Yelp enters Asia with launch in Singapore
September 14, 2012 by Gwendolyn Regina T
San Francisco-headquarterd restaurant review site Yelp went public in March and has been expanding aggressively into new markets ever since. This time, Yelp officially launches in Singapore (its Asian debut) and the occasion was commemorated by the hanging of the nation’s flag in the San Francisco office, and its national anthem sung – all these with the virtual participation of its new, small Singapore team and other Yelp employees across the world on Skype:
In Singapore, Yelp is against the local food review giant, Hungrygowhere. Hungrygowhere was a startup that was acquired by Asian telecommunications firm, SingTel, back in April for USD 9.4M and is now run by the telco’s lifestyle portal, inSing.
The Singapore Yelp site already counts many reviews, with almost 2000 restaurants being reviewed. The Yelp iOS app has been available in the Singapore iTunes app store for about a year. You can download Yelp for your mobile across the various platforms.
If you’re a restaurant, bar or are a related business, you can claim your page for free and build your company’s profile on Yelp. This might prove to be a big revenue driver later down the line for the Singapore outfit if the local market follows the path that Yelp has seen so far in general and when Yelp Singapore allows local advertising: last year, Yelp made 78% of its revenue from local advertising.
Find out more about SGE’s research arm: SGE Insights, providing customized in-depth research reports to help you navigate the business of technology in Asia.
About The Author
Gwendolyn Regina T - Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Gwen is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of SGE. Previously, she was a partner of early stage technology investment firm, Thymos Capital and she has had two exits, one of which is iHipo. She is also an investor in Padlet, a Y-Combinator startup. Gwen also sits on the Board of Advisors for the Singapore Innovation & Productivity Institute, Steering Commmittee for the Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation Awards 2013, and Board of Advisors for Social Media Week 2013. A frequent public speaker, mentor and judge at various startup bootcamps, events and competitions, Gwen loves meeting founders, developers, designers and scientists across all ages. An alumnus of the National University of Singapore and its University Scholars Programme, Gwen also spent some time in Silicon Valley and is a graduate of the NUS-Stanford University overseas college programme. She is also a mentor at Polish tech startup incubator Gamma Rebels, the Singapore curator for US-headquartered StartupDigest and the Singapore Ambassador for the Sandbox Network - the leading global network of innovators under 30. Gwen has also been a Worldwide Judge for Imagine Cup - the premier student technology competition helmed by Microsoft. She has also spoken in Hong Kong at one of its largest youth conferences, MaD Asia, and was recently in Austria to help envision the future of the country's economy in 2032 on invitation from an Austrian governmental organization. Gwen speaks 3.25 languages, loves physics, travelling, dance and adventure sports. She can be found on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Read other posts by Gwendolyn Regina T
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