Retail News CRM

Author: Mei Ling Tan

  • Indonesia still largest contributor of tourists to Singapore

    Indonesia still largest contributor of tourists to Singapore

    About 2.89 million Indonesians visited Singapore throughout 2016, the biggest contribution of tourists to the city state, about 17.7 percent of the country’s 16.4 million total foreign tourist arrivals, according to a statement released by Singapore Tourism Board (STB).

    The number of tourists from Indonesia grew by 6 percent, which was categorized as a sharp jump from the 10 percent decline in 2015, the statement says.

    STB area director to Indonesia Raymond Lim said on Tuesday in a media gathering in Jakarta that his office would continue trying to attract more Indonesians to visit Singapore.

    “We really hope that we can maintain what we had last year,” he said, adding that about 30 percent of Indonesians who visited Singapore went there for business.

    However, to boost the numbers of tourists from the eastern part of Indonesia, the board will hold roadshows in Palembang in South Sumatra and in Medan in North Sumatra in March and April, he said, adding that it would continue the roadshows in Bali in August and in Sulawesi in September.

    Lim said the board aimed for 16.4 to 16.7 million foreign tourists to visit Singapore in 2017 and expected revenues of between US$25 and $25.8 billion.

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  • Alibaba seeks tougher penalties for counterfeit goods

    Alibaba seeks tougher penalties for counterfeit goods

    Alibaba Group has called for tougher laws, stricter enforcement and stiffer penalties to crack down on purveyors of counterfeit goods in China.

    At a press conference at its headquarters in Hangzhou, Alibaba said China’s “ambiguous counterfeiting laws” were hampering authorities’ ability to build legal cases against counterfeiters, resulting in a low conviction rate that is “the fundamental reason for the inefficiency in combating counterfeiting and protecting intellectual property”.

    “Current regulations are no longer able to cope with the need to fight counterfeiting,” according to the company’s public appeal, which is published in full below. “Criminals can escape any legal consequence, leaving law enforcement agents and consumers feeling helpless, and society bearing the damage.” The company urged authorities to strengthen laws, boost enforcement and impose more punitive penalties to deter counterfeiters.

    Alibaba has long faced criticism over the sale of counterfeits by independent vendors in its giant e-commerce marketplaces, which host some 1.5 billion product listings at any given time.

    “Alibaba Group is itself a victim of counterfeiting,” the note says. “The manufacturing industry and business environment of China suffers even more. Counterfeiting is damaging, not only to consumers and legitimate merchants, but also to innovation and the long-term economic development of our nation, hindering China’s growth as a responsible economic power.”

    To maintain the trust of consumers and legitimate merchants selling on its platforms, the company has been waging an escalating war to control the problem, employing a range of tactics to combat fakes and put counterfeiters out of business. Alibaba screens and monitors product listings using manpower and advanced search, image-recognition and big-data technology. The company also works with authorities in China to track down the source of counterfeits and prosecute offenders. Recently, Alibaba has also used China’s courts to cause pain for fake-goods sellers.

    Alibaba officials stressed the company remains firmly committed to continuing its anti-counterfeiting battle, but its ability to remove merchants and products from its marketplaces will be much less-productive in the long run without the support of more legally enforceable sanctions.

    The full Alibaba Group statement is below:

    In the ongoing war against counterfeiting, society is currently faced with an impasse. In Alibaba Group’s view, progress against this illegal activity is negligible because the costs and risks of producing and selling counterfeits are too low. The only way out of this is to impose tougher criminal sanctions on every individual involved in the chain of operation. Only by doing this, can China’s manufacturing industry return to the path of originality and innovation that ultimately leads to sustainable development.

    In 2016, our Platform Governance Department identified and handled 4495 leads related to counterfeiting. Each involved a value of goods exceeding the statutory minimum of RMB 50,000 for criminal investigation. Of these, law-enforcement departments followed up 1184 leads, which led to just 33 convictions, according to public information, representing a conviction rate of only 0.7 per cent.

    Alibaba came up with the 4495 leads via proactive big-data screening by its Platform Governance team, brand owners’ reports, consumer complaints and random checks. But law-enforcement agencies often found it difficult to classify and quantify incidences of counterfeiting and also had difficulties building legal cases due to ambiguous counterfeiting laws. As a result, public security agents were only able to build 469 cases from 1184 leads.

    The extremely low conviction rate is the fundamental reason for the inefficiency in combating counterfeiting and protecting intellectual property. Current regulations are no longer able to cope with the need to fight counterfeiting. Criminals can escape any legal consequence, leaving law-enforcement agencies and consumers feeling helpless and society bearing the damage.

    Alibaba established its own 2000-member-strong anti-counterfeiting force and has invested over RMB 1 billion each year to proactively combat counterfeiting with the most advanced technology and data models. For the 12 months ended August 2016, Alibaba took down 380 million product listings and shut down 180,000 Taobao stores and 675 operators as a result of its anti-counterfeiting action. As a private enterprise, Alibaba has no law-enforcement power. We can only uncover irregularities, take down the product listings, report the cases to the regulators and wait for law enforcement to handle the cases.

    We do our best to stop counterfeit goods from landing on our platform but cannot entirely stop them from proliferating offline and moving to other platforms. We identify and handle irregularities according to the highest standard of platform-management rules, but cannot impose penalties on the criminals.

