Five Friday Facts #74

News
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On YouTube, PSY’s ‘Gentleman’ hits record 38M views in 24 hours
Following the mind-blowing popularity of his hit single, ‘Gangnam Style’, PSY dropped another new single earlier this month.  As TheNextWeb reports, ‘Gentleman’ has already filled the proverbial big shoes of its predecessor on YouTube. An earlier account of the video’s performance clocked the video views at over 22 million in less than a day. While this rate is a record-breaking achievement in itself, Google has recently confirmed that this number actually stands at a whopping 38 million views. This figure indicates that ‘Gentleman’ has surpassed some other YouTube record holders by a long shot; for instance, Google notes that KONY had previously held the most views in a single day, with 30 million hits. The video has even surpassed ‘Gangnam Style’ in its rapid rate of growth: while ‘Gangnam Style’ took over 7 weeks to hit 100 million views, Gentleman reached the nine-digit milestone in under four days. ‘Gentleman’ currently has over 228 million views–still a far cry from the all-time record held by ‘Gangnam Style’ (1.55 billion and counting)– but a sure sign that PSY has continued to dominate on YouTube.

Chat app gains lead to 11% decline in SMS in China
As we reported earlier this year, mobile chat apps continue to be on the rise in 2013. In particular, they have uprooted dominant social channels in some Asian markets to become the most popular platforms amongst social media users. In Japan, for instance, chat app Line surpassed Twitter as the top platform in the country. According to TheNextWeb, this increasing preference for chat apps has had a considerable effect on traditional text messaging in China as well. Based on a report by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the findings suggested that SMS usage had increased by 0.5% on a yearly basis. However, when this figure is recalculated to exclude mass texts, the results indicate that peer-to-peer messaging has actually decreased by a significant 11%. This downturn may be particularly alarming given the recent tension between China’s state-owned telcom providers and locally established chat app, WeChat. The study illustrates that peer-to-peer messaging was down to 120 billion, marking a 10.9% decrease from last year. The findings also demonstrated that the average user sent 52.6 peer-to-peer messages in the first quarter of this year, down by 11.2% from Q1 2012. By contrast, chat app usage remained on the rise: 22 bilion mobile messages were sent through chat apps in Q1 2013, indicating a 37.6% increase since last year. Peer-to-peer messages stood at 1.3 billion, also up by 15.6% during the period. In effect, the results may illustrate a strong correlation between the adoption of mobile chat apps and the decline in peer-to-peer SMS messaging in the Chinese market. While the encroachment of chat is far from strong, China’s telcoms have taken to a potential countermeasure–of reviving its own messaging app, Fetion, in the near future–to better compete with chat apps in the market.

Google and Facebook face off on social sign-in share
eMarketer recently reported that Facebook remained at the top spot amongst social networks that gave users an option to use social logins across platforms. Based on a report by user management platform provider Janrain, the findings concurrently indicated that Google’s popularity was increasing as well. While Facebook held the lead with a 46% share in Q1 2013,  that proportion actually signals an 8% decrease since Q3 2012. Meanwhile, Google’s share rose by 9% in the same period, from 25% in Q3 2012 to 34% in the first quarter of this year.

Google similarly experienced the most growth on consumer brand sites. As indicated in the graph below, Google ID sign-ins increased from 23% in Q4 2012 to 28% in Q1 2013. By contrast, Facebook sign-ins decreased from 58% to 55% in the same period.

Although Twitter claims the smallest portion of the pie, eMarketer notes that the microblogging platform has been carving out a niche amongst social logins in other areas. On music sites, for instance, Twitter logins increased from 12% to 19% in Q1 2013. While it’s still a far cry from Facebook’s 51% share, the platform’s percentage actually demonstrates a substantial decrease, from 60% in Q4 2012.

In China, social network Renren launches its own chat app
The rise of chat apps, coupled with the dominance of microblogging platforms like Sina Weibo, has made it difficult for China’s social network Renren to grow its user base. In the past few years, it has seen new messaging apps like WeChat soar to over 300 million users, making Renren’s 170 million pale in comparison. Perhaps with this in mind, Renren has decided to jump on the chat app bandwagon, as TechInAsia reports that Renren has launched a new messaging app called TongXueShuo (the literal translation: “classmates say”). This chat app additionally consists of an eclectic mix of social features; TechInAsia notes that there are “elements of Path, Google+, regular social messaging apps, plus the find-and-flirt capabilities of apps like Momo”. While these features are apparently meant to attract a wide range of early adopters, TongXueShuo last month has yet to gather momentum since its launch last month. Despite Renren’s sizable number of users, the battle nonetheless appears invariably uphill given the existing social giants that constitute its competition amongst chat apps in the market.

In India, digital ad spend up 30%; shift to social and mobile
A recent report by eMarketer suggests that digital ad spend has increased significantly over the past few years. Based on a study by The Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Indian Market Research Bureau International, the findings indicated that there was a 29% increase in digital ad spend over the course of fiscal year 2012. While spending has increased to 22.6 billion Indian rupees (SGD 517 million), it is also estimated to rise by another  30%, to 29.4 billion rupees (SGD 673.4 million) in fiscal year 2013.

Digital ad spending has also moved away from traditional formats such as display and search, and started leaning toward mobile and social. While Display and Search constituted 92% of digital ad spend in 2010, they collectively took only 67% in 2012. By contrast, social media and video increased by over 71% each in 2011, and claimed 13% and 7% of digital ad spend respectively in 2012. The increasing adoption of mobile web has also shifted spending to mobile, as the format increased to 10% of digital ad spend during 2012.