Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) yesterday said it has invested US$20 million in series E round of funding for Vietnam’s biggest e-commerce company, Tiki Corp, as it seeks to gain a foothold in rapidly growing greater Southeast Asian (GSEA) markets.
The strategic investment is Taiwan Mobile’s first in Vietnam and would help the company and its e-commerce subsidiary, Momo.com Inc (富邦媒體), explore potential partners and new growth opportunities beyond its home market, the nation’s second-biggest telecom operator said.
“The strategic cooperation with Tiki is the company’s first investment in Vietnam. It also marks the company’s first strategic and meaningful step to make inroads into the country and GSEA markets,” Taiwan Mobile president Jamie Lin (林之晨) said in a statement.
Photo: CNA
Taiwan Mobile considers GSEA markets as one of its 5G development targets and would continue to seek new strategic partnerships in the area, including e-commerce, logistics, broadband and 5G-related applications, with the goal of becoming a major telecom and technology services provider in the region, the statement said.
Ho Chi Minh City-based Tiki started out as an online bookstore and has since developed into an e-commerce operator selling a wide range of goods, it said.
The transaction would help Momo.com tap into the rapidly growing e-commerce market in Vietnam and allow it to leverage Tiki’s local strength in terms of market position, warehouses and logistic systems. The companies expect to create synergies in expanding sales and logistics, the statement said.
From last year to 2025, the e-commerce market in Vietnam is expected to post an annual compound growth rate of 34 percent to reach US$29 billion, Taiwan Mobile said, citing a joint report by Google, Temasek Holdings Pte and Bain & Co.
Momo.com, which contributed more than 50 percent to Taiwan Mobile’s revenue, has been cautious about its overseas expansion. It operates a TV sales unit in Thailand.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government should take steps to cut UK reliance on semiconductors from Taiwan because of the threat posed by China, a draft strategy said. Chinese interference or an invasion of Taiwan would threaten Britain’s economy, according to the unpublished strategy seen by Bloomberg. That is because it would compromise supplies to and from Taiwan, which is home to more than 90 percent of the manufacturing capacity for all leading-edge chips, including the world’s pre-eminent silicon foundry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電). The strategy is important because semiconductors are used in everything from cellphones to cars, and shortages have
BIG SPENDERS: China’s reopening is a key ‘mega-theme’ for the sector, RBC Bank said, but it remains to be seen how much Chinese tourists will buy The European luxury sector is welcoming the end of pandemic lockdowns in China, as the return of big-spending Chinese tourists could sustain further growth. Prior to the pandemic, Chinese tourists visiting Europe were a major source of sales for luxury houses. The Chinese accounted for “a third of luxury purchases in the world and two-thirds of those purchases were made outside China”, said Joelle de Montgolfier, head of the luxury division at management consulting firm Bain & Co. Their return has led RBC Bank to revise up its growth forecast for the sector this year to 11 percent, from 7 percent previously. “China
‘IT HURTS TOO MUCH’: After talks between Blizzard and NetEase over their contract broke down, servers hosting Blizzard’s games in China were shut down Millions of Chinese gamers have lost access to World of Warcraft after a furious dispute between US title owner Activision Blizzard Inc and NetEase Inc (網易), its longtime local partner in the world’s biggest gaming market. Devotees of the popular game took to social media networks to bemoan the loss, with one posting an image of a failed connection message accompanied by crying emojis. “It really hurts my heart,” one wrote. “It hurts, it hurts too much,” another said. Massively popular worldwide, particularly in the 2000s, World of Warcraft — often abbreviated as WoW — is an online multiplayer role-playing game set in
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday accused Alphabet Inc’s Google of abusing its dominance in digital advertising, threatening to dismantle a key business at the heart of one of Silicon Valley’s most successful Internet firms. The US government said Google should be forced to sell its ad manager suite, tackling a business that generated about 12 percent of Google’s revenues in 2021, but also plays a vital role in the search engine and cloud company’s overall sales. “Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies,” the