Southeast Asia finally awakens but mobile Internet speeds still lag

 

Not too long ago, a little app called WeChat started knocking on doors in Southeast Asia, making itself a permanent fixture in the home screens of smartphone users in the region. Today. WeChat has 200,000 to 300,000 downloads in Thailand, and the app has begun advertising heavily on Facebook, targeting countries in Southeast Asia.

The instant messaging app isn’t developed by some shaggy-haired, irreverent entrepreneur from Silicon Valley, but a powerful Internet giant from China called Tencent.

(Read: Three mobile messaging apps from Asia you must know about)

Global technology firms now realize that Southeast Asia is a sleeping giant that is about to awaken. The number of people in the weirdly-shaped island and archipelagos number about a tenth of the world’s population, making it a collection of huge but diverse markets.

This imminent unleashing of the region’s true potential is the key message of MobileMonday‘s Mobile Southeast Asia Report 2012. The study, available online for free, summarizes some key trends happening in the so-named group of countries.

Here is a snapshot of what the report talks about:

1) Southeast Asia’s ‘spillover markets’

Although WeChat’s main market is still China, Tencent has begun tapping on the region’s potential. Companies like Google, Microsoft, and InMobi (the report neglects to mention Rocket Internet) have also set up camp in Southeast Asia. Local giants like SingTel have begun spreading their wings abroad, investing in startups both homebred and foreign.

2) Maturing mobile infrastructure

Mobile carriers are expected to spend US$53.3B by the end of 2012 on mobile infrastructure. 62 percent of carriers in Asia have already invested in Long-Term Evolution (LTE), catching up with their North American and European counterparts. In Southeast Asia, Malaysia is already running WiMax while Singapore operator StarHub will launch 4G services soon.

3) Growing m-commerce industry and rising acceptance of online shopping

Singapore is the most mobile payment-ready nation in the world, according the the Mobile Payments Readiness Index by MasterCard. Philippines came in second in Southeast Asia, followed by Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia (see SGE’s report).

Another study by MasterCard finds Thailand to be the most receptive country in Asia towards online shopping. Malaysia and Vietnam scored highly as well.

4) Boom in mobile devices

The report says:

Nearly 7.7 million units of phones [were] bought in the first three months of 2012 in the region’s key markets of Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, according to market research company GfK Asia. Indonesia chalked up sales exceeding US1.4 billion in smartphones in 2011, and markets like Singapore and Malaysia have a smartphone penetration rate of 88%.

5) Growth of online gaming market

People in Southeast Asia are a trigger-happy bunch — digitally. Revenue created from the region could double between 2011 and 2015. Internet users are warming towards social gaming.

6) Things are still slow here

Despite the region’s immense potential, challenges remain. Slow mobile Internet connection speeds is one major complaint among users. A Google study has found that Southeast Asian countries lag the world when it comes to connecting to the Internet via mobile devices.

Even Singapore, which is touted as a beacon of hope with its supposedly flawless mobile infrastructure, has surfing speeds that are roughly equivalent to Indonesia and Malaysia.

The region faces other problems. The report says:

Though highly active, creative and vibrant community of developers exist, they are hampered by language  and localisation issues, made worse by the high revenue share of 70-80% imposed by telcos, which  discourages creativity as ARPU numbers per country are still small,” observes Felix Lee, Director at  T.Ware and mentor at NTU Ventures.

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An app for each emotion, a social network for each identity

Everyday we are consumed by social media, and they have been affecting how we interact with one another online and offline.Let’s take a quick look at the different role each social networking sites play.

Facebook is a social networking site founded by Mark Zuckerberg and launched in  February 2004.  As of April 2012, Facebook has over 900 million active users. Facebook has become so integral in our lives that almost everyone uses it to share personal thoughts and photos with friends and family, and ends up spending a disproportionate amount of time on it.

Twitter is a microblogging and social networking service founded by Jack Dorsey in 2006. As of February 2012, Twitter has over 500 million active users and over 340 million tweets are generated daily. Twitter allow users to send tweets which are limited to 140 characters and can be read by registered or unregistered users, and has been described as the SMS of the internet. Twitter is also often used as a stream of news and instant information sources.

Linkedin is a professional social networking site founded by Reid Hoffman in 2003. As of 2012, there are over 161 million professionals using Linkedin to network with each other. Linkedin allows users to upload and create their online resume, and Business professionals leverages this feature to hire new talents or to look for jobs.

