While there are many challenges for any company looking to globalize, two significant hurdles are connecting with the local clientele and effectively promoting your products or services. Having a localized Internet presence, including both websites and social media, is a good start but for many consumer and B2B companies, the game is truly being played within a mobile context.
Last week KPCB released Mary Meeker’s 2015 Internet Trends report, which serves as a great high-level resource for all companies and we are going to take a look at what insights we can gather for companies considering global expansion. The 2015 report, now in its 20th year, presents global Internet and mobile statistics and trends that, when looked at through different lenses, offer insights that can help navigate how to approach going global. You can review the entire report here.
We’re all aware that one of the leading trends over the past several years is the growth in mobile use, particularly Smartphone subscriptions, around the globe. How does this knowledge apply to your business? The most obvious answer is that your global strategy will need to include a mobile strategy. The 2015 report shows the mobile use growth rate slowing overall, primarily because it has already penetrated 73% of the global population.
Especially in Asia, and more specifically China and India, we are seeing explosive growth in the ways they are using mobile technology and how it is impacting their daily lives. Many consumers are being onboarded to mobile enabled websites via chat and messaging apps such as WeChat, WhatsApp, Line and KakaoTalk, so mobile is driving Internet usage in those countries.
The 2015 report provides ample data to support the need to have a robust mobile presence and focused strategy in place when considering global expansion. In the United States, mobile use has increased by three hours per day since 2008. This brings daily Internet use to over five and a half hours, more than half of which is accessed by a mobile device. For 87% of millennials in the United States, their Smartphone never leaves their side and more than half of the millennials who responded agreed that in five years everything will be done on mobile devices. In India, mobile Internet access accounts for 65% of India’s Internet traffic and 41% of India’s E-Commerce.
There is much more in the 2015 Internet report to mull over and we suggest you review it thoroughly. Here are a couple of key insights to take away through the global lens:
- Large and fast-growing markets
There are many more markets that are changing rapidly offering significant business opportunity beyond the US. Having a true global perspective, a product that meets the needs of different customer groups and a solid strategy for each new market, can lead to long-term growth and true international market leadership.
- Mobile first, Mobile only:
For web applications, having a mobile-friendly responsive design framework is table-stakes. While this might be obvious, there are still some large Internet brands that are not mobile-friendly. If you realize that most of your global customers will be accessing your product from a mobile phone, the experience, messaging, and even types of information available could change significantly. For many companies, focusing on mobile-first or mobile-only with deep integrations to social, chat, and messaging apps beyond Facebook will be most effective.
- Mobile influencer acquisition strategy:
With mobile chat and messaging apps being the on-ramp to awareness even for websites, your approach to acquiring customers needs to change also. Mobile advertising is under-utilized and can be effective, especially with some of the newer and more engaging formats as well as social influencer strategies focused on mobile, these are the primary ways to reach these audiences. Keep in mind that images, videos, games and other formats need to be optimized for speed since mobile audiences have an even shorter attention span for slow loads than even Internet audiences.
The 2015 report introduces several ways creative ad formats have been optimized for mobile use. Explore these optimized formats and advertising through social media.
- Localized product:
The 2015 report makes it clear that mobile and Internet growth is across many segments of business including sharing-economy products such as Airbnb, marketplaces, services, video, chat, social media, the Internet of Things, and m-Commerce. People expect to be able to use their mobile devices for a wide range of things and they expect it to be relevant to them. Localizing your product includes appropriate language, cultural, functional and regulatory modifications. You can learn more about how to localize your web and mobile products. Contact us to learn more.
