Worldpay processed 44 million contactless payments in the UK in December 2013

"New figures from WorldPay show contactless payments in the UK are rocketing, with 226% more contactless transactions compared to this time last year. Contactless payments have more than trebled (249%) between 2012 and 2013 (from 12.5 million UK payments processed by WorldPay in December 2012 to 43.6 million UK payments in December 2013). There are currently 38.1 million contactless cards in circulation across the UK, making up 25.7% of all credit, and debit and charge cards.
Take up of contactless has been greatest in London with one in five (17%) using contactless cards, closely followed by Manchester and Leeds (12%). However, in Bristol contactless has failed to catch on with only four percent of people using it.
In total, WorldPay customers have made more than 61 million contactless payments with a total cash value of £433 million. Latest transactional data from WorldPay shows consumer confidence in contactless has also grown with the average sale size increasing by 27% in just two years."

Source:  FinExtra, 26th February 2014

Facebook accounts for 25% of Vodafone's European web traffic

"Given that one quarter of all Vodafone’s European web traffic comes from just Facebook, it would mean Colao giving up a potentially huge chunk of revenue at the same time that he and the other mobile companies are having to invest billions in new phone masts and faster 3G and 4G networks around the world."
Source:  Evening Standard, 26th February 2014
NB - I'm assuming that this means 25% of web traffic that Vodafone carries is for Facebook, not 25% of the traffic that arrives at Vodafone.com comes from Facebook

Tech acquisitions ranked by cost per users

Including Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp - See the interactive original here
Click on the link and hover over to see the data

The BBC is the most shared source by UK Twitter users

"PEERINDEX TWITTER UK MEDIA SOCIAL SHARING INDEX, JANUARY 2014
Shares by UK Twitter users
1 BBC  - 4265k
2 Guardian - 2423k
3 Telegraph - 913k
4 Independent - 616k
5 Daily Mail - 453k
6 Mirror - 452k
7 Huffington Post - 422k
8 New York Times - 329k
9 Sky News - 319k
10 BuzzFeed - 235k
Source:  PeerIndex data for the UK from January 2014, reported February 24th 2014
Note - Full 50 top sources listed in the full report
Methodology:
"We looked at at a statistically valid sample of content from media outlets was shared by Twitter users in the UK. We counted both tweets and retweets of content. We tracked content by looking at the URLs (including blog URLs) used by these outlets. We only counted tweets from users our classification systems had recognised as being from the UK. We counted general news sources, both online and off. We excluded trade papers like Mashable. We also excluded aggregators (like Google News and Reddit)."

Tinder generates more than 600 million profile views and 6 million matches a day

"Originally launched in the US in August 2012, the smartphone dating app has since spread its blend of location-based profile matches and text-chatting around the world. That includes becoming the latest participation pub-sport in the UK, where groups of friends enthusiastically approve or reject potential matches on behalf of one another.
For fans, it’s an addictive cross between online dating, Am I Hot or Not and Fruit Ninja – the latter in terms of its speedy-swiping user interface. Users create a profile, then browse users nearby marking those they like. Whenever they’re liked back, the pair can text-chat and decide whether to meet up.
In the last 60 days, Tinder has added more than 1m new users in the UK alone, according to co-founder and chief marketing officer Justin Mateen, who tells The Guardian that the app is currently generating more than 600m profile reads and 6m matches a day."

