An example is this: Until last year, Italy, Portugal, and Spain were three of the least developed ecommerce markets in Western Europe, per a Eurostat report from January 2020. But as of May 2020, 53% of internet users ages 18 to 75 in Portugal had made a digital purchase during lockdown, according to data from marketing agency MARCO.

Despite Latin America breaking from its colonial past with Spain and Portugal roughly 200 years ago, its advertising industry is still troubled by a notable lack of diversity and representation.

Third-party financial services providers in eight new markets including Portugal, Ireland, and Lithuania can now access consumers’ bank account information via the fintech’s API, per AltFi. Launched in 2019, the API processes over 150 million transactions every year.

Despite breaking from its colonial past with Spain and Portugal roughly 200 years ago, Latin America’s advertising industry is still plagued by a notable lack of diversity and representation.

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.

By comparison, those shares in Portugal were 84.7% and 53.0%, respectively, and in Germany, they were 87.9% and 52.2%. Spain registered higher values for both devices, at 87.2% and 59.4%. UK internet users registered 92.6% smartphone penetration in H1 2019. This figure also fell below comparable values in Portugal (96.1%), Germany (93.6%) and Spain (97.2%).

The only countries where smartphone adoption lags are Italy (60.2%) and Portugal (58.6%), primarily due to still-expanding mobile broadband coverage. While feature phones with internet capabilities are still regularly used in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Japan, usage is declining. These markets are catching up to the rest of the world in terms of smartphone costs and coverage.

"AliPay empowers local merchants to better target and connect with their Chinese consumers [as they] increasingly vacation overseas,” said Alba Ruiz, the company’s business development manager for Spain and Portugal. This untapped ecommerce potential plays a big role in the company's future.

Ad Breaks are currently available to pages that meet Facebook’s monetization eligibility standards in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan