartphones were sold in India in the year to March 2014

"Thanks to the proliferation of low-cost phones and reduced data tariffs, smartphone sales more than trebled in India in the financial year 2013-14, growing by 244 percent. 52.4 million smartphones were sold in India in that time period, says MAIT, the body representing India’s IT hardware, training, and R&D services sectors, in its annual industry performance review."

Over a billion people use Android devices

"At last year’s Google I/O the company revealed it had activated 900 million Android devices, and this year that number has hit the billion mark. Over a 30-day period, 1 billion people now actively use Android devices. Google’s Android and Chrome chief, Sundar Pichai, revealed the latest Android figures on stage at Google I/O in San Francisco today, including the fact that phones are checked 100 billion times each day.
The selfie phenomenon hasn’t escaped Android users either, with Pichai revealing that 93 million are taken each day with Android devices alongside the delivery of 20 billion text messages per day on Android. Pichai was also keen to highlight Google’s tablet efforts, claiming that Android tablets account for 62 percent of world market share, up from 46 percent last year. Google's tablet market share increases and Android smartphone dominance is also helping boost its Chrome mobile stats, with 300 million active daily users of Chrome on mobile. Pichai's final Android stat shows that Google's Play Store is also continuing its impressive growth with app installs increasing by 236 percent year-over-year."

World Cup TV viewing figures around the world

"The audited global figures will not be known for some time but broadcasters are already optimistic that the viewing numbers for the final on 13 July may approach or even surpass the 909 million who watched the Spain v Netherlands final in 2010.
A total of 11.5 million Dutch viewers (88.4%) watched their national team’s victory over Chili: 10.2 million at home and 1.3 million in public places.
A record number of 42.9 million Brazilians tuned in to see their team’s win over Croatia. 81.3% of Croatians watched the game (1.5 million).
Brazil-Croatia was also the most watched opening match in at least 12 years in the UK, with 11.2 million UK viewers (records going back to 2002).
The match Belgium – South Korea was the most watched football game in the history of Belgian television, reaching 3 million Flemish fans (82.8% of TV viewers) and 2.1 million of French-speaking Belgians (82.1%).
Viewing records were reported also in the UK: a peak of 20 million (71% share) watched England v Uruguay, the highest peak audience on any channel since the 2012 London Olympics.
27.3 million (84.2%) viewers in Germany tuned in to watch Germany defeat the US.
15.3 million Italians (82%) watched the game between England and Italy.
Greek viewership peaked at 81.3% audience share for Greece’s win over Ivory Coast.
68.5% of Spanish viewers (11.2 million) caught the game in which their national team was defeated by Holland.
The French victory over Honduras scored 56.3% audience share in France or 15.9 million viewers, amongst whom 1 million saw the game on digital platforms
Even in countries such as Sweden, where the national team didn’t qualify, the World Cup gathered up to 2.64 Mio viewers (48% audience share) for the game of Brazil against Mexico, also with impressive figures online, TV4 reporting up to 130 077 streams on their platform for the game of Spain against Chile.
The US’s first game drew more than 11 million viewers – the highest-rated football match ever shown on ESPN – and nearly 5 million on a Spanish-language network.
Even an 8 am broadcast of Australia’s match against Chile didn’t discourage 2.3 million Australians from watching the game."
Source:  Broadband TV News, 27th June 2014

66% of Facebook mobile users in India access via a feature phone

"When you think of how people access the Internet, you might glance at your smartphone or computer and imagine everyone around the world using similar devices. However, roughly 7 out of every 10 people in the world, many in high-growth countries like India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and Nigeria, use far simpler devices, like feature phones, to access the Internet.1
The rate of people using only mobile devices to access the Internet is skyrocketing, especially in high-growth countries. More than one billion people access Facebook on mobile every month and many do so across multiple mobile devices. In many countries, a majority of those people experience Facebook on a feature phone: in India 66%, in Indonesia 71% and in South Africa 68%."
Source:  Internal data from Facebook, cited in a blog post, 2nd July 2014