Source:  The Guardian, 24th April 2014

P&G & Mondelez spend approximately 25% of their US media budgets on digital

"If there were any doubts that the age of digital marketing has fully arrived for packaged-goods companies, the Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference in Boca Raton, Fla., last week should put them to rest.
One after one, executives of top players talked about how big digital had gotten for them -- and how they were still expanding it. It was a contrast to only three or four years ago, when the executives were also touting digital, but spending was in the low-single digits of CPG media budgets, so even double-digit growth remained pretty insubstantial.
No more. For many top consumer products companies digital either already has or is heading toward eclipsing magazines as their No. 2 spending category behind TV. And for some it may soon be No. 1.
Executives of Procter & Gamble Co. and Mondelez International both said their companies now spend about a quarter of their U.S. media budgets on digital and plan to keep growing that share as they see improving return on investment.
Mondelez President-North America Mark Clouse said the company wants more than half its spending to be digital by 2016, because it's getting twice the return on investment from digital that it is from other media.
Jean-Paul Agon, Chairman-CEO of L'Oreal, the world's third-biggest ad spender behind P&G and Unilever, said digital is now 12% of the beauty giant's global spending and trending upward because of its efficiency and synergy with fast-growing e-commerce in beauty. E-commerce sales grew more than 20% for L'Oreal last year, about quadruple the rate for the rest of the company.
General Mills CEO Ken Powell said his company has increased the digital share of its ad budget from 8% of spending in 2008 to 17% in fiscal 2013 and expects the shift to continue, even if 79% of its budget today is spent on TV.
P&G is looking at hiking digital to help lower the share of sales it spends on advertising without hurting effectiveness. "The beauty of the digital, search, mobile, social media worlds is they're fundamentally more efficient," said Chairman-CEO A.G. Lafley in a CAGNY presentation. "So if you really know which consumer matters most to you, and that's our job ...then you can run a mix that gets a lot more efficient."
Source:  AdAge, 24th February 2014

WhatsApp gained 15m new users in the 4 days after its acquisition

"Koum today said that WhatsApp to date has 465 million monthly active users and 330 million daily users — an increase of 15 million on the number released just last week when news of the Facebook sale broke. “We couldn’t be more humbled by our growth,” he said. Interestingly, today is the company’s birthday. It was founded on February 24 in 2009."
Source:  TechCrunch, 24th February 2014

Clash of Clans' publisher Supercell made nearly $900m in revenue in 2013

"Supercell is showing you can make a lot of money — hundreds of millions, in fact — with just two games.
Clash of Clans maker Supercell turned out an extremely impressive financial performance in 2013, with $464 million in pretax profits on revenue of $892 million. That is four times the profit and eight times the revenues of 2012 figures.
The Helsinki, Finland-based mobile game company reported the figures on an annual basis, as required by Finnish law. (Supercell received a government loan when it formed in 2010). The $464 million in earnings before income tax, depreciation, and amortization showed that the company has its costs well under control and that it’s still going strong with just two games: Clash of Clans and Hay Day. Supercell paid $345 million in taxes to Finland in 2013, largely because it received an investment from Japan’s SoftBank, a telecommunications firm that counts game developer GungHo Entertainment (the creator of the multimillion dollar mobile hit Puzzle and Dragons).
Supercell’s third game is coming in March.
SoftBank shook the gaming world up last year when it bought 50 percent of Supercell, which had just 130 employees at the time, for $1.5 billion. That valued Supercell at $3 billion, or twice the value of U.S. publicly traded game company Take-Two Interactive, publisher of Grand Theft Auto. That was an astonishing outcome for the company, founded by veteran mobile game maker Ilkka Paananen, in June 2010."

Source:  VentureBeat, 12th February 2014

Twitter at The Brit Awards 2014

It’s been a huge night for #Brits2014- 4,000,000 tweets doubling last year's total, with a new record peak of 78K TPM pic.twitter.com/WTM8hLKRTP
— SecondSync (@SecondSync) February 20, 2014

Four numbers that explain the WhatsApp purchase

"450 - 450m Monthly active users
32 - 32 engineers
1 - $1 per year fee
0 - Zero spend on marketing or acquisition"
Source:  Blog post by Sequoia Capital, 19th February 2014

WhatsApp's user growth was faster than Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and Skype

Click to enlarge

Source:  Presentation from Facebook, 19th February 2014

Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion

"Facebook today announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire WhatsApp, a rapidly growing cross-platform mobile messaging company, for a total of approximately $16 billion, including $4 billion in cash and approximately $12 billion worth of Facebook shares. The agreement also provides for an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units to be granted to WhatsApp’s founders and employees that will vest over four years subsequent to closing.
WhatsApp has built a leading and rapidly growing real-time mobile messaging service, with:
Over 450 million people using the service each month;
70% of those people active on a given day;
Messaging volume approaching the entire global telecom SMS volume; and
Continued strong growth, currently adding more than 1 million new registered users per day."
Source:  Press Release from Facebook, 19th February 2014

