Telkom’s Multi-Platform UseeTV Adds Premium Packages, Goes Mobile Too

Don’t be sad if you miss your favourite TV show or football game. Indonesian telco Telkom has a solution with video on demand (VOD) that you can watch anywhere and anytime. At a glance, the new UseeTV looks like local rival MivoTV where you can stream TV channels. The difference is you can pick the program that you missed from up to three days ago and watch them right now.

VOD streamed to TVs is not a new thing. FirstMedia debuted it last year with Showtime for its pay TV service. Telkom also introduced Groovia TV for online viewers. eGM Telkom Multimedia Division representative, Achmad Sugiarto, explained to us that Groovia TV was meant for the high-end market – and now Telkom releases UseeTV for a bigger audience which has unlimited data packages on their gadgets.

UseeTV supports 13 channels including local and national channels, even Al-Jazeera. On the ToVi page within the service, you can watch both Indonesian movies and international movies from the likes of Universal Studios. The video content is provided by Telkomvision, which is part of the Telkom Group. As for audio, by the end of this year there will be 350 radio stations that you can stream on the radio page.

Registering for this is free, but you will have to be a Telkom subscriber for one of its other products, like Speedy (internet provider), KartuHALO, or SimPATI for mobile services. Some of the content is free – though to enjoy most of the movies, you have to sign up for the premium package. Achmad says that they’re giving a special price:

Specially for our Telkom group subscribers, we give a premium package with 50 movies for only Rp 3.500 ($0.37). That is really cheap, and might even rival the price of pirated DVDs for some.

According to deputy eGM Telkom Multimedia Division representative, Bambang Lusmiadi, UseeTV has around 120,000 registrants in its first two months. Perhaps this is a result of the large number of users for its other services. Speedy itself has 2 million subscribers in Indonesia up to this month, and KartuHALO has 2.5 million users. SimPATI is the biggest of its service, bringing in 60 percent of Telkomsel’s income with 54.3 million users.

For the next step of product development, Telkom will maximize all of the company’s resources, even its satellites. Bambang showed me UseeTV’s mobile app running smoothly on an Android smartphone and on an iPhone – and they both look great, I reckon – showing that this kind of service can soon make the leap to mobile.

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Taobao Marches To Taiwan and Hong Kong For Expansion

Alibaba-owned Taobao.com, China’s largest C2C online marketplace, began expanding to Hong Kong and Taiwan early this year, Tech in Asia learned in a press meeting with Hong Kong and Taiwan media on Monday. It has been hush-hush as the overseas teams in Taiwan and Hong Kong have been laying the foundations over the past months, which include logistics, payment, and customer service.

While the preparation work is still ongoing, Taobao Hong Kong and Taiwan have racked up impressive early numbers. According to Daphne Lee, director of overseas business, Taobao has attracted 1.2 million registered users in Hong Kong and 0.5 million users in Taiwan so far.

To make sense of Taobao Hong Kong’s figure, 1.2 million is about a quarter of Hong Kong’s internet users, which I think is quite impressive. Taiwan requires more work as users face logistic problems because delivering goods from China to Taiwan isn’t as simple. Plus, Taiwanese users still have doubts about whether the goods will actually arrive.

Many people also still have the impression that Alipay can only accept payment from local China banks, which of course would limit Taobao’s overseas business opportunities. But it was just earlier this year that Alipay also enabled Mastercard and VISA, which is a big boost for international users.

Taobao’s move to Hong Kong and Taiwan is pretty straightforward. Besides the close geographic proximity, the populations of Hong Kong and Taiwan are also largely made up of ethnic Chinese, which lowers the communication barrier.

Taobao’s expansion has also brought about some positive changes for merchants as well. Daphne said that CatWorld, a Taiwan-based merchant, had only a moderate income when it was on Yahoo Kimo online auction. But the numbers shot up after it joined Taobao, generating over 6 million RMB (about $1 million) in monthly sales.

