4 Minutes With Mark Wächter aka Mr. Mobile: China and the Metaverse

To discuss the Mobile Tsunami in Asia’s mobile-first countries and the impact of the Metaverse on our day-to-day marketing activities, we talked with Mark Wächter, the CEO and founder of MWC.mobi as well as Chair at MMA Germany. For almost the past two decades, Mark has been a mobile strategy consultant, bringing his expertise to global clients.

During this chat with MMA Germany Chief Content Officer Peggy Anne Salz, Mark — better known as “Mr. Mobile” — discusses two mobile trends we all need to be watching closely and why.

Check out the full interview with Mark here.

China and the Mobile Tsunami

The impact that China has on the world cannot be downplayed. As a mobile-first society, China has grown and launched many mobile products and services not just on a national level but on a global basis. If you look at how TikTok (and its Chinese sister app) and WeChat have become household terms around the world, and how Shoppee and Lazada have become e-commerce giants in Southeast Asia, it’s not surprising that it’s been called a “mobile tsunami.”

The term “Mobile Tsunami” has been around since 2004, to explain this wave of mobile tech and apps coming from Asia — from countries such as China, India, and the whole region of Southeast Asia. Global brands should monitor what’s going on there to understand how to enter new markets successfully.

The growth of this tsunami especially in Southeast Asia is not surprising as Chinese tech giants Tencent and Alibaba made early investments into e-commerce infrastructure in the region, by creating the platforms Shopee and Lazada. And then bringing mobile wallet tech (AliPay and WeChat Pay) to the underbanked in the region, which is estimated at 50 to 70% of Southeast Asia’s population.

The Metaverse

Meanwhile, we have the Metaverse, which is being called the logical successor of the mobile internet. But discussing the Metaverse is useless without adjacent conversations looking at the future of the internet: web3, blockchain-based companies, crypto, NFTs, Decentraland, The Sandbox, and many more. And you run into some combination of future prediction vs. actual reality.

Because the truth is to many people, these things only exist on the screen. It isn’t real to them yet. The problem though is if we don’t start preparing for the paradigm shift that is bound to be brought about by everyone accessing a virtual world like the Metaverse, then we won’t be ready when it finally arrives.

To say that it will affect how marketing organizations do their jobs is an understatement. It will change everything.