Digital accounts 50% of UK music industry revenues

"The UK recorded music industry's revenues grew in 2013, reports its trade body the BPI in its annual review of record company income.
Driven by an 11.9% rise in digital revenues from strong digital album sales and a surge in streaming, the UK recorded music industry saw an overall 1.9% increase in its revenues * (see Notes for Editors) last year to stand at £730.4 million - up from £716.8 million generated in 2012.
Digital reaches 50 per cent of revenues / Streaming income up by 41 per cent
The UK music business hit a significant milestone in 2013, with digital revenues now accounting for 50 per cent of total UK record industry trade revenues.
Income from music streaming services such as Spotify and Deezer constituted the fastest-growing sector over the twelve month period.  Streaming revenues increased by 41 per cent - and its three main constituent elements: subscriptions to premium services, ad-supported 'free-to-consumer' streaming, and Cloud-related services combined to generate around £77m for record companies in 2013.
Subscription was the most important component, worth £54.7m and accounting for 71 per cent of the sector's income.   Ad-supported services, which enable 'free-to-consumer' streaming, grew by 31 per cent on 2012, contributing £19m to industry revenues, while Cloud-related services, such as Google, Apple and Amazon's locker services are now beginning to produce meaningful revenues, contributing over £3m to industry income last year.
Download albums show strong growth
Boosted by the success of new British artists including Bastille, whose debut Bad Blood was the biggest-selling digital album by an artist in 2013, revenue from download albums showed strong growth in 2013 - up 19.5 per cent on the previous twelve months to £160.5m.  Revenues were in part boosted by the increasing proportion of sales accounted for by digital compilations and 'premium' or 'deluxe' album editions such as Beyoncé's self-titled release, which came out exclusively on digital format towards the end of the fourth quarter.
Whilst it did not match the record levels seen in 2012 (down 4.4 per cent on the period), record company income from downloaded tracks remained strong at £121.7m - the second-highest total of all time.
Physical remains resilient, with Vinyl up again
Although revenue from sales of CD albums and singles and music videos declined by 6.4 per cent to stand at £365.4m, this rate of decrease was better than expected by most commentators, and it should not be overlooked that physical formats still account for half of UK recorded industry revenues.  Within this trend there was again a strong showing from vinyl LPs, which saw revenue growth of 49 per cent to reach £12.1m.  This figure represented 2.4 per cent of total album income in 2013 - the highest level of annual income for the format since 1994.
* These figures represent UK record industry revenues from digital and physical music.  All figures exclude VAT and retailer margin, and in the case of physical product are net of retailer returns.  They exclude income from broadcasting and public performance licensing from PPL and earnings from synchronisation ('synch') deals, premiums and ‘360 degree’ multiple-rights deals with artists."
Source:  Press Release from the BPI, 19th February 2014

Smartphones accounted for 54% of all phones sold in 2013

"Worldwide sales of smartphones to end users totaled 968 million units in 2013, an increase of 42.3 percent from 2012, according to Gartner, Inc. Sales of smartphones accounted for 53.6 percent of overall mobile phone sales in 2013, and exceeded annual sales of feature phones for the first time.
Smartphone sales grew 36 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 and accounted for 57.6 percent of overall mobile phone sales in the fourth quarter, up from 44 percent year over year. This increasing contribution of smartphones was led by growth in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe, where smartphone sales grew by more than 50 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013. With a 166.8 percent increase in the fourth quarter of 2013, India exhibited the highest smartphone sales growth among the countries tracked by Gartner, and Latin America saw the strongest growth among all regions (96.1 percent) in the fourth quarter. China also contributed significantly to worldwide smartphone sales as sales grew 86.3 percent in 2013."

