What’s happening in mobile around the world
Latin America lags in mobile marketing
Mobile marketing budgets are rapidly expanding in many markets, but Latin America still lags behind regions like Asia and North America, according to several marketers speaking at a summit on media buying in Miami last week.
Max Sichel, CEO of Chile’s Grupo Copesa, said Latin America has yet to catch up to other areas in terms of overall online marketing, a precursor to developing mobile marketing programs. “Forget mobile. We’re still weak in online advertising,” he said. “I think it’s going to take 4 or 5 years for [online advertising] to be a bit higher.”
[Read more via Portada Online]
QR code use quadruples in China
Consumer adoption of QR codes in China has gone through a sudden surge this year, more than quadrupling from about 2 million codes scanned in March 2012 to 9 million in the same period this year. The boom in usage may be linked to the adoption of the codes by major internet service providers, including Tecent Holdings, which launched a QR service in China in 2012.
[Read More via BizReport]
Square launches in Japan
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s mobile payments startup Square launched in Japan last month, marking the company’s first foray outside of North America. Square partnered with the Japanese financial services company Sumitomo Mitsui Card Corporation, which introduced Visa to Japan, for the launch and will face stiff competition from PayPal, which has been offering mobile payments in Japan since May 2012.
Also: the Boston-based mobile marketing firm Millennial Media has launched in Japan (which follows the 2011 opening of its Singapore offices) as it continues to eye opportunities in Asia’s vast mobile market.
[Read More via Mobile Marketing Watch]
