Uber to expand to Taiwan, China, South Korea, India and New Zealand

Just months after launching in Singapore, Uber, an online private car hire service, is kickstarting a major push into Asia. Already, the company has placed job postings seeking general managers, with logistics and community management roles available in certain countries.

At least 7 cities will soon see Uber’s black luxury cars on its roads, and these are: Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, Bangalore, and Auckland.

The general manager will be responsible for developing and growing Uber’s business, requiring him or her to take charge of customer support, local marketing, supply chain management, yield management, social media, and public relations.

While Uber has not officially disclosed its timeline for regional expansion, Taiwanese tech blog Inside noted that the company has already created an Uber Taipei Twitter account. The writer further indicated that Uber has already partnered with at least one local car leasing company, and that it is set to launch in the city in a few weeks. Read more

The New York Times Gets Xiaomi Way, Way Wrong

On TechInAsia: It’s pleasing to see that the overseas media is finally paying some attention to Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi. But unfortunately, the New York Times’s latest piece on the company was, I think, extremely misleading. So while I have nothing but respect for author David Barboza, I feel I can’t help but rip this one apart…

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Qoo10 transactions in Asia doubled to USD 224M in one year; company gunning for IPO

In rapid fashion, Qoo10 has become a major e-commerce marketplace in Asia, processing SGD 278M (USD 224M) in its five countries last year, up from SGD 150M in 2011. However, it’s still a smidgen of the USD 175B worth of global transactions that are taking place on eBay — roughly equivalent of what China’s Taobao was processing in 2012.

The company makes between three to six percent off every transaction. To fund future expansion, it is gunning for an IPO within two years on the Nasdaq.

Singapore is Qoo10′s second largest market in terms of users and sales performance. The company’s top market is Japan, which has 1.7 million users, or twice that of Singapore. The gap is considerably less in terms of transactions, with Qoo10 processing 35,000 in Japan and 30,000 in Singapore. However, if country size is taken into consideration, then Singapore is the company’s most active market.

Qoo10 is also operating in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

The company behind the marketplace, Giosis, is a joint venture between eBay (49 percent stake) and Ku Young Bae (51 percent). Ku, who also founded GMarket, sold his South Korean operations to eBay before working on Giosis and rebranding all international GMarket sites to Qoo100.

More stats on Qoo10

Traction in Singapore:

Number of employees: 450 (40 in Singapore)

Overall total sales from mobile: 20 percent

Downloads for Qoo10 app in Singapore/World: 500k/1 million

Growth rate in Singapore: 20 percent a month (fastest among all countries)

Registered Singapore users in March 2013: 900,000

New registered users a day since January 2012 in Singapore: 1,000

Profile of Qoo10 user: 27 years old on average, 75 percent female

Pageviews in Singapore: 90 million

Tudou co-founder Marc van der Chijs: ‘Bye, bye, China’

Marc van der Chijs, a serial entrepreneur who has been in China for 13 years, has moved to Vancouver three weeks ago. Marc is best known as the co-founder of Chinese video sharing site Tudou.

More recently, he founded and invested in unitedstyles, a site that allows users to design, share, and buy their fashion items. He also became a partner at CrossPacific Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in American or Canadian companies which have an eye on Asia. Read more

Touchten’s Sky Beauty game gets 100k downloads in one week on China’s App Store

Touchten, one of Indonesia’s top mobile game developers, has been very busy in China lately. In January, it launched Sky Beauty — a localized spin-off of  its popular Infinate Sky game — and apparently has been doing rather well.

The company announced today that within one week, Sky Beauty, a first-person aircraft shooter, has achieved 100,000 downloads and about 10,000 daily active users on China’s iOS App Store. Sky Beauty was localized in partnership with Yodo1, an apps publishing platform that provides a set of tools to help apps succeed in the country.

China is an interesting market for Touchten. It claims to have a ‘secure foothold’ in the United States, with the country making up the largest segment of its user base. So it makes sense for the company to target China’s rapidly growing Middle Class population, which accounts for the most number of iOS and Android activations in the world (even larger than the US). Read more

Rocket Internet

Company

Rocket Internet is a Berlin headquartered company that is well-known for cloning successful online startups (usually from the US), replicating them elsewhere, and turning them into million-dollar businesses. It was founded in 2007 by the Samwer brothers — Alexander, Marc, and Oliver, who have together created and sold a number of successful Internet businesses before starting Rocket Internet. Most of their businesses are e-commerce related.

The company tends to hire MBA-trained executives and management consultants to become ‘founder’ and ‘managing director’ of its businesses. However, unlike startup founders, they do not hold as much equity or have as much decision-making power to shape the direction of their companies. They are primarily executors who could be fired for underperforming.

Rocket Internet has polarized observers in the startup and technology community for its practices. Critics pour scorn on the company for blatant copying, mischaracterizing its ventures as startups, an over-aggressive and results-oriented corporate culture, and rapid turnover rates. At the same time, it is widely admired for its rapid execution ability. Read more

iCarsclub aims to popularize carsharing in Asia by making it more convenient, less expensive

Asia might make a promising market for carsharing. Depending on where you live, cars are either too expensive or rendered useless by traffic congestion. These problems give carsharing intiatives an invitation to come in, which is why iCarsclub wants to be an early player in this space.

The Singapore startup has been working on their solution for months, and after delays with finalizing their motor insurance terms, it finally launched on 12 December.

Collaborative consumption for motor vehicles is not new in the world or even Asia.  This year, we’ve seen ridesharing apps enter the market, offering users the ability to split costs on a cab fare or find a carpooler to share a ride to work. Governments are particularly supportive of this concept due to its public benefits: Reducing air pollution and traffic congestion. Read more

For Terence Tan of TNF Ventures, finding that one big hit isn’t enough

Fun is a rather quaint way for an investment firm to differentiate itself. But Terence Tan, an investor at TNF Ventures, is pretty serious about fun — and always have been. A competitive player in golf and tennis, he once overextended himself over a tennis game, fell and suffered a concussion, then lost his sense of smell.

This paradox of having serious fun permeates TNF’s culture. They’re managing money on behalf of NRF, a government body in charge of scientific research, yet they organized a poker tournament at their launch event. They wore gaudy red and white polo tees that made the event look more Resorts World than Marina Bay Sands, yet gave a Powerpoint presentation to introduce the firm.

It’s a signal that they don’t take themselves too seriously, but are hungry about making the right investment bets. It image seems befitting for a team of successful corporate and entrepreneurial types who’ve got it made. They don’t really need to start another fund, but for one reason or another, decided to. Read more

Daigou, a novel e-commerce business model, is an intriguing Chinese export

Stylegou is one of the many daigou services to emerge in Asia.

China is the world’s greatest exporter and manufacturer of goods. Yet when it comes to e-commerce and the Internet, it is only taking baby steps towards exerting global influence. The spread of Daigou, however, could be an indication of China’s growing e-commerce prowess.

Daigou is a Chinese phrase that roughly means “buying on behalf of”. It is a free-to-use web service that purchases goods overseas at the request of users. To start the ball rolling, consumers can indicate on the website what their desired product is. Once the payment is made, Daigou agents would make the purchase overseas and ship the product back to the users’ countries.

The service then delivers the product straight to the customer, or sends it to a collection point where the user can drop by anytime. Once the fulfillment is complete, users close the loop by indicating that the purchase has been successful. Read more

NetSuite + AsiaPay = more options for online retailers in Asia

East and West have combined forces in a bid to give online retailers in Asia a more comprehensive platform to sell stuff. In this case, the partnership involves NetSuite, an enterprise cloud computing company from the United States, and AsiaPay, an e-commerce service provider headquartered in Hong Kong. Read more