Latest news with #Similarweb
Daily Record
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Record
AliExpress launches rapid delivery service and opens doors to UK sellers
An international online retail marketplace is introducing a new hourly delivery service for selected household products, food, and beverages in the UK. Customers in Greater London can now order packaged food, drinks, and household essentials via the AliExpress app and enjoy same-day delivery on items such as cola, instant noodles and toilet paper, depending on availability and location. The service is expected to expand to other UK cities later this year in response to growing demand for convenience and faster delivery options. Open to UK suppliers and businesses In the meantime, AliExpress has announced that the platform is now open to local UK suppliers and businesses. To encourage participation, a streamlined onboarding process, one-to-one operational support, and a discounted commission rate are being offered. UK-based businesses can connect with a large customer base through AliExpress and may benefit from platform promotions and seller subsidies. For consumers, this development means the potential for quicker delivery on a wider variety of products, including furniture, lighting, garden accessories, kitchen gadgets, and more. Items shipped from local warehouses can typically arrive within three days, depending on the location and product. Bonnie Zhao, General Manager at AliExpress UK, explained: 'Local businesses and suppliers can connect with millions of shoppers on AliExpress, and consumers may benefit from faster shipping on a broader selection of products. 'This move reflects our aim to provide an upgraded service to our customers and support for local businesses.' Wide range of products AliExpress already stocks a wide range of products in European warehouses. Products marked 'Local+' are shipped from UK or EU-based warehouses, aiming to offer consumers a more convenient and locally focused shopping experience. In the past year, AliExpress has seen a significant increase in orders fulfilled from local stock, with popular items including bikes, consumer electronics, portable power stations, and power tools. Recognised for its competitive pricing, product variety, and international shipping, AliExpress continues to grow in the UK. According to data from Similarweb, during last year's Black Friday to Cyber Monday period, AliExpress recorded a sharp rise in UK visits, up more than 140%. By building on its global e-commerce capabilities, AliExpress is strengthening its UK operations, aiming to enhance local supply chains, accelerate delivery, and better serve both international and domestic customers.
IOL News
5 days ago
- IOL News
Is ChatGPT really killing Google?
Chat GPT is increasingly being used for functions which were previously the domain of Google. Image: Supplied Shira Ovide There are regular headlines suggesting chatbots like ChatGPT may be taking over for Googling. Maybe you've also started using artificial intelligence instead of Google to hunt for hiking boots, news about flooding in Texas or Roblox game tips. To separate truth from belief, I dug into the numbers. What I found was that our use of chatbots is growing fast but that Google search still overwhelmingly remains our front door to find online news, information and products. Sorry, AI bros. Web search may be losing some ground to AI, but we rely on it so much that chatbots are barely making a dent. The data suggests that Google has nearly 400 times the usage of ChatGPT for some news and information. Chatbots for news Similarweb, which studies our website activity, said last month that ChatGPT is a massively fast-growing way that Americans are finding online news articles. About 25 million times from January through May this year, we landed on a news website after clicking a link in ChatGPT - up from just about 1 million times a year earlier, according to Similarweb. Wow. (The Washington Post has a content partnership with ChatGPT owner OpenAI.) Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ But in the same five months, Americans landed on news websites about 9.5 billion times from using web search engines including Google and clicking on a link, Similarweb's director of market insights, Laurie Naspe, confirmed. Put another way, for every American who asked ChatGPT for information and landed on a news website to learn more, 379 people used Google to do the same thing. Important caveats: We behave differently when using chatbots for information compared with web search engines. Chatbots (including the 'AI Overviews' in Google search) paraphrase information from news articles about Samsung's latest smartphone or online reviews of air purifiers. You might rarely click a web link to find out more, as you do with conventional Google searches. That behavior is causing carnage for websites and alters the Similarweb numbers. When we use ChatGPT to summarize news events and stop there, it doesn't show up in Similarweb's web click data. However you interpret the numbers, Google remains for now a dominant way Americans find news websites. The percentage of website visits to search vs AI sites Image: The Washington Post Chatbots vs search A different report, by web analysis firm Datos by Semrush and software company SparkToro, found that about 11 out of every 100 of our website visits from a computer is to Google and other search engines. AI technologies - including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude and more - account for less than 1 out of every 100 websites we visit combined. The report shows a huge increase in the amount of web visits to chatbot sites in the past year, but we're still using search websites many times more. 'Search is one of the most popular and fastest-growing features in ChatGPT,' an OpenAI spokesperson said. 'We're investing in a faster, smarter search experience and remain committed to helping people discover high-quality news and information.' Google said it generally doesn't comment about its market share. SparkToro CEO Rand Fishkin did some related number crunching and found that chatbots were even punier compared with search. He made educated assumptions to compare how often we're using ChatGPT to find the kinds of information for which we've typically used Google, such as learning about the Golden Gate Bridge or comparing options for an air conditioner. Fishkin found that we're doing more than 14 billion Google searches a day compared with at most 37.5 million Google-like searches on ChatGPT. Google, in other words, has about 373 times the comparable usage of ChatGPT. Important caveat: Fishkin's educated guesses are just one data point. Fishkin also wasn't counting our use of chatbots for tasks we don't do in search, such as summarizing a long report or writing a bedtime story. And some of our time with Google search is now with its AI Overviews and AI Mode, though it's hard to measure how much. There have been other imperfect but useful analyses that have suggested we're doing more Google searches and using chatbots more, too. At least hundreds of millions of people use ChatGPT each week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in April. While the numbers aren't comparable, Google's web search has nearly 5 billion users. So are chatbots killing Google search? The answer, like our habits, isn't that simple. In my conversations with people who oversee websites, some of them said they are overhauling their strategy to attract readers and viewers like you, because they believe fewer people will find them from web search links and more from chatbots. Your favorite websites are willingly or grudgingly adapting to chatbots that might kill them anyway. It can also be true that we constantly misjudge how fast new technology is replacing our old habits. It might feel as if people buy everything online, but e-commerce accounts for just 16 percent of all the stuff that Americans buy. Until very recently, Americans still spent more time watching conventional cable or free television than streaming on TVs, according to Nielsen. And for now, the use of ChatGPT for news and other information remains puny. 'When everyone else is talking about it and the media's writing about it, a new technology can feel far bigger than it is,' Fishkin said. | The Washington Post
The Verge
6 days ago
- The Verge
Threads is catching up to X on mobile.
