Category: Featured News

Britney Spears: American Dream has launched worldwide.

After having massive success with other celebrity-casual mobile games, including “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood” and “Katy Perry Pop”, it should come as no surprise that Glu Mobile has added another celebrity –based game to its portfolio, this time focusing on long-time American pop icon Britney Spears. The New Britney Spears mobile game, called “Britney Spears: American Dream” was launched worldwide yesterday and is available for both iOS and Android.

The hope is that Spears’s game will follow in the same lucrative footsteps as Kardashian’s.

Glu’s Kim Kardashian mobile game has generated an incredible amount of money, including an estimated $80 million for the star herself, since 2014. The company hopes that the new Spears-focused game will be just as successful.

The mobile game developer based in San Francisco is careful to partner with celebrities who have over a billion social followers. While Glu pays these stars royalties, they benefit from the massive social following of these celebs, allowing Glu to avoid having to spend loads of money on advertising as the celebrities and social media will spread word about the game for them.

Glu’s partnership with Spears was first announced over a year ago and the agreement forged between the two parties is set to last until 2020, at least.

The Britney Spears mobile game won’t be the last celebrity title for Glu.

Like the other games that have come before it, Britney Spears: American Dream lets players transform into pop stars. Players will record hit singles, climb the music charts, and design their own single covers among many other features. The objective is to fight for fame and fortune in the music industry and get your own stage at Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas where the real Britney Spears presently performs.

“I’m so excited to share this project with my fans,” Spears said in a statement about the game.
“Mobile gaming is something completely new for me and I can’t wait to hear what my fans think of all the fun music, outfits, pets, and artwork. I hope they adore it as much as I do!”

Aside from the Britney Spears mobile game, Glu has also announced that it has several other partnerships with A-list celebrities and many other projects in the works. Some of these include mobile games featuring Taylor Swift, Niki Manaj, and even celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.

Mobile commerce is expected to lead the growth of online payments adoption in Malaysia.

According to iPay88, the leading online payment service provider in South East Asia, Malaysia’s m-commerce market will lead the growth of online payments adoption through mobile shopping. The executive director of iPay88 Chan Kok Long said that mobile commerce is now the hot trend to watch and that based on the ratio of the company’s mobile traffic – including its total online payment transactions – digital payment transactions make up nearly 70 percent of the Malaysian market, reported Marketing Interactive.

The mobile commerce trend is expected to rise as the number of mobile device users increases.

Last year, iPay88 recorded that 3.7 million online shoppers who made purchases via its systems used a mobile device. Back in 2014, this number was only 2.0 million, clearly revealing that the growth of mobile shopping in the country is accelerating at a huge speed. So far, this year, iPay88 has reported that in the first quarter 1.6 million shoppers have already made purchase via mobile.

With the number of mobile users increasing in Malaysia, the m-commerce trend is forecasted to increase. In 2015, mobile penetration reached 136 percent with 47 percent of Malaysians using their mobile phones to shop online.

Additionally, iPay88 has also noticed an increase in the number of merchants actively promoting mobile purchases this year. The company also noted that the percentage of mobile traffic has risen significantly from 27 percent in 2014 to 38.4 percent in 2015 to 48.6 percent in 2016 so far.

Malaysia’s m-commerce market ranks third in terms of mobile shopping growth rate in Asia.

This statistic comes from a mobile shopping survey conducted last year, which revealed the country’s mobile shopping growth rate to be over 20 percent from 25.4 percent in 2012 to 45.6 percent in 2014.

Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Walmart and several other popular international online stores have recorded a growing number of consumers making purchases via mobile. However this doesn’t come as a surprise.

“No doubt the availability of cheap smart phones and laptops have made the Internet accessible to a whole new demographic. The advent of tablets and smart watches has also broadened the spectrum of Internet usage,” said iPay88’s executive director Chan Kok Long.

In terms of the m-commerce market in Malaysia, ticketing accounts for 35 percent of purchases made via smartphones, while marketplace/group buying makes up 29 percent. However, when it comes to airline tickets, these items are mostly purchased via tablets.