Source:  Press release from Gartner, 13th February 2014

The average native ad on BuzzFeed gets 263 Facebook shares, and 36 Tweets

"We analysed social sharing data for 689 BuzzFeed native ads from 51 companies, and found the average native ad receives:
263 Facebook shares
36 Tweets
7 Google +1s
44 Pins
2 LinkedIn shares"

Source:  The Media Briefing, 12th February 2014

Note - see the original article for a table of the most effective native ads

More Apple 'computers' are sold than PCs

"A symbolic moment, this: in Q4 2013 the number of computers* sold by Apple was larger than the number of Windows PC sold globally. If you add Windows Phone to the mix they're more or less exactly equal.
(*Macs, iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads)"
Source:  Data from Gartner & Apple, reported by Benedict Evans on his blog, 12th February 2014

Mobile accounts for over 50% of all referrals from Facebook

"Facebook’s emphasis on becoming a mobile company is paying off in terms of referrals, as Shareaholic reported that referrals to its network of more than 200,000 sites from Facebook mobile skyrocketed 197 percent in January compared with last September.
Shareaholic also found that Facebook mobile drove 8.25 percent of visits to its network of sites in January, while Facebook overall was responsible for 16.21 percent, meaning that mobile accounted for more than one-half of referrals from the social network.
The content discovery and sharing company offered more details in a post on its blog:
Indeed, Facebook is very much the “mobile company” everyone suggests it is.
This is demonstrated not only by the fact that mobile made up 53 percent of its advertising revenue in the fourth quarter, but by its commitment to providing a better mobile browsing experience with the introduction of its Paper application.
Effectively, if your business or blog isn’t very usable on a mobile phone, you’ll want to invest more resources into building a mobile experience your visitors can’t get enough of — or at least one they won’t hate."

Source:  All Facebook, 14th February 2014

5.5 million Line users in Thailand participated in flash sales through the app in 2013

"In Thailand, the messaging app Line has shown the way in mobile commerce. It has run a series of Line Flash Sale events online, including the sale of Maybelline lipstick, Line’s own branded merchandises, and even a food chain store’s discount coupons. They’re interesting examples of social-driven m-commerce
[...]
Of the 22 million Line users in Thailand, 5.5 million users opted in to participate in the flash sales.
At its peak time, there were over 20,000 participating in a sale at the same time.
Orders were coming in every 20 seconds on average.
Close to 70 percent of buyers are female
Although most mobile views of the sales event came from Samsung users (46 percent), the majority of purchases – 70 percent – came from Apple devices."

Source:  Tech in Asia, 10th February 2014

People who use Twitter while watching TV have higher levels of recall of ads

"The research is clear that Twitter leads to more commercial viewing, but are Twitter users more impacted by ads? Working with Millward Brown Digital, we conducted a study of more than 7,500 respondents to compare the impact of TV ads among people who watched TV with and without Twitter.
We found that viewers watching TV without a second-screen had an average TV ad recall of 40%. But among those using Twitter, ad recall was significantly higher: 53%. These viewers were also 13% more likely to discuss shows and 3% more likely to recommend programs, making TV x Twitter a win/win for advertisers and networks alike.
Our research also demonstrated a difference in the ability for a TV spot to help build a brand. We found that the impact of a TV commercial, as measured by a lift in brand favorability (the likelihood for a viewer to rate a brand ‘excellent’ on a five-point scale) was 7%. Among those viewers who were also tweeting, the lift was 18%. The lift in purchase intent was also higher among those tweeting: 30% compared to 16% in the TV-only group."

Source:  Twitter blog, 5th February 2014

Apple spent over $500 million on acquisitions in Q4 2013

"The iPhone maker said in a Jan. 28 regulatory filing that it paid $525 million on deals last quarter, almost double what was spent a year earlier.
The deals show Cook putting Apple’s $159 billion of cash and investments to work snapping up companies whose products can be integrated into future gadgets or services. The acquisitions, typically small, included PrimeSense Ltd., the maker of motion-tracking chip technology; Topsy Labs Inc., a data-analytics firm; search engine Cue; and mapping software company Broadmap."

Source:  Bloomberg, 30th January 2014

Tracking love on Facebook

Click to enlarge

"During the 100 days before the relationship starts, we observe a slow but steady increase in the number of timeline posts shared between the future couple. When the relationship starts ("day 0"), posts begin to decrease. We observe a peak of 1.67 posts per day 12 days before the relationship begins, and a lowest point of 1.53 posts per day 85 days into the relationship. Presumably, couples decide to spend more time together, courtship is off, and online interactions give way to more interactions in the physical world."

