According to a 2020 eMarketer forecast, WhatsApps’s user base in India—currently the largest of any country—is expected to increase from 390.1 million users in 2020 to 507 million by 2024. If Indian regulators block the update, WhatsApp stands to lose the significant revenue opportunity this user base could generate through its new payments and ecommerce services.

And crypto payments are seeing even more traction internationally: Chinese ecommerce giant JD.com accepts the digital yuan, and over 100,000 retailers in India—including small businesses—accept Bitcoin. Looking Forward. PayPal’s entrance in the space will likely fulfill the promise of digital crypto payments.

For example, South Korean Viva Republica notched $450 million, and CRED in India raised more than $400 million across several raises this year. We expect that trend to continue in 2022, particularly in Latin America. The biggest hauls are going to companies with the biggest names.

Social time did climb YoY in several countries, including France, Portugal, and India. But these increases were often small. Moreover, time spent with social actually fell in Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, and the Philippines, to name a few.

The tie-up significantly expands Ria’s network, which serves 160 countries, and is likely to help boost volume: Last year, India was the top remittance receiving country—inflows reached a whopping $83.1 billion, per the World Bank. And since Paytm is the first platform to accept international remittances directly into its wallet, the tie-up helps make it a more attractive solution.

If it were to follow India’s lead and subsidize FedNow payments, handle push and pull payments, and promote FedNow as a debit card alternative for a variety of consumer payments, FedNow could ultimately challenge the popularity of debit and credit cards in the US as the UPI has in India.

The pandemic has promoted ecommerce, where BNPL solutions are most prevalent, increased consumers’ need for financial flexibility as they temporarily or permanently lost their incomes, and pushed merchants to find new ways to drive sales.

The return of live sports produced a flurry of licensing activity from broadcast networks and streaming services—including digital video, social, and ecommerce platforms. It also reignited concerns about the sustainability of pricing models for sports video and TV.

India plans to pilot a CBDC early this year, and indicated it may connect the digital currency to its instant mobile bank-to-bank transfer system, which could help boost adoption. Elsewhere, CBDC ambitions are less developed, but around 90% of central banks worldwide are exploring creating CBDCs, according to Reuters.

The news: India-based Groww is in talks to raise $250 million, which would push its valuation to $3 billion, up from $1 billion in April, per TechCrunch. What does it do? Groww offers users access to stocks, mutual funds, and gold. It charges INR 20 ($0.27) or 0.05% per executed order, depending on which is cheaper.

Google Pay has offered customers proximity payments, P2P, and ecommerce through several rebrands that have made it a more cohesive service—in addition to integrations with its leading email client and browser.

While other media conglomerates are also restructuring their businesses to focus more on streaming, Disney’s pivot is particularly consequential because it operates numerous streamers including Hulu, ESPN+, and its upcoming Star service, named after the India-based media company that Disney acquired. This move will further solidify Disney as a streaming leader alongside stalwarts Netflix and Amazon.

Unfavorable Chinese fintech market conditions could heighten the appeal of the India market. In recent years, China and India have competed for the Asian fintech funding crown. Both are hotbeds of fintech innovation and boast high fintech adoption, along with young, financially underserved populations.

Nich Weinheimer, general manager of ecommerce at Kenshoo, calls Instacart a “unicorn” opportunity for CPG brands, explaining that while grocery has huge demand overall, it has been supply-constrained in the ecommerce environment. “The world’s largest brands want that grocery inventory, and COVID-19 has accelerated [that ecommerce demand] to where Instacart is seeing explosive growth.”.

Instagram has been steadily adding shopping features for creators; for instance, it’s testing a native affiliate tool that lets creators find and promote products that are available for purchase directly within the Instagram app. The tool would also provide them with more ways to set up shops for their own merchandise.

Even as total worldwide retail sales declined by 3.0% in 2020, retail ecommerce growth boomed to 27.6%. Ecommerce growth will decelerate substantially in 2021 to 14.3% as brick-and-mortar sales recover.

For example, many local ecommerce giants in the region are tipping into a network of local mom and pop stores as fulfillment and payment collection centers. Innovative payment options, like buy now, pay later, are also important in overcoming the relatively low spending power in emerging economies.

This report summarizes our forecasts for nine countries—the US, Canada, France, Germany, the UK, China, India, Japan, and South Korea—and offers comparative analyses of the major time spent numbers for each.

Over 40% of adults in the US, Australia, France, India, and six other countries surveyed in a 2020 Norton LifeLock report all said they thought facial recognition, in particular, will do more harm than good. What’s next? Some degree of large-scale AI regulation in the US and EU appears not a matter of if, but when.

But Wojcicki didn’t specify where those views were from, and it’s likely that a significant chunk came from India, where TikTok remains banned. In fact, YouTube had said in January 2021 that Shorts brought in 3.5 billion views per day in India alone. TikTok is leaning into longer-form video. TikTok is encroaching on YouTube’s turf as it extends its maximum video length.

Walmart is aggressively exploring livestreaming commerce, including a multiplatform holiday 2021 shopping event held simultaneously on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and Walmart.com. YouTube introduced YouTube.com/Shopping, a temporary hub for livestream shopping events. It also plans to build out video-on-demand and personalized shopping tools.

Currently, Spotlight doesn’t offer any embedded shopping features. Brands that are part of Snapchat’s Brand Profile beta program can build a store that lives in the profile, Snap said. Creators can also connect their own stores natively to their public profile page. YouTube Shorts. After launching in beta in India last year, YouTube began testing its short-video format in the US in March.