Welcome to AdFeeder’s web Wednesdays, your weekly dose of the latest news and stories that have caught our eye. From technology news to the latest vehicle releases and everything in between, we aim to bring you a quick run down of what you need to know each week.
Another week, another batch of exciting news to dive into! This week, WhatsApp find themselves in hot water, and we finally get some good news from the world of car sales!
Ready? Let’s go!
Volvo helps create carbon neutral city
With the aim of achieving a climate-neutral city by 2030, Volvo Cars has teamed up with the City of Gothenburg in Sweden for the creation of new urban zones that will be used as testbeds for future sustainable technologies.
Other potential examples include fully electric mobility hubs; a complete, easy-to-use charging network for electric cars and autonomous taxis. “Essentially, we are initiating a project that intends to limit the number of cars in the city – which is fully in line with our company’s purpose,” said Håkan Samuelsson, Chief Executive of Volvo Cars.
Livestreams prove their worth on social accounts
Stay at home orders meant events were cancelled, and consumers were unable to attend in-person events. This led to an increase in the number of people tuning into live-streams, whether it was a branded live-stream, a live video from their favourite celebrity, or an online workshop.
On Facebook, live viewings spiked by 50% during lockdown periods, while viewings on Instagram surged 70%. Interestingly, Amazon Live really got going during the pandemic. Influencers took to the platform to promote their favourite products during live events. What’s more, the livestreams were shoppable, which meant viewers could make purchases while they were watching.
2020 sees incredible delivery figures
With brands busy totalling their sales figures for 2020, despite an extremely difficult year, many manufacturers have seen fantastic sales figures on new vehicles.
For example, Porsche delivered a total of 272,162 new vehicles worldwide last year, just three per cent below the record set in 2019. “The coronavirus crisis posed a great challenge from spring 2020 onwards. Nevertheless, we were able to keep deliveries comparatively stable for the year as a whole,” says Detlev von Platen, Member of the Executive Board for Sales and Marketing at Porsche AG. Despite the ongoing pandemic, an all-time six-month sales record was set by Lamborghini Automobili in the second half of the year, totalling 7,430 new models delivered worldwide in 2020
Don’t think it’s just high-end brands that performed well in 2020 though, Skoda recently announced they surpassed the mark of 1,000,000 vehicles delivered worldwide despite 39-day shutdown of Czech production sites and temporary collapse of sales channels in second quarter. In contrast, the Groupe Renault worldwide sales totalled 2,949,849 vehicles, down 21.3% in a global automobile market that declined by 14.2%.
WhatsApp rival Telegram sees 500% increase in users
WhatsApp rival Telegram has seen a 500 per cent increase in new users amid widespread dissatisfaction with the way the Facebook-owned app handles people’s data.
Telegram recorded 25 million new users over the last 72 hours, according to founder Pavel Durov, taking the total number of users above 500 million. This is roughly a quarter of the estimated 2 billion WhatsApp users around the world, though many users of the world’s most popular messaging app took to social media this week to urge others to leave the platform due to privacy concerns.
WhatsApp sent a notification to all of its users forcing them to accept its privacy policy, which includes terms to share data with Facebook.
Elliot is our resident tech-lover and petrolhead, who is in charge of spreading AdFeeder to the masses! Having previously worked with brands such as Porsche and BMW, Elliot specialises in content creation and social media.
