Brands are being advised to look to this channel in order to help to considerably increase their sales in that country.
According to a Draftfcb China global study, the adoption of mobile commerce by brands and companies could help them to double or even triple the sales that they are experiencing over the short and medium term future.
The research looked into the data collected by a study in which there were participants from 8 regions.
Participants in the survey lived within one of eight major global economies and were aged from 18 to 64 years old. It was conducted in the second half of 2012 and there were 8,000 respondents to the mobile commerce survey. The countries included the United States, the United Kingdom, India, South Africa, Brazil, Germany, China, and the Middle East.
The results indicated that China was an extremely important player in the mobile commerce ecosystem.
The survey indicated that among the respondents from China 57 percent of smartphone owners would purchase any type of product using their devices. This was considerably higher than the global average, which was 49 percent. Chinese consumers have become a very important part of smartphone retail shopping, as they live in one of the economies in which the penetration of these devices is the greatest.
The study showed that China possesses the most active mobile commerce market. In fact, people in that country use their smartphones for more functions overall than in any other country or region represented in the survey. Overall, smartphone users from China were conducting 4.9 different types of activities on their devices every day. Comparatively, the United States was in second place at 4.7 percent, and India conducted 4.4 activities per day.
The research indicated that mobile commerce provides brands with access to most cities in China, even when their stores or products don’t actually have a physical location within them. It also stated that this helps to explain why some of the most common smartphone shoppers are individuals residing in the smaller cities and people in Generation Y, the most digital of all of the adult demographics.
Chinese mobile commerce gaining more attention from consumers
China has become a bustling hub of mobile commerce activity in recent years. This is largely due to the massive number of young consumers that have access to mobile technology. These consumers have shown that they are beginning to favor new forms of commerce over traditional forms of commerce and have taken to the mobile space in order to find a more convenient way to purchase products and shop online. In China, two of the country’s largest technology companies are beginning to focus a great deal of their attention on the field of mobile commerce in order to engage a new generation of consumers.
Companies work to promote new forms of commerce
The Alibaba Group and Tencent are two of China’s most influential technology companies. Both companies have strong ties to the retail and gaming spaces, where they work to engage consumers on a regular basis. Because of the companies’ focus on technology, they have taken notice of the meteoric rise of mobile commerce among consumers, as well as the increasingly popularity of location-based services. Location-based technologies have been quite useful in exposing consumers to mobile commerce as these technologies are often used in advertisements that direct consumers to e-commerce sites.
Alibaba favors location-based services and Tencent focuses on social applications
Alibaba is keen to throw more support behind location-based services in order to make mobile commerce more prolific among consumers. The company has invested more than $800 million in these technologies coming from companies like Weibo and AutoNavi. Tencent has shown more subdued interest in location-based services, but does believe that popular social tools, such as the famous WeChat messaging application, could be a powerful way to encourage consumers to participate in mobile commerce providing them details about shops that allow for mobile purchases.
China is establishing itself as a leading market in mobile commerce
China is often considered one of the most active markets when it comes to mobile commerce. Both Alibaba and Tencent have managed to capture the attention of mobile consumers that are eager to take advantage of the capabilities of technology and these consumers have been growing more comfortable with the idea of mobile commerce.