Honestly speaking, the combined population of about 28 million in Hong Kong and Taiwan is just slightly above Beijing’s population. It’s a small figure. And I’m certainly not saying that the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets aren’t important — they are, because I believe the regions have bigger-than-average spenders when compared to the mainland. The move to Taiwan and Hong Kong also gives the Taobao team a taste of overseas expansion, and I’m pretty sure they won’t just stop at Greater China. Daphne revealed that Singapore and Malaysia are seeing quite a bit of interest in Taobao, too. I would even say that Taobao in English isn’t too far away.

But it won’t come until Greater China is conquered, and knowing how brilliant Jack Ma is, I would bet on the Alibaba Group winning in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

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Nominee Directors – their role and importance to investors and the company [Demystifying Termsheets]

Every agreement to invest in a company comes with a clause entitling the investor to a seat on the board of the Company. In many cases, along with the seat on the board of directors of the Company, the investor will also ask for the ability to appoint a “nominee” to the board.

In law, there are two significant kinds of directors, executive and non-executive directors. A nominee director belongs to the second category, and is appointed on behalf of an interested party (in the case of start-ups, it is most usually an equity investor).

Does a nominee director hold shares in the Company?

Typically, the member whom the investor appoints to the board is both an executive director and a shareholder. A nominee director is almost always a non-executive director and is not a shareholder of the company.

Can a Company be a nominee director?

In some countries, it is possible for a Company (or an LLP) to be appointed as a nominee director in your Company. But in India, it is the practice for an individual to be the nominee and typically a company or a fund is not appointed as a nominee.

It would also be illogical, since the point of having a nominee is to have a supervisory entity and an inanimate entity like a company cannot be in a supervisory position.

What powers and responsibilities does a nominee have?

The main reason why a nominee is appointed is to have the power to supervise and sit-in on the proceedings of the board, and to be present at the meetings of the board.

A nominee being a representative of the investor or the third party getting involved in the Company, has a dual, almost conflicting position. On on the one hand, as the director of the company, he has to serve the company and take actions which are in the best interest of the company. At the same time, since he has been appointed to protect the interests of the investor investing in the company, he has to also make sure that the investor’s interests are safeguarded, even if that in some cases means going against the interest of the company.

Can a start-up get a say in who its nominee directors shall be?

A start-up typically can voice an opinion as to who the representative of the investor sitting on its board shall be (i.e. the main board member), but the start-up does not have a voice as to who the nominee director shall be. This is because the nominee is purely the investor’s representative, and the investor would be quite keen on appointing a certain person as its nominee.

Having said that, if a middle ground can be found in terms of appointing a mutually agreeable person as the nominee, most investors should not have any problem with that. This is very rare, if it happens at all.

- Read more on understanding termsheets.

• Understanding Termsheet: Right of First Refusal
• Term Sheet Demystified: Drag Along Right De-Constructed

[About the author: Contributed by Hrishikesh Datar, founder of vakilsearch.com, online legal services provider (Legal Advice, Legal Documents & more).]

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11-Year Prison Term Stirs Fear Among China’s E-Commerce Secret Smugglers

The recent 11-year jail term handed down to a merchant on Taobao, China’s biggest consumer-to-consumer online marketplace, has raised the alarm in the country among amateur shopkeepers about being caught in the act of a widespread activity: “grey importing.” Essentially: smuggling. Usually done by sourcing goods from overseas – especially Hong Kong with its lack of a sales tax – where prices are lower than under China’s hefty import taxes, it’s an open secret that this illegal practice is one of the secrets behind the success of much of China’s C2C and B2C e-commerce industry.