Source:  Blog post by Facebook, 14th February 2014

Netflix members watch more than 1 billion hours of TV shows and movies each month

"It's a pricey gamble, but so far it has paid off. The combination of new programmes and old movies has won Netflix 44 million subscribers in 41 countries, who watch more than 1bn hours of TV shows and movies every month. Three quarters of them are in the US but Netflix is an increasingly international business. It now has an estimated 2 million subscribers in the UK and has been growing rapidly in the Nordic countries. "The strategy of providing something new is a good one: it makes the service more about today rather than being an archive," says Toby Syfret of Enders Analysis. Even in the UK, where Netflix faces stiff competition from Sky and LoveFilm, shows like House of Cards and the prison black comedy Orange Is The New Black are attracting subscribers."

Source:  The Guardian, 16th February 2014

Jamie Oliver's Food Tube Channel on YouTube gets 1.8 million monthly views

"1.8 million monthly video views on average
More than 600K subscribers
8 million minutes average monthly watch-time"

Source:  Case study from Google, February 2014

Apple generated nearly $30 billion in revenue in China in 2013

"In China, if you look at the last 12 months, we’ve done $29 billion to $30 billion in revenue there in greater China. I don’t know of any other American company that does that kind of business in China or anywhere close. These are things that we’re really proud of and we worked really hard at."

Source:  Tim Cook of Apple, interviewed in WSJ 7th February 2014

Rakuten is buying Viber for $900 million

"Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten Inc said on Friday it will buy call and messaging app provider Viber Media Ltd for $900 million, aiming to use the Cyprus-based company's network in emerging markets to expand the reach of its digital content.
Viber, run from Cyprus by Israeli entrepreneur Talmon Marco, will add 300 million users to Rakuten's existing 200 million users, Chief Executive Hiroshi Mikitani told reporters in Tokyo.
"This acquisition is a totally new strategy that will take Rakuten to a different level," Mikitani said, announcing the deal after the company reported an 80 percent jump in its 2013 operating profit."

Source: Reuters, 14th February 2014

25% of British Twitter users have purchased something directly as a result of a Tweet

"Bruce Daisley offered some impressive Twitter user statistics from UK:
80 percent use Twitter on a mobile device
70 percent use Twitter out and about (not at home)
25 percent purchased something directly as a result of a tweet.
More than 50 percent say Twitter gives them the latest news, faster than other sources.
This means, said Daisley, "if an alien ever lands on earth, over half the Twitter user base says they'll see it on Twitter before hearing about it elsewhere." This makes Twitter content a platform for live content discovery, which is effective not only for relaying news, but also for brands to get out their messages.
[...]
Daisley finished with more statistics showing that Twitter is working for brands:
94 percent of tweeters shop on their mobile phones.
Twitter users engage. Specifically:
70 percent of them research on Twitter.
17 percent use store locators.
7 percent actually purchase.
56 percent of Twitter mobile users say they are influenced by content on Twitter when buying.
37 percent use Twitter before and/or after shopping on mobile.
1 in 3 users say that Twitter has a direct influence on their purchase decision."
Source:  Twitter UK MD Bruce Daisley, Speaking at SES London, quoted by SearchEngineWatch, 11th February 2014
Note - more of the UK stats here

Stripe can process payments in 139 currencies

"As the internet’s global reach grows, Stripe users increasingly sell to worldwide audiences. Companies like DailyMotion in Paris, HubSpot in Boston, and Shopify in Ottawa build products that are popular everywhere, not just in their home markets.
Starting today, businesses using Stripe in the US and Europe can accept payments in 139 currencies. You can create charges in any of these currencies, and we'll automatically handle converting and transferring funds to you in your home currency. Currency conversion incurs a 2% fee atop market exchange rates."

Source:  Stripe Blog, 11th February 2014

1.5 billion photos are uploaded to Google+ each week

"Matt Cooke, product marketing manager for Google+, says that Google+ has 540 million monthly active users, 300 million of which view their Google+ content stream at some time during the month, while 1.5 billion photos are uploaded to the site every week. "Slowly but surely we are getting a feeling that there's a real momentum, but it is still early days and there are plenty of opportunities to grow and add new features and make them easier to use," he says."