Posted Jul 8, 2025 at 1:15 PM UTC Threads is catching up to X on mobile. According to Similarweb data reported by TechCrunch , the Threads mobile app reached 115.1 million daily active users in June, compared to the 132 million daily actives for X and 4.1 million for Bluesky. But while X's growth declined by 15.2 percent year-over-year on mobile, Threads has increased by 127.8 percent during the same period. X only has to take Meta seriously on iOS and Android, however, given it's still thrashing both Threads and Bluesky for web visits.
Express Tribune
6 days ago
- Business
- Express Tribune
Meta's Threads app closes in on X's daily active users, new data reveals
Instagram's Threads app is closing the gap on its main competitor, X (formerly Twitter), in terms of daily mobile app users, new data reveals. As reported by Tech Crunch, based on data provided by market intelligence firm Similarweb, Threads had 115.1 million daily active users across iOS and Android, showing a remarkable 127.8% year-over-year growth. Meanwhile, as of June 2025, X has reached 132 million daily active users, though its growth declined by 15.2% over the same period. New data shows Threads is nipping at X's heels on mobile. In June of this year... 🧵 Threads hit 115.1M daily active users ❌ X reached 132M DAUs And Bluesky was far behind, with 4.1M — TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) July 7, 2025 Despite its rapid growth, Threads still trails behind X in web traffic. X recorded 145.8 million average daily web visits worldwide in June, far surpassing Threads' 6.9 million. However, Threads has made significant strides in mobile engagement, a key area for monetisation as Meta focuses on ads as its primary revenue stream for the app. While Threads and X battle for dominance on mobile devices, Bluesky, a decentralised social network, has seen a huge increase in user activity, with a 372.5% rise in daily active users year-over-year. However, Bluesky's global daily active user count remains modest at 4.1 million, and it lags far behind both Threads and X in terms of mobile app engagement. In the US market, Threads and X are in closer competition, with Threads reaching 15.3 million daily mobile active users, compared to X's 22.9 million. However, Bluesky's presence in the US remains small, with only 1.1 million daily mobile users. X vs. Threads vs. Bluesky: Android trends worldwide during and after the US elections. — Similarweb (@Similarweb) June 23, 2025 Although Bluesky's user base grew following backlash against X's owner Elon Musk and his alliance with President Trump, the platform has recently faced criticisms of becoming a left-leaning echo chamber, which may have led some users back to Threads. Overall, the data suggests that while Bluesky remains a niche player, the rivalry for mobile users is now largely between Threads and X. With Threads catching up, Meta's social network is poised to further challenge X's dominance in the social media landscape.
The Star
7 days ago
- Business
- The Star
Data shows Threads approaching X's daily app user numbers
SAN FRANCISCO, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Instagram Threads, a new app from Meta, is catching up to X in terms of mobile app users, according to new data from market intelligence provider Similarweb. In June 2025, Threads' mobile app for iOS and Android saw 115.1 million daily active users, representing 127.8 percent year-on-year growth, while X reached 132 million daily actives, as its year-on-year growth declined by 15.2 percent. The Meta-owned social network saw 15.3 million U.S. daily active users on iOS and Android compared with 22.9 million for X. However, the new data suggests that Threads could become a more significant competitor for X across iOS and Android, as X still has a huge advantage on the web. Similarweb found that X's worldwide daily web visits are well ahead of Threads', with the former seeing 145.8 million average daily web visits worldwide in June 2025, compared with just 6.9 million for Threads. Threads has 350 million monthly active users, according to Meta's latest earnings report. X is no longer required to share metrics publicly as a private company. Its owner Elon Musk last year claimed that X has 600 million monthly active users.
