Thursday October 30, 2014

• Line reported strong results (rev: $192M, 104% Y/Y, income not revealed); 30 million users in India: Unlike rival Whatsapp (600M users), which effectively does not monetize at all (a luxury available to Whatsapp thanks to Facebook's spectacular overall profitability), Line makes its money as a digital content platform — most of its revenue comes from in-app purchases within its connected games platform, which includes more than 50 titles, but it also sells stickers and operates a marketing channel which lets brands run official accounts and pay to reach consumers. Line  stated that it has 170 million monthly active users worldwide, 87 million of which come from Taiwan, Thailand, and and Japan. The app claims 30 million users in India. By the end of the year it will introduce payments, taxi hailing, and food delivery services, which will accompany new gaming, manga, and music initiatives. Line recently postponed plans to go public in a rumored dual US-Japan IPO that could value it at $10 billion.

• Xiaomi is now the world’s third largest smartphone maker, while Samsung's mobile division has its worst quarter since 2011: Xiaomi is now the world’s third largest smartphone maker, due in large part to the success of its high-end Mi4, says new research by IDC. This is also the first time that Xiaomi has broken into the research firm’s list of the top 5 smartphone makers in the world. Samsung remains at the lead despite declining shipment volume, followed by Apple, Xiaomi, and Lenovo and LG, which tied for fourth place. Samsung spent most of the quarter without launching a new flagship device, and continued to struggle in the mid-to-low tier markets against cheaper and value-packed offerings like Xiaomi's Redmi 1S. Profit for the mobile division fell 73.9 percent to 1.75 trillion won in the third quarter, its worst performance since the second quarter of 2011.

• Dating/hook-up app Tinder has staggering engagement levels, based on a simple psychological truth: looks matter: In the two years since Tinder was released, the smartphone app has exploded, processing more than a billion swipes left and right each day (right means you “like” someone, left means you don’t) and matching more than 12 million people in that same time, the company said. Tinder’s engagement is staggering. The company said that, on average, people log into the app 11 times a day. Women spend as much as 8.5 minutes swiping left and right during a single session; men spend 7.2 minutes. All of this can add up to 90 minutes each day. While conventional online dating sites have been around longer, they haven’t come close to the popularity of Tinder.
• Reddit launches a crowd-funding site as it attempts to monetize non-intrusively: Reddit, where users find, share and talk about web links and photos, has been faithful to an antiquated design and still looks like an online message board plucked from the 1990s — think Craigslist, but with more Lolcats. You don’t need to hand over any personal data, not even an email address, to sign up and post or view an item. The huge online community message board site unveiled Redditmade on Wednesday, a crowdfunding initiative that allows Reddit users to raise money to manufacture and sell customized items. The move will add another revenue stream to Reddit, which has tried to find creative ways to make money from the millions of people who visit the site without angering its quirky community of Internet denizens. Reddit has grown enormously in popularity over the last five years but only recently started focusing more on making money. Reddit now makes money from a small e-commerce site, Reddit Gifts. It also sells Reddit Gold, a subscription program that offers perks for signing up. Its largest moneymaker by far, however, is advertising.