Tuesday, November 18, 2014

• Rural consumers accounted for ~10% of Alibaba’s US$9.3B Singles Day haul, washing machines, wool and down coats in top 10 items: Alibaba VP Wang Yulei said at the event that the top ten products China’s rural residents bought via Alibaba’s online marketplaces this Singles Day were, in order of popularity: Mobile phones Flatscreen TVs Boots Wool coats Women’s down coats Men’s down coats Low-top shoes Bedsheets/sets Facial skin products Washing machines According to Wang, there are some significant differences between that and the urban top ten list, on which flatscreen TVs rated lower and washing machines didn’t rate at all, among other differences.

• Snapchat is getting into p2p payments; linking audience identity information to (currently anonymous) Snapchat might be the rationale: Snapchat doesn’t ask for your real name, but its on the debit card you use for its new peer-to-peer payments feature Snapcash. That could prove very lucrative for the ephemeral messaging service. To use the feature for sending friends money that launched today, users connect their debit card to their Snapchat accounts through a partnership with Square Cash. The real names, addresses, and account information associated with those debit cards could potentially be cross-referenced with databases of personal information to give Snapchat a much better idea of who users are and what ads they might want to see.

• Rocket Internet in Asia: Jabong H1 GMV $81M (195% Y/Y), Lazada H1 GMV $91M (202% Y/Y): Rocket Internet’s first earnings report since its October IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange revealed: Jabong H1 GMV up 195% Y/Y to US$81 million;  Orders grew 171% to 3.2 million, no data for active users. EBITDA loss US$0.129K slightly worse than the loss in H1 2013. Lazada H1 GMV (US$91.4 million), up 202% Y/Y. 1.8 million orders from its 1.4 million active users. Rocket Internet explains that Lazada is shifting from a direct sales model (shipping from its own warehouses) to a marketplace model for third-party merchants. As a result, revenue may suffer. But for now, revenues are stronger than last year, with H1 2014 already amounting to EUR 47.3 million (US$59.2 million), which is 83% of the total 2013 net revenues. EBITDA was negative EUR 40 million (US$50 million). Zalora, which sells clothing in 10 Asian nations: H1 GMV US$70.1 million (44% Y/Y), 1.5 million orders, 1.2 million active users during H1. Revenues US$55 million. EBITDA loss US$41.9 million (more than halved since the whole of 2013).