Google+ is a social networking platform launched by Google, integrating the various Google services such as Google Profile, Hangout, Circles and Sparks. As of April 2012, Google+ has over 100 million registered users. Sources such as The New York Times have declared it Google’s biggest attempt to rival the social network Facebook, but the network is so new that I think it’s still figuring out what it wants to be.

On top of that, there are a lot of other social networking sites that targets verticles such as the developers community (GitHub, Stackoverflow, Geekli.st), the designers community (Dribbble, Forrst), Q&A/ Review (Quora, Digg, Yelp), social sharing (Reddit, Tumblr, Sumbleupon), Food Sharing (Foodspotting, Burpple, SnapDish), and photo sharing (Instagram and Flickr). Of course, there are also Path, RenRen, Pinterest, dating networks, and the list goes on and on.

With the abundance of social network out there, the question is, do we need all of them? Since we have managed without them previously, are networking site solving problems that are non-existent? Has it become a necessity for us to interact with our friends and for businesses to reach their users? In my opinion, yes we do need them, but only a handful. Social network provides an effective channel for businesses to reach out to prospective customers, and allows business owners to interact with viewers who can potentially be a customer.

The success of social networking site like Facebook has spawn off more and more localized versions around the world, leading to another question, are there too many social networking sites out there? To me, I feel that the World Wide Web has evolved so much and so diverse that it has the capacity to sustain all these different social networks. Recalling what one of our speakers at Echelon, Cjin of Cubie messenger who says that slowly but surely, there will be one app for every emotion, and there will be one social network for each identity.  If there’s a place online with discussion of topics I care about, people and community that I can relate to, I’ll find time for it.

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An app for each emotion, a social network for each identity

Everyday we are consumed by social media, and they have been affecting how we interact with one another online and offline.Let’s take a quick look at the different role each social networking sites play.

Facebook is a social networking site founded by Mark Zuckerberg and launched in  February 2004.  As of April 2012, Facebook has over 900 million active users. Facebook has become so integral in our lives that almost everyone uses it to share personal thoughts and photos with friends and family, and ends up spending a disproportionate amount of time on it.

Twitter is a microblogging and social networking service founded by Jack Dorsey in 2006. As of February 2012, Twitter has over 500 million active users and over 340 million tweets are generated daily. Twitter allow users to send tweets which are limited to 140 characters and can be read by registered or unregistered users, and has been described as the SMS of the internet. Twitter is also often used as a stream of news and instant information sources.

Linkedin is a professional social networking site founded by Reid Hoffman in 2003. As of 2012, there are over 161 million professionals using Linkedin to network with each other. Linkedin allows users to upload and create their online resume, and Business professionals leverages this feature to hire new talents or to look for jobs.

Google+ is a social networking platform launched by Google, integrating the various Google services such as Google Profile, Hangout, Circles and Sparks. As of April 2012, Google+ has over 100 million registered users. Sources such as The New York Times have declared it Google’s biggest attempt to rival the social network Facebook, but the network is so new that I think it’s still figuring out what it wants to be.

On top of that, there are a lot of other social networking sites that targets verticles such as the developers community (GitHub, Stackoverflow, Geekli.st), the designers community (Dribbble, Forrst), Q&A/ Review (Quora, Digg, Yelp), social sharing (Reddit, Tumblr, Sumbleupon), Food Sharing (Foodspotting, Burpple, SnapDish), and photo sharing (Instagram and Flickr). Of course, there are also Path, RenRen, Pinterest, dating networks, and the list goes on and on.

With the abundance of social network out there, the question is, do we need all of them? Since we have managed without them previously, are networking site solving problems that are non-existent? Has it become a necessity for us to interact with our friends and for businesses to reach their users? In my opinion, yes we do need them, but only a handful. Social network provides an effective channel for businesses to reach out to prospective customers, and allows business owners to interact with viewers who can potentially be a customer.

The success of social networking site like Facebook has spawn off more and more localized versions around the world, leading to another question, are there too many social networking sites out there? To me, I feel that the World Wide Web has evolved so much and so diverse that it has the capacity to sustain all these different social networks. Recalling what one of our speakers at Echelon, Cjin of Cubie messenger who says that slowly but surely, there will be one app for every emotion, and there will be one social network for each identity.  If there’s a place online with discussion of topics I care about, people and community that I can relate to, I’ll find time for it.