Source:  The Guardian, 5th February 2014

The Guardian produces up to 400 pieces of online content a day

"Last year the Guardian had 84 million unique readers every month but its third-party analytics tool only provided traffic data with a four-hour time lag broken down per hour. Most Guardian journalists and editors didn’t even have access to that data. This made life difficult for the newspaper’s digital audience manager, Chris Moran. One of his responsibilities was SEO for 400 pieces of content the Guardian can produce in a day."
Source:  FastCoLabs, 6th February 2014
Note - this will include news stories, blog posts, reviews, and so on, but I'm guessing doesn't include photos.  I'm also assuming that it's a global figure, including the UK, US and other editions

Yelp's platform is generating over 10,000 food orders a week

"Yelp reported significant revenue growth vs 2012. The company announced $70.7 million revenue for Q4 2013. That represented 72 percent growth vs. the same period a year ago. For the full year, Yelp said that revenues hit $233 million, compared with $137.6 million in 2012.
Other numbers presented today:
53 million total reviews (30 percent of new reviews can from mobile devices)
120 million monthly uniques
53 million mobile uniques
67,000 active local business accounts
The company also said that the Yelp Platform is “now generating over 10,000 food orders each week.” For Q1 2014 the company expects to make between $73.5 million and $74.5 million. Full year 2014 revenues are projected to be $353 million to $358 million."

Source:  Yelp's Q4 2013 results, reported on the Screenwerk blog, 5th February 2014

Mobile accounts for more than 75% of Twitter's ad revenue

"Average Monthly Active Users (MAUs) were 241 million as of December, 31, 2013, an increase of 30% year-over-year.
Mobile MAUs reached 184 million in the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of 37% year-over-year, representing 76% of total MAUs.
Timeline views reached 148 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of 26% year-over-year.
Advertising revenue per thousand timeline views reached $1.49 in the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of 76% year-over-year.
[...]
Revenue - Revenue for the fourth quarter of 2013 totaled $243 million, an increase of 116% compared to $112 million in the same period last year.
Advertising revenue totaled $220 million, an increase of 121% year-over-year.
Mobile advertising revenue was more than 75% of total advertising revenue.
Data licensing and other revenue totaled $23 million, an increase of 80% year-over-year.
International revenue totaled $66 million, an increase of 200% year-over-year. International revenue was 27% of total revenue."
Source:  Twitter's Q4 2013 Results, 5th February 2014

Facebook saw 185 million Super Bowl 2014-related interactions on the night of the game

"Even during a historic blowout, Facebook drew 50 million people and had more than 185 million interactions related to the Super Bowl last night.
Injury-plagued all year, Seahawks receiver Percy Harvin’s 87-yard kickoff return at the beginning of the second half topped the night on Facebook. Next was Jermaine Kearse catching a 23-yard touchdown pass to extend Seattle¹s lead 36."

Source:  Lost Remote, 3rd February 2014

31 of the 54 national Super Bowl 2014 TV ads had hashtags

"Our scoreboard at the top of this article has the final count, but here’s the summary with percentages, based on a total of 54 national ads reviewed:
Hashtags: 31 total, 57% of ads overall
Facebook: 5 total, 9% of ads overall
Twitter: 4 total, 7% of ads overall
YouTube: 3 total, 6% of ads overall
Shazam: 2 total, 4% of ads overall
URLs: 22 total, 41% of ads overall"

Source:  MarketingLand, 2nd February 2014

The Super Bowl 2014 generated 1.8 billion Twitter TV Impressions

"There’s nothing quite like watching the Super Bowl—or jumping into the conversation about it on Twitter. And this year’s big game had plenty of action—both on the field and across social media channels. According to Nielsen SocialGuide, Tweets in the U.S. about Sunday's telecast of Super Bowl XLVIII on FOX reached a Unique Audience on Twitter of 15.3 million people, garnering a total of 1.8 billion Twitter TV impressions throughout the night. Twitter activity peaked during the event at 10:00 p.m. with a total of 301,400 Tweets sent during the minute"

