Webrazzi

Statista confirms security breach, changes user passwords

Noyan Ayan | March 6, 2014 | No Comment Tweet

German online statistics portal Statista announced that ‘unknown people’ had illegal access to their customer database, and the company had to change the passwords of customers as a precaution. It said e-mail addresses and passwords might have been compromised during the breach, but credit card and bank details are safe, as they are not saved by the company system.

B2C e-sales will hit $1.5T thanks to growth in emerging markets

Ahmet Buğra Ferah | March 3, 2014 | No Comment Tweet

Rapid growth of internet access and usage in emerging markets promise an ever increasing growth trend in overall business-to-consumer e-sales for the years to come.

According to eMarketer’s latest forecasts, global B2C e-commerce sales will increase by 20.1% in 2014 to reach $1.5 trillion mainly thanks to increasing adoption of electronic means to buy stuff in MENA and Asia Pacific. For example, B2C e-commerce will grow 25.1 in MENA in the same period. In 2015, sales in Middle East and Africa are expected to reach $39.6 billion.

Social media analytics firm Socialbakers secures $26M funding for international growth

Noyan Ayan | February 18, 2014 | No Comment Tweet

Socialbakers, a globally well-known social media analytics and optimization company, has closed a $26 million Series C financing round led by Index Ventures. Existing investor Earlybird also participated in the round. This is one of the largest funding rounds for a social analytics company outside North America.

Third round came after a very successful year for Socialbakers, when the company added at least 1000 new corporate clients including Samsung, Disney, Universal and Discovery, and increased its revenues three-fold, according to the company announcement.

Low adoption of digital payment hinders faster growth of e-commerce in the Middle East

Sami Eyidilli | February 11, 2014 | No Comment Tweet

The Middle East represents a rich but surprisingly underserved region in the field of e-commerce. Whilst the share of connected population rises across the region, lack of sufficient tools for digital payment hinders faster growth in electronic retail purchases. According to a report by yStats.com, B2C e-commerce currently accounts for less than 1% of total retail sales in the region. For comparison, the figure is 1.7% in neighboring Turkey and around 6% in the US.

Social networks still struggle to build up full trust among UK users

Noyan Ayan | February 11, 2014 | One Comment Tweet

Though purported to be predominantly related to US-based governmental wiretapping, the disclosure of the existence of the NSA’s surveillance activities across other continents, primarily in Europe, has done little to help social media giants already struggling to secure users’ confidence over privacy protection. This is most markedly see amongst British users where, according to the latest TNS BMRB report published by eMarketer, social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest still fail to earn the confidence of as much as 60% of users.

Almost all web users are mobile in the Middle East and Africa

Sami Eyidilli | January 8, 2014 | One Comment Tweet

Mobile can nowhere be more instrumental in connecting to the world than in the Middle East and Africa. With ever-expanding list of affordable smartphones and tablets introduced one after another, relatively lower-income population of two regions tend to resort more to their pocket devices to benefit the goodies of the net.

eMarketer’s latest research confirms that the mobile is the first means for internet access for most users in the Middle East and Africa, with over 90 percent usage rate since the beginning of 2013, placing them on the top of the list of mobile phone internet user penetration.

Android will dominate device shipments in 2014 thanks to rapid growth in emerging markets

Ali Altuğ KOCA | January 7, 2014 | No Comment Tweet

It should be of no surprise if 2014 becomes an even more significant year for the mobile. A recent report by Gartner confirms the fact, estimating a total of 2.5 billion PCs, mobile handsets and tablets shipment in 2014, of which more than 1.9 billion will, of course, be mobile phones. The report also forecasts that the domination of Android OS will even be stronger in 2014.

The downtrend in PC (desktop and notebook) shipments continues with a predicted 7 percent fall whereas overall device shipment increased 7.6 percent, compared to 3.8 percent in 2013, mainly thanks to Android’s 45 percent share in overall device shipments. Of the 2.5 billion devices, some 1.9 billion will be mobile ones carrying Android OS.

Arab World prefer to talk and share music, not politics, on social networks

Sami Eyidilli | August 1, 2013 | No Comment Tweet

Okey, most of us take it for granted, the widespread use of social networking sites in the Middle East have something to do with ‘having the (political) voices heard’. Guess what! A Q3 infographic prepared by GO-Gulf reveals that 67 percent of online Arabic-speaking population in the Middle East actually prefer talking and sharing about music and films on the social networks, whereas only one third (34 percent) discuss ‘politics’.

According to the graph, 40.2 percent of total Arab world has internet access and 88 percent of them use social networking sites on a daily basis. Facebook is the champ with 94 percent followed by Twitter with 52 percent.