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Is traffic cop overcharging you? Know your traffic fine via an Android app

Did you know that 80% of Traffic Offenses in Indian cities have their fine amounts set to Rs.100 only? Well, we often end up paying a lot more, thanks to our ignorance.

Infact, we are mostly dependent on the traffic cop’s *mood of the day*syndrome! Traffic Fines India is an Android app developed that demystifies the traffic fines you need it the most.

Features of the app include:

• Updated information on various traffic offenses and fines associated with them
• Relevant Motor Vehicle Act Sections are mentioned with each offense
• Info available for Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi & Hyderabad
• Offline Access – No internet or 3G required

Simple? Well, yes and importantly, a useful app – one of these apps that you will repent not having when caught by a traffic cop.

The app is built on MIT’s AppInventor and is witnessing ~500 downloads per day.

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Shoppening Promises Infinite Loyalty Cards And Coupons, In An Eco-Friendly Way

In the same space as around!, Squiryl, and Perx, the idea behind Shoppening isn’t new. But it caught my attention at the recent CommunicAsia 2012 event in Singapore for two reasons: One, it is a Thai startup. Two, it has a female co-founder.

In essence, Shoppening addresses the problem of having too many membership cards and discount coupons. It is a mobile application and campaign management platform, which allows merchants to create mobile coupons and mobile loyalty programs. So customers can now redeem their items using paperless coupons, and continue collecting their loyalty stamps using the app. Aside from catering to the customers, merchants can also do online monitoring and analytics services to keep track of mobile campaigns and make sure that it is effective.

The app launched just last month, and boy are they serious about going regional fast. In fact, one of the reasons for its booth at CommunicAsia is to build its presence and officially launch to the public. The app is the brainchild of parent company 23 perspective, a digital marketing agency based in Bangkok, with clients from Starbucks Thailand and Tourism Authority of Thailand.

I have to agree this would work especially in a country like Singapore where we all love discounts and loyalty card schemes, undoubtedly it’s getting a little overcrowded. But judging from how the first version looks right now, the app looks pretty promising.

One of the reasons why 23 perspective decided to launch the app was that it wanted to have a product of its own, on top of creating marketing campaigns for others. It’s a pretty smart move for them, given that it could actually tap into its pool of clients to use the app. Co-founder Nathamon Chaiwat also stresses that the startup is different from daily deals sites like Groupon. For a better understanding on how it would work for your business, you can take a look at the video below:

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SoLoMo Thursday: FALLACIES & INSIGHTS from Social Media Visualisations

On Thursday, 28th June, the Co-founder & Head of Business Development at JamiQ Private Limited, Kelvin Quee, will give a talk on social media, sharing his opinions on the fallacies and insights on Social Media Visualisations.

With the increasing popularity of social media, how should you make full use of it? Have you spent unnecessarily on social media? Are you listening and responding to what netizens are saying about you? How do you intelligently manage your reputation online? Gain an advantage over others – effective social media monitoring allows brand managers and decision makers to transform mere metrics into real insights that your business needs for immediate, strategic (and often cost-sensitive) decision-making.

As hidden trends and relationships are unravelled, discover real-time buzz-trending, sentiment detection and influence scoring on your product or service. You will also learn about the fallacies and usefulness of data visualisation from a local-to-global perspective.

Kelvin Quee will share his thoughts about these issues and his personal experiences. Join Kelvin as he discusses the challenges of maximizing social media to suit your business needs.

The discussion topics are:

1)   What is Social Media Visualisations and How it Works

2)   Why Social Media Monitoring and Interpretation Matter to Marketing
and Communication Professionals

• Case Study: AirAsia

3)   How to Understand and Visualise Relationships and Conversations
in Social Media

• Case Study: Singapore Telecommunication Companies

4)   How to Identify and Visualise Topic Trends

• Case Study: Singapore General Elections 2011

Kelvin Quee Co-founder & Head of Business Development at JamiQ Private Limited
Kelvin had the foresight of co-founding JamiQ, helping businesses in the area of social media monitoring in the advent of social media’s Golden Age. Leading a team to educate businesses on how to listen, measure and gain insights from online conversations, JamiQ managed to amass an impressive portfolio of clients which include SingTel, United Overseas Bank (UOB), Sony, Cisco, Music Television (MTV) and various government agencies.