The imprisoned e-tailer, identified only as Ms Li (pictured right), is an air stewardess who, like many people in the country, is also an amateur shopkeeper on Alibaba-owned Taobao. She sold cosmetics, making use of her job to buy up – and smuggle in – hundreds of thousands of dollars in pricey make-up from South Korea. In addition to the jail term, she was fined 500,000 RMB (US$79,000). Her boyfriend was identified as an accomplice and will spend the next five years in jail. The courts found the duo guilty of dodging sales taxes to the tune of 1.13 million yuan ($178,000). Another man, a Mr. Zhu, was found to have assisted the pair by getting them further staff discounts at a Samsung-run duty free shop in Korea (he’s a Samsung China employee), and he’s facing seven years in the slammer [1].

Smuggling luxury

Sure, this kind of smuggling happens a lot in offline retailing too. The most notorious act of grey importing is seen with the human gadget mules who carry sacks full of iPhones and iPads over the walkable border from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, thereby evading China’s import taxes and allowing the smugglers to make a profit whilst still selling the gadgets for a tad less than the official price in mainland China. Or, when it comes to electronics especially, it’s all about getting access to the hottest gadgets as quickly as possible – rather than waiting the inevitable few months for the iPhone to get its local regulatory approval to be sold.

Chinese social media users reacted with shock to the hefty sentence. Some bemoaned the excessive import taxes in China that make luxury items as much as 30 percent cheaper in other countries. That tax rate might be cut soon for 730 selected items, but it remains to be seen if the move can stop the hemorrhaging of import tax revenue in China to a combination of monied Chinese buying luxury goods overseas, and grey importers smuggling in every item under the sun.

But for now, the courts have clearly set an example with the Ms Li case, and other online merchants must be worried about how their own grey importing might be detected, possibly landing them in prison too. Hopefully it might also cause a rethink of the sales tax.

As for the scale of the problem, Professor Lu Benfu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences has been telling local media this week that the smuggling problem amounts to an annual trade volume of RMB 10 billion ($1.58 billion). But with China’s B2C e-commerce market – to say nothing of the C2C sector – worth as much as 81.8 billion RMB (or $12.9 billion) this year, that could well be a conservative stat to apply to China’s addiction to smuggling luxury items.

[Image of Ms Li: 17utt; main image: Flickr user tweedlebopper]

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1. Via Sohu (article in Chinese)  ↩

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Thailand should give wings to technology companies

At Echelon Singapore 2012, Asia’s biggest competition for start-up businesses, it was an unlikely winner – a small Thai company called Builk – who took first prize, beating out 250 competitors from around the region, including from such tech-savvy countries as Japan, Taiwan and Singapore. The only start-up from Thailand to compete, Builk developed a...

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Thailand should give wings to technology companies

At Echelon Singapore 2012, Asia’s biggest competition for start-up businesses, it was an unlikely winner – a small Thai company called Builk – who took first prize, beating out 250 competitors from around the region, including from such tech-savvy countries as Japan, Taiwan and Singapore. The only start-up from Thailand to compete, Builk developed a...

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XL Opens its Second Experience Center in Indonesia

A few days ago, Indonesian telco XL opened its second Experience Center called “XL XPLOR” at Senayan City Mall. The center is built to help educate XL customers about the newest updates in technology as well as the company’s products. The center mainly provide three kinds of services to its customers: “Showcase and Experience,” its marketing program, and customer service. The company is also open to communities who would like to use the place.

The “Showcase and Experience” aspect will display new gadgets not yet available in Indonesia and XL products too. The center’s representative told me that they are supported by mobile processor developer Qualcomm.

The area will also see communities use it for product launches, sharing activities, or simply as a place to chill. The center provides free high-speed wifi, which the company claims can go up to 18 Mbps. It provides free VAS such as XL Beat and XL Photo.

The Experience Center at Senayan City Mall targets around 400 to 500 visitors every day. The figure is lower compared to its bigger predecessor at Central Park Mall, which garners around 600 daily visitors now.

The company will wait for further customer feedback before opening another Experience Center. At the moment, XL will focus on working with third parties for gadgets and apps. It is also working together with consumer goods manufacturer Unilever for its XL Paddle Pop games at the center.

