China business confidence remains soft

A modest recovery in overall business confidence masked a pullback in activity in December, as China's largest firms continued to grapple with lower demand and an uncertain business environment. Companies did not expect to see a significant improvement in early 2016, with the Future Expectations Indicator remaining close to last month's series low said MNI Indicators, part of Deutsche Borse Group. The company offers macro-economic data and insight to businesses and the investment community.

The MNI China Business Sentiment Indicator*, a gauge of current business sentiment, rose 5.6% to 52.7 in December from 49.9 in November, edging back above the 50 level that separates expansion from contraction. In spite of the bounce back, overall confidence wasn't able to recover to October's level. The slowdown in China this year has been confirmed, with the 2015 average falling to 52.2 from 53.9 in 2014 and well below the series average of 58.1.

Real activity measures in the survey continued to decline, losing further ground from the sharp rise in August with both new orders and production now sitting below their long-run averages. Monetary policy loosening has had a material impact on production and new orders in 2015, although the tendency for the indicators to fall back shortly after any rate cuts suggests that more is required to meaningfully revive demand.

Other areas of the report showed that credit conditions continued to remain relatively loose, although a smaller majority reported that loans were easier to access. Following the IMF's decision to include the yuan in the Special Drawing Rights basket a greater proportion of respondents said that the exchange rate was helping their business, while companies were roughly evenly split on whether the exchange rate over Q116 will help or hurt their operations.

Commenting on the latest survey, Philip Uglow, Chief Economist of MNI Indicators said, "It has been a choppy year for the Chinese economy with volatility in the MNI China Business Sentiment Indicator at the highest since 2009, while GDP for the year is likely to grow at the slowest pace in 25 years. Still, the relatively modest easing in the MNI China Business Sentiment Indicator over the year as a whole suggests China is undergoing more of a bumpy rather than hard landing.

"While our expectation is that growth over 2016 will likely ease further, continued reforms and a gradual structural shift in the economy away from industrial overcapacity towards greater depth in the service economy will pave the way for more sustainable growth in the long-term."

*MNI China Business Sentiment is a monthly poll of Chinese business executives at companies listed on either the Shanghai or Shenzhen stock exchanges. Companies are a mix of manufacturing and service sector firms.

The survey tracks and predicts Chinese economic conditions and is an indicator of GDP. Data is collected through computer aided telephone interviews (CATI) and around 200 companies are surveyed each month.
Respondents are asked their opinion on whether a particular business activity has increased, decreased or remained the same compared with the previous month as well as their expectations for three months ahead, e.g. is Production higher/same/lower compared with a month ago?

Diffusion indicators are then calculated by adding the percentage share of positive responses to half the percentage of those respondents reporting no change. An indicator reading above 50 shows expansion, below 50 indicates contraction and a result of 50 means no change. Series which show a seasonal pattern are seasonally adjusted using the US Census Bureau's X12 seasonal adjustment program. Seasonal factors are calculated annually.

Socialbakers slices dining by Facebook fanbases

Source: Socialbakers website.

The fastest-growing restaurant and cafe Facebook pages in Indonesia include The Duck King, Potato Head Garage, and Kudeta, according to Socialbakers, which tracks and benchmarks social media profiles across major social platforms. The most popular Facebook pages for dining in Indonesia are Excelso Coffee, with nearly 52,000 fans, Kudeta with over 44,500 and The Duck King Group with over 10,500.

Source: Socialbakers website.

In India, Al Kabab Restaurant is the top Facebook page for dining with 62,000+ fans, followed by Thai restaurant Soi7 in second place (47,000+ fans) and the Blue Blazer (nearly 45,000 fans). Al Kabab is the most popular page, followed by Moonshine Cafe and Rollmaal, which serves rolls with a wide range of fillings.

Source: Socialbakers website.

For Turkey, the fastest growing dining-related Facebook pages include KasapDoner, WOW Bodrum Resort and Anjelique. The most popular pages are Melekler Kahvesi with 294,600+ fans, Karakoy Gulluoglu with 78,000 fans and WOW Bodrum Resort with just under 78,000 fans.

Interested?

View the latest Socialbaker statistics for restaurants and cafes in Indonesia, India and in Turkey
Read reviews of Melekler Kahvesi
Read reviews of Rollmaal

Aim to be the best to gain more return visits, online sales: Adobe

Source: Adobe.

New research from Adobe has found that marketers across Asia Pacific who deliver best practices are pulling further away from their competitors.

The Adobe Digital Index Best of the Best Benchmark for Asia Pacific compares the overall average versus websites in the top 20% on six key performance indicators across six regions: Australia and New Zealand, Southeast Asia, India, South Korea, Hong Kong, China and the US. Key performance indicators are mobile and tablet traffic, stick rate*, visits-per-visitor, time spent and conversion rate.

“We are seeing a major gap developing between being average and being in the top 20% of marketers across Asia Pacific,” said Tamara Gaffney, Principal Analyst, Adobe Digital Index. “For conversion rates alone, the ‘best of the best’ websites in industries that sell online deliver nearly double the average conversion rate. They are proving that making a commitment to digital excellence can result in a significant increase in revenue.”

Key findings in the Best of the Best Benchmark for Asia Pacific include:

· Australia and New Zealand, and Southeast Asia, have seen the most overall growth in tablet share; the best of the best sites achieve about 5% more tablet visits than the average.

· Time spent on websites is higher in Australia and New Zealand, and Southeast Asia, but has fallen year on year in all other countries.

· Websites optimised for smartphone visitors in South Korea see nearly 90% difference in share of smartphone traffic than an average site; in the past year the gap between average and best in class for mobile optimisation has grown in every country. Mobile optimisation refers to websites which have been optimised for smartphone visitors.

· All countries except South Korea saw an increase in stick rate year on year; India led all countries with that nation’s ‘best of the best’ marketers improving their stick rate by over 14% year on year.

· The ‘best of the best’ websites increase the amount of return visits by as much as 25% compared to the average across Asia Pacific.

“There is no such thing as ‘offline’ any more. The data is telling us that delivering seamless experiences across devices and within social media is driving the best performance and leading to superior business performance,” Gaffney said.

“Across Asia Pacific, those marketers delivering best in class are on par with top marketers around the world. For example, we can see that stick rate is higher across Asia Pacific than in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. This is a leading indicator of two important elements of website success – optimised marketing acquisition activities and homepage relevance and engagement.

“Finding out where your organisation falls within the tiers of the Benchmark will help identify strengths and weaknesses and can help marketers prioritise areas to focus on.”

“Businesses that can improve customer engagement and drive conversion rates via their digital channels will find themselves at the front of the pack; our Adobe Digital Index has shown that an improvement in the conversion rate of just a tenth of a percent can result in millions of dollars of revenue growth,” said Stephen Hamill, Managing Director, Adobe South East Asia. “The consumption of online content and performance of online transactions on mobile devices in South East Asia is only going to increase. 

"Singapore has the highest smartphone penetration in Asia Pacific at 87%, with other markets in South East Asia like Thailand (49%), Indonesia (23%) and Philippines (15%) gaining traction. Tablet ownership in Singapore also grew 30 percentage points in the past year to 47%, with Malaysia up 23 points to 42%1. The opportunities in the mobile arena cannot be ignored.”

Organisations can check where they fall within the Benchmark through Adobe’s Digital Marketing Maturity Assessment.

*Stick rate is the percentage of visits that last more than one page.