Kelvin cultivated an unbiased view in measuring the effectiveness of various media in marketing and communication efforts. Armed with a deep knowledge in financial audit (Kelvin graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Accountancy) and a focus on no-nonsense measurements and metrics, he will bring the much needed perspective on ROI, meaningful marketing and understanding of the relational real-time social web.

Event Details:
Date: Thursday, 28th June 2012
Time: 7:30PM – 9:00PM
Venue: Lucky 13, 111 Somerset Road #01-02 Singapore 238164
Pricing: S$15 (US$12) or S$20 (US$16) at the door. Your ticket includes one free drink of your choice.
REGISTER HERE

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Quafrica Guides Chinese Travelers Around Africa, In Luxury

There’s another contender in the luxury travel e-commerce sector in China in the form of Quafrica, which specializes in adventure tours to – as its name suggests – the African continent. Soft-launched a few months ago and run by a small team based in Shanghai, the startup has a range of exclusive and pricey packages that take moneyed Chinese travelers on curated voyages of discovery to one of nine nations in Africa.

The Quafrica.com service – in both English and Chinese – currently has travel packages that encompass six differing themes, such as “culture,” “work retreat,” and the more obvious “safari.” A culture-oriented trip, for example, could be something like its five-day “bushmen of the western Kalahari,” in which the intrepid travelers will live with – and learn from – the desert people in an authentic village. Everything included, that costs 72,000 RMB (US$11,300) for two people. But for that price you won’t be roughing it à la Bear Grylls [1], as Quafrica ensures customers that even in the vast Kalahari desert there’ll be all-included “house wine” and a “laundry service.”

Quafrica’s Dominica Drazal tells us that the startup has had seed funding from the Shanghai-based investment group TZG Partners (note: that site is down for me at present), and that the six-person team is “focused exclusively on the Africa business and then also leverages the management at TZG Partners.”

The fledgling travel company’s next business venture will be a similar yet separate site called Quoasis, which “will be oriented around ‘wellness,’ such as spa, detox, pre-natal, yoga, whitening [2].”

It’s up against some classy local competition – such as the recently acquired Trip TM, or the opulent Zanadu – but Quafrica (and later Quoasis) has an interesting niche travel segment that it can nurture.

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1. The survival expert is known for getting… ahem… quite inventive when he’s thirsty.  ↩

2. As bad as it sounds in this context, skin whitening is a big industry in much of Asia. Most mainland Chinese still equate a sun-tan with being poor, perhaps as it suggests one might work outdoors.  ↩

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Recommendations for Mobile Site from IAB – Use seven links or fewer per page of navigation

IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) has come up with some nifty recommendations for mobile sites and is a must read for newbies out there. In no particular order, here are recommendations we found very important for you to be in the know of:

Redirects

A mobile site redirect is code that can automatically tell if visitors are using a mobile device and send them to the mobile-friendly version of your site. Have your site developer implement this redirect code so your customers get the best version of your site for their needs.
- Give users a choice to go back to the desktop site, but make it easy to return to the mobile site.
- Let users choose which version they prefer to see for later visits.

Seamless

People now use multiple screens throughout the day. Convert as much of the functionality of your desktop site to mobile as you can to create a seamless experience.
- Allow users to save popular searches and shopping cart contents.
- Maintain key features of site across all channels as much as possible (like pricing of product/services).

Speed

Mobile users are often short on time, squeezing in online tasks as they go about their day. To help them, design your site to load fast and make copy easy to read.

- Prioritize the content and features that mobile users need most. Use your desktop site analytics to see what mobile users are doing.
- Reduce large blocks of text and use bullet points for easy reading.

Navigation

- Minimize scrolling and keep it vertical only.
- Use a clear hierarchy in menus and avoid rollovers.
- Help users navigate between levels with  clear back and home buttons.
- Use seven links or fewer per page of navigation.
- Have a search box prominently available on complex sites

Thumb Friendly

People use their fingers to operate mobile devices—especially their thumbs. Design your site so even large hands can easily interact with it.
- Use large, centred buttons and give them breathing room to reduce accidental clicks.
- Pad smaller buttons to increase the clickable area.
- Pad check boxes by making the text clickable.

Colors

A mobile-friendly site gets its message across without causing eyestrain. Make it easy for your customers to read—remember, they may be in a place with low light.

