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TECHx
3 hours ago
- TECHx
AppsFlyer Reports Decline in UA Spend Despite Mobile Growth
Home » Smart Sectors » Retail » AppsFlyer Reports Decline in UA Spend Despite Mobile Growth AppsFlyer has revealed the UAE findings of its annual State of eCommerce Mobile Marketing report. The data highlights how Chinese eCommerce apps continue to dominate user acquisition (UA) spending in one of the world's top mobile-first economies. In the first half of 2025, Chinese apps accounted for 73% of all UA spend in the UAE. France followed with 13%, and India with 8%, driven by focused campaigns and expat-centric strategies. The report pointed to growing competition from overseas brands. As a result, local eCommerce retailers saw their UA investments shrink. This trend reflects budget reallocations, rising pressure from international players, and market consolidation. AppsFlyer experts noted that local brands still have growth opportunities. However, success will require clear strategies and performance-driven, localised campaigns. Sue Azari, Industry Lead eCommerce at AppsFlyer, explained that Chinese apps have long targeted markets outside China. She said the UAE is a natural fit due to its premium audience and digital maturity. French apps are focusing on iOS users, while Indian advertisers likely see strong potential in the UAE's South Asian expat population. AppsFlyer also reported strong growth for iOS in the UAE. While Android app installs are projected to grow 713% since 2017, iOS installs are expected to rise by 1383% over the same period. Year-on-year, iOS installs are forecast to more than double in 2025. At the same time, iOS fraud rates dropped 63% year-on-year in H1 2025. Android's fraud rate, however, rose 234% in the same period. This indicates iOS is becoming a safer and more attractive platform for marketers, despite Android's scale. The report also revealed a decline in overall UA spending. In H1 2025, Android UA spend fell 21% compared to the same period in 2024. iOS spend declined only 6%, showing more resilience. Yet, the period also saw record-high remarketing investments. Q1 2025 remarketing spend tripled compared to Q1 2024 Ramadan and retail events played a major role in early-year performance Azari encouraged marketers to align campaigns with seasonal peaks like Ramadan and build remarketing strategies to sustain engagement afterward. She also noted that declining Android UA spend may offer cost-effective inventory for savvy brands. AppsFlyer concluded that the UAE remains a competitive market for mobile commerce. Advertisers who balance premium iOS strategies with cost-effective Android engagement and adapt budgets to seasonal trends are best positioned for success.


TECHx
9 hours ago
- TECHx
Alibaba AI Model Targets Coding Efficiency with Qwen3
Home » Latest news » Alibaba AI Model Targets Coding Efficiency with Qwen3 Alibaba AI Model Qwen3-Coder enables developers to automate coding tasks, generate code, and manage workflows with open-source access. Alibaba Group announced the launch of Qwen3-Coder, an open-source artificial intelligence model designed to support software development. The company described it as its most advanced coding tool so far. The new Alibaba AI model is built to handle a range of programming tasks. These include code generation and managing complex workflows. According to the company, the model is particularly effective in agentic AI coding. This refers to automated tasks where the AI system can independently solve programming problems. The move reflects ongoing competition among Chinese tech firms in global AI development. Companies in China and the United States continue to introduce increasingly advanced models. In performance tests, Alibaba reported that Qwen3-Coder outperformed local models such as DeepSeek and Moonshot AI's K2 in key coding tasks. The company also revealed that its model performed at levels comparable to U.S.-based tools like Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT-4 in certain areas. Key points: Qwen3-Coder focuses on coding tasks and automation Alibaba says it surpasses some Chinese peers in performance Reported to match certain U.S. models in specific capabilities The Qwen3-Coder model is available as open-source, making it accessible for developers and organizations looking to integrate AI into software development processes. Source: Reuters


Khaleej Times
9 hours ago
- Khaleej Times
US stock market concentration risks come to fore as megacaps report earnings
Wall Street's reliance on a small number of high market-value stocks to keep momentum going for the U.S. equities bull market will be tested in coming days as major technology and growth companies report earnings. Concentration in widely followed market barometers such as the SP 500 and Nasdaq Composite means that weakness in just a few names can have broad ramifications as the indexes hover at record highs. "When a handful of stocks dominate the market ... if you do have a period of disappointment from those stocks, you could see disproportionate impacts on your portfolio from just a handful of company-specific issues," said Michael Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede. Drawing attention to such top-heavy market leadership on Wednesday will be earnings results due from Google parent Alphabet and Tesla, the first of the "Magnificent Seven" megacaps to report this period. That group - which also includes Nvidia, Microsoft , Apple, Amazon and Meta Platforms - earned the "Magnificent" moniker because of their dominant business positions and huge stock gains in 2023 and 2024. Stock performance this year among the Magnificent Seven has been mixed. But they have all rebounded since April from a selloff following President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" announcement of sweeping global tariffs. The group amounted to one-third of the weight of the SP 500 as of Friday, due to their massive market caps, their largest combined presence since the start of the year, according to LSEG Datastream. Alphabet shares are up about 1% on the year, while shares of Elon Musk-led Tesla are down about 18%. Together, they account for over 5% of the SP 500's weight. Other data points also indicate market concentration becoming more extreme. The top 10 weights in the SP 500 last week hit 37.3% of the index, near the 38% level it reached in January, which had been its highest level on record, according to SP Dow Jones Indices, citing data since 1975. These massive stocks generally have higher valuations. The top 10 stocks have an average price-to-earnings ratio of about 26 times, compared to 20 times for the rest of the SP 500, said Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. "The biggest stocks are very expensive," Shalett said. "If the biggest stocks fall the most, the index is very vulnerable." The SP 500 technology sector recently accounted for 33.9% of the entire SP 500's market value, the largest share since March 2000 during the height of the dot-com bubble era, according to LSEG Datastream. The SP 500 is considered a benchmark for the stock market, but its top-heavy nature could mean investors who own funds that mirror the index are less diversified than they think. "If you are designing a portfolio, you really need to consider, OK, what are the weights there?" said Todd Sohn, ETF and technical strategist at Strategas. "It's not as diversified as it has been in the past. Then you have to consider some other means out there to keep that portfolio balanced." Nvidia, which recently became the first company to top $4 trillion in market value, had as of Tuesday a 7.83% weight in the SP 500. That is the most a single stock has ever accounted for in the index, topping the 7.7% that Apple reached last year, according to Sohn, who looked at 45 years of data. The weight of Nvidia - a semiconductor company that has symbolized the artificial intelligence boom - is greater than five entire SP 500 sectors out of 11 in the index, including consumer staples, which includes 38 stocks and has a 5.4% weight, and energy, a 23-company group with a total SP 500 weighting of slightly less than 3%. Heading into the heavy part of earnings season, the SP 500 is up over 7% this year, and becoming increasingly led by larger stocks. Since April 8, when the market hit its low point for the year following Trump's tariff announcement, the SP 500 has gained nearly 27%. The equal-weight version of the index - which is considered a gauge of the average SP 500 stock - has risen 21.5% in that time. Since the end of 2022, the SP 500 has gained over 60%, more than doubling the equal-weight version's gains in that time. "When the market gets really expensive and narrow ... the market becomes more vulnerable," said Matthew Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak. "So it's a big concern for me."