Source:  Nielsen, 3rd February 2014

Mobile accounts for 20% of eCommerce transactions

"Global provider of international and omni-channel payment solutions Ayden recently announced the results of its third Ayden Mobile Payments Index, which covered the period from September to December 2013. The data shows what many other studies have been revealing as of late: that mobile commerce is indeed on the rise. Mobile payments accounted for 19.5 percent of all transactions worldwide in December, up from 12.6 percent last December. This was a growth of 55 percent year-over-year. The index looked at the volume and value of mobile payments in five industries: travel, digital goods, gaming, retail, and ticketing. In particular, Ayden determined the retail industry’s mobile transaction volume has risen by 23 percent.
The index also shows that, in general, retail industry consumers choose tablet devices over smartphones and even PCs in certain cases to make larger purchases. For retail, tablet transaction volume stood at 16 percent, compared to smartphones, which had a transaction volume of only 7 percent. Ayden interprets these results as an indication that the retail industry, compared to the other vertical industries, has done the best job of improving the tablet user experience.
Ayden also found that Apple devices were the most popular platform for mobile payments through the months of September to December. During those four months, 41 percent of mobile transactions occurred on iPads and roughly 32 percent of transactions went through the iPhone. However, Android has continued to rise in popularity. In the month of December, Android devices captured a 38.6 percent share of mobile transactions, compared to the iPhone’s 60 percent share. Indeed, iPhone mobile transactions have steadily begun to decrease since April 2013, going from 68.5 percent in April to 62.5 percent in August, ending at 60 percent in December. On the other hand, Android has steadily been achieving a larger share of mobile transactions since April 2013 when it only accounted for 30.7 percent."

Source:  Data from Ayden, reported by Retail Solutions Online, 3rd February 2014

Top BBC iPlayer Programmes of 2013

"Top BBC iPlayer programmes, 2013
1 Top Gear: series 19, Africa Special, part 1 – 3,422,000
2 Top Gear: series 19, episode 1 – 3,220,000
3 Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor – 3,144,000
4 Bad Education: series 2, episode 1 – 2,907,000
5 Top Gear: series 19, Africa Special, part 2 – 2,764,000
6 Top Gear: series 20, episode 1 – 2,649,000
7 Top Gear: series 19, episode 2 – 2,625,000
8 Africa: episode 1 – 2,617,000
9 Doctor Who: The Bells of Saint John – 2,610,000
10 Madagascar – 2,417,000
11 Miranda: series 3, episode 2 – 2,406,000
12 The Voice UK: series 2, episode 1 – 2,379,000
13 Bad Education: series 2, episode 2 – 2,359,000
14 Top Gear: series 20, episode 2 – 2,322,000
15 Top Gear: series 20, episode 4 – 2,311,000
16 Miranda: series 3, episode 3 – 2,304,000
17 Doctor Who: The Rings of Akhaten 2,289,000
18 Top Gear: series 20, episode 5 – 2,260,000
19 Top Gear: series 19, episode 5 – 2,226,000
20 Top Gear: series 19 episode 4 – 2,224,000"

Source:  The Guardian, 29th January 2014

European Digital Landscape 2014

Social, Digital & Mobile in Europe from We Are Social Singapore

WeChat processed 10 million messages in a minute during Chinese New Year

"The team behind WeChat, China’s behemoth mobile messaging app, released a short infographic yesterday reporting user activity on the eve of the Lunar New Year.
Noting that activity in mainland China peaked from 10PM to to 12AM, WeChat states that it processed 10 million messages in one minute.
That figure dwarfs the one released by Sina Weibo, which stated that it processed 863,000 tweets within a single minute on the same day.
Granted, it’s not entirely appropriate to make exact comparisons without seeing numbers and timelines side-by-side, and the two social networks serve slightly different purposes (WeChat works better as a person-to-person messaging app, while Sina Weibo is more open and public).
WeChat also states that on the eve of the Lunar New Year, Beijing was the most active region in China, followed by Guangdong, Zhejiang, Liaoning, and Jiangsu provinces. Collectively, activity from users in these regions accounted for 42 percent of WeChat’s global activity.
Meanwhile, users sent twice as many and received three times as many messages on the eve of the Lunar New Year in 2014 compared to the same event last year. WeChat also notes that it saw a significant rise in the number of video messages it processed, which it attributes to the “quiet arrival” of 4G in China."

Source:  TechInAsia, 3rd February 2014