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Vyome Biosciences Raises Series A Financing led by IndoUS Venture Partners

Delhi based Vyome Biosciences, a dermatology company focused on developing novel and innovative treatments for common skin conditions such as dandruff, acne, pigmentation disorders and wound healing, has closed Series A financing round of Rs. 18.50 crore. The round was led by IndoUS Venture Partners (IUVP), with Aarin Capital and Navam Capital as co- investors.

Vyome will deploy the new financing to advance the clinical development of its lead anti- dandruff products, and to accelerate the pre-clinical development of its anti-acne products.

These safer and more effective next-generation treatments are being developed by harnessing emerging genetic information on the disease-causing microbes with advances in nanotechnology. Vyome has already filed multiple Indian and Global patents on these technologies.

“Our vision is to emerge as a company that launches global products from India and competes with the best in the world” said Dr Shiladitya Sengupta, Co-Founder of Vyome and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

“Vyome is developing creative approaches that will transform how skin diseases will be treated in the future. Dermatology is one area that has not seen much innovation for over five decades but with the recent advances in science, significantly more effective solutions become possible. Vyome has attracted top talent globally, and the ability to generate multiple highly differentiated products by harnessing cutting-edge scientific platforms creates a very compelling value proposition” said Dr R.A. Mashelkar, Chairman of Vyome’s Board of Directors and former Director General of CSIR

Also see: Jai Heart : India’s first genomics based test for Heart disease risk assessment

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Cyber crime in India : 42 million Indians hit by cyber attack, $8Bn loss [Report]

India suffered loss of nearly $8 billion because of cyber crime in 2011 while the global loss is estimated at $110 billion, according to the Norton Cyber Crime Report 2012.  Importantly, this year India’s loss escalated by whopping 100 % whereas at global level it saw marginal dip. Earlier, in its 2011 report, Norton revealed about $ 4 billion were lost due to cyber crime in India and $ 114 billion worldwide.

The report mentions that 42 million Indians have fallen prey to cyber attacks in 2011, again a significant rise of approximately 12 million from previous year report by Norton. And about 66 % of internet connected Indian adults have been victims of cybercrime in their lifetime.

During 2011, 32 % of social network users among the Indian respondents (1000 respondents from India) have been victim of either social or mobile cybercrime. Importantly 22 % of all social network users have been attacked in some way with 15 % falling prey to links of scams and fake links served via social media platforms. Globally, 1 out of every 6 social media users (15%) have reported about their accounts have been hacked into.

Cyber crime in India : $8Bn loss

As per report, across the world, every second, 18 adults become a victim of cybercrime , resulting in more than 1.5 million cybercrime victims each day. The average daily financial cost per victim is $192, up by 18 % over 2011 from $163 last year.

Rising appetite and usage of internet via mobile devices, free mobile apps and social media platforms point out an increase in new forms cybercrime, compared to last year report (Also read: Free apps will account 89 % of total downloads). Now, cybercriminals are starting to focus their efforts on exploiting these increasingly popular mobile and social platforms.

Globally, highest numbers of cybercrime victims were found in Russia (92%), followed by China (84 %) and South Africa (80%). The report also mentions low security IQ over internet security and consumers don’t know how to protect themselves from potential risks. 55 % respondents were not sure about whether their computer is clean and free from viruses, additionally 3 out of every 10 internet adult users don’t understand the risk of cybercrime and how to protect them.

The report also reveals that most internet users go for basic solutions to protect themselves and their personal information – i.e. deleting suspicious emails and being careful with their personal details online. However, other core precautions are being compromised; for instance 40 % don’t use complex passwords or change their passwords frequently and more than 30 % users don’t check for the padlock symbol in the browser before entering sensitive personal information like banking details over internet.

Recommended Read

• India ranks high on cyber affected country list- holds 5th position:McAfee Report
• 112 governments website hacked in the last three months, internet frauds decline

 

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