Women across the world are expanding beyond traditional roles to influence decisions in the home, in business and in politics, creating a massive opportunity for marketers to better connect with them.

The Chinese automotive market is on a roll: over the past five years, it has been the only car market globally to grow more than 20 percent, and in 2010 it posted an even-higher 30 percent growth. According to a new Nielsen study, nearly 94 percent of Chinese consumers say that they intend to buy a car at some point in the future.

According to a Q1 2011 survey, 39.2 percent of mobile consumers in Spain now have smartphones. Nokia’s Symbian operating system remains the most popular with 65 percent market share, despite a 9 point decline since Q4 2010.

A recent survey of the top 300 advertising agencies in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, which was undertaken by Nielsen on behalf of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) in Latin America, underlined the tremendous growth potential of mobile media in the region.

For most of the past two years, Vietnam has been on a roll. Virtually untouched by the global economic downturn, the country posted strong GDP growth. Consumer confidence, while fluctuating quite a bit, generally ranked among the highest of the 55 countries monitored by Nielsen on a quarterly basis.

The complexity of operating in the Italian marketplace was a clear refrain heard repeatedly during Linkontro, Nielsen’s flagship client event in Italy.

Asia Pacific has seen rapid growth in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector over the past few years. Thailand has experienced solid growth – up 6.4 percent in 2010 compared to 2009 – but much of that growth came from increased volume, not value, thereby resulting in pinched margins for FMCG manufacturers.

According to a study on social media usage by The Nielsen Company conducted in collaboration with AbsolutData, nearly 30 million Indians who are online are members of social networking sites and about two-thirds of them spend time on these social networking sites daily.

Almost half of online consumers in Southeast Asian countries who say they do not own a smartphone, say they plan on buying a smartphone in 2011 according to a recent global online survey from The Nielsen Company.

Global consumer confidence rose two points in the first quarter of this year to an index of 92 driven by record confidence gains in the Middle East/Africa following social and political unrest in the region and strong-performing Asia Pacific economies.