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Google searches and twitter mood: nowcasting telecom sales performance

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Abstract

The web currently carries vast amounts of information as to what consumers search for, comment on, and purchase in the real economy. This paper leverages a mash-up of online Google search queries and of social media comments (from Twitter, Facebook and other blogs) to “nowcast” the product sales evolution of the major telecom companies in Belgium. A few findings stand out. With an Error Correction Mechanism (ECM) model of sales dynamics, a co-integration relationship prevails between social media valence (respectively, between search query) and telecom operators’ sales for both internet and digital television access provision (respectively, for fixed telephony provision). Elasticity estimates on sales are relatively larger for valence than for search queries. The ECM model with nowcasting variables improves telecom sales forecasts by about 25 % versus a naïve autoregressive sales model.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. McKinsey & Company, Avenue Louise, 480, B-1050, Brussels, Belgium

    Jacques Bughin

  2. ECARES, Free University of Brussels, Avenue Roosevelt, B-1050, Brussels, Belgium

    Jacques Bughin

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  1. Jacques Bughin
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Correspondence to Jacques Bughin.

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Bughin, J. Google searches and twitter mood: nowcasting telecom sales performance. Netnomics 16, 87–105 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11066-015-9096-5

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