- Create contrast between background and text.
- Make sure content fits on screen and can be read without pinching and zooming.
- Use plenty of negative space.
- Use size and color to indicate link/button priority.
- Use 3D effects and shadowing for buttons.

Make it Accessible

Ideally, your mobile site should work across all mobile devices and all handset orientations.
- Find alternatives to Flash—it does not work on some devices.
- Use HTML5 for interactivity and animation.
- Adapt your site for both vertical and horizontal orientations.
- Keep users in the same place when they  change orientation.

Some of the other key recommendations are

- Make it easy to buy something or contact you!
- Keep forms short and use the fewest number of fields possible.
- Use check boxes, lists and scroll menus to make data entry easier.
- Use click-to-call functionality for all phone numbers.

Get recommendation of your site from here

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Telecom Roundup: Government to charge telcos uniform licence fee from April 2013

In a move to bring uniformity in the sector, the government has decided to charge 8 per cent of gross revenue as licence fee from all telecom service providers across all categories and services from 2013-14.
At present, DoT is charging licence fee in the range of 6-10 per cent depending upon type of service and circle. [source]

Vodafone not off the tax hook, India to tell European Union

During official talks with the EU in Brussels during June 25-26, India would indicate that it can still make a fresh notice/demand on Vodafone regarding the deal. The Indian side is being led by the Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Anand Sharma.[source]

Government may take back part of spectrum from old companies for refarming

The government has approved sector regulator TRAI’s proposal of refarming under which old operators namely Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular may have to surrender airwaves allocated to them in 900 Mhz band (premium frequency band used for 2G services) on expiry of their licences. These companies will have the option to repurchase these airwaves through auction proposed in first half of 2013.[source]

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Cool New Karaoke App for iPhone Takes China By Storm

In a way, it’s amazing there wasn’t a good karaoke app for Chinese iPhone users years ago. After all, the KTV (China’s term for karaoke) experience is a big part of the entertainment scene in China. But Chen Hua, the man behind ‘Chang Ba,’ an iPhone KTV app that’s growing swiftly in popularity, is probably not too upset that no one beat him to the punch.

Chen (pictured below) has actually been working with his team on the app for 18 months now, but the app’s recent launch has been met with incredible demand: nearly a million downloads over the first twenty days, according to Chen. He revealed this during an extensive interview with Sina Tech, but for those who don’t read Chinese, we thought it might be worth sharing some of the highlights.

Chen isn’t a newcomer to the world of startups, having launched a failed coupon site before beginning work on Chang Ba. There were a number of reasons for its failure, but one that any Chinese startup might do well to heed is that Chen says he was overpowered by the big companies in the internet business. “Competition in the PC internet market is too fierce, and the big companies control the flow of traffic,” he told Sina Tech.

Chen Hua of Chang Ba

Chen also shed some light on how he and his team came to make a karaoke app:

At that time, we felt no one was doing anything with voices on mobile. At first, we wanted to make an app where users created their own content, like recording themselves telling stories. But we found that Chinese users weren’t good at creating their own content. Only a few people could create their own stories or songs, but everyone can sing a few songs.

It turns out Chen wasn’t wrong. The app has nearly a million downloads, is in the top 5 in its category on iTunes, and Chen says they’ve barely done any promotion for it. “We don’t need to do any special promotion,” Chen said, the app has spread via word of mouth. While there is a neat karaoke web app made by a Chinese startup, clearly that other company made the major mistake of not taking it onto people’s smartphones.

With regard to copyright issues, Chen says his company is aware of them and striving to respect copyright law, which is why the current selection of songs on Chang Ba is so limited (just over 1,000). But the company’s focus over the next two years will be to buy the rights to more songs now that the app is seeing some success.

Finally, Sina Tech asked Chen the question “every [Chinese] investor is going to ask.” Are you worried about China’s web giant, Tencent, copying your product? Chen responded:

Every startup gets asked this question, but the only answer is whether or not you’ve made your own product well. If you haven’t made your own product well, then what’s the use in paying attention to others? Is your product the best one in China? Is your team’s ability to execute better than anyone else’s? Whether or not you’re successful depends on you, not others.

Chen finished: “Every failed company is because you didn’t do [the product] well enough or you made a mistake, not because other people were competing with you.”

The ‘Chang Ba’ app is free in the iTunes App Store.

[via Sina Tech]

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