    Alibaba Group is itself a victim of counterfeiting. The manufacturing industry and business environment of China suffers even more. Counterfeiting is damaging, not only to consumers and legitimate merchants, but also to innovation and the long-term economic development of our nation, hindering China’s growth as a responsible economic power.

    We therefore call for further development of our laws and regulations, stricter law enforcement and harsher punishments to strengthen the efforts to combat counterfeiting. Counterfeiters are our arch-enemy and we will stop at nothing to fight them.

    The criminalisation of drunk driving once delivered a clear message to society that violators will have to face serious consequences for their actions. Such a message served as a deterrent. We hope our society can reach a consensus to collectively increase the resources and efforts towards combating counterfeiting to no lesser extent than was done with drunk driving. To stamp out counterfeiting in China, all of us should play our part.

    Enlightenment-era criminologist Cesare Beccaria once said, “crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty of punishment.”

    There is no way to root out counterfeiting with a conviction rate of 0.7 per cent. Only through stricter law enforcement and appropriate punitive measures can we stop criminals from evading responsibility for their actions. Only when counterfeiters get the punishment they deserve will the interests of consumers be properly protected.

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  • China Mobile, GSMA, Huawei to address NFV reliability

    China Mobile, GSMA, Huawei to address NFV reliability

    China Mobile, the GSMA and Huawei have agreed during Mobile World Congress 2017 to jointly build an assessment framework for achieving carrier-grade NFV reliability.

    The project aims to combine industry efforts to construct a scalable framework for NFV in telecoms networks enabling proactive, flexible and intelligent network maintenance.

    Because of the difficulties surrounding locating network faults when using complex network technologies such as NFV, operators are looking to move towards a proactive network maintenance model to eliminate potential issues before user services are affected, the partners said.

    GSMA technical director Michele Zarri commented that carrier-grade NFV-reliability is a critical aspect of the virtualization of mobile networks, and is in-line with the industry body’s 5G Network Virtualization project.

    “There will be numerous business opportunities and challenges in the 5G era. However, Five-9s reliability is required for virtualized networks,” he said.

    “The GSMA will work to define network requirements and formalize the assessment framework including metrics and measurements for achieving carrier-grade NFV reliability.”

    Huawei GM for global customer support services Zhao Yongjun added that through the collaboration, the vendor aims “to consolidate industry efforts to explore new digital technologies and carry out joint-innovation to create tomorrow’s proactive intelligent network maintenance system.”

    He said the system will support “real-time, intelligent perception and preventative measures to meet increasing ultra-reliable network requirements.”

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  • Thai specialty coffee growers tip cafe boom

    Thai specialty coffee growers tip cafe boom

    Despite many cafes closing in the past year, the Thai coffee-shop business is expected to grow 15 to 20 per cent this year.

    According to specialty coffee growers, the growth will be driven by the country’s economic improvement and higher demand from coffee drinkers.

    Specialty Coffee Association of Thailand (SCATH) president Apicha Yaemkesorn says coffee shops can be easily opened on every corner in Bangkok and major provinces, and more will be seen as there are many new offices and condo buildings.

    “The growth can also be expected to spread into small provinces and towns in the near future.”

    Fewer than 10 per cent of Thais drink coffee, and those who do drink about 1.2 cups a day on average, compared with three cups a day for American coffee drinkers.

    While about 30 to 40 per cent of coffee shops closed last year, the number of new entrants increases every year.

    Apicha says that opening a coffee shop is not hard in Thailand as only a small budget is needed and coffee makers are inexpensive. “It is an ideal business for new entrepreneurs, but many of them have lack knowledge about coffee and cafe management skills.”

    This year Thailand is projected to have a 15 per cent rise in arabica coffee planting areas in the north and a 5 per cent increase in robusta planting areas in the south. Rubber and palm growers in the south have turned to growing coffee because of low prices for rubber and palm oil.

    Coffee beans can be harvested about three or four years after planting, says the Office of Agricultural Economics.

    Apicha estimates the longer droughts in Thailand will reduce the supply of local arabica coffee beans to 7000 tonnes this year from 9000 tonnes last year, while robusta coffee beans will total 15,000 tonnes, down from 17,800 tonnes.

    Arabica coffee beans are priced at about 180 baht (US$5.10) a kilo in Thailand and 80 to 90 baht/kg for robusta.

    Volatile climate change and longer droughts are pushing Thai coffee bean prices higher than in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, which see prices around 95 to 105 baht/kg.

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  • How Indonesia Increases Number of Tourists from Scandinavian Countries

    How Indonesia Increases Number of Tourists from Scandinavian Countries

    The Indonesian Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark, participated in the Danish Travel Show 2017 in Herning city, Denmark, from Feb 24 to 26, 2017.

    A statement from the Indonesian Embassy in Copenhagen received by Antara here on Monday stated that Indonesia’s participation in the Travel Show is part of its efforts to promote the country in non-traditional markets, which is expected to increase the number of tourists from Denmark and other Scandinavian countries to Indonesia.

    Currently, the number of Danish tourists visiting Indonesia is about 30 thousand. Meanwhile, about 120 thousand people from Northern Europe visit Bali, Lombok (West Nusa Tenggara), Java, and Sumatra.

    At the exhibition, the Indonesian Embassy promoted Indonesian dishes that have been widely known in the world, such as fried rice (nasi goreng), fried noodles, rendang (spicy beef made using various spices, including coconut milk), and Indonesian coffee. The embassy also presented several Indonesian chefs to demonstrate the cooking to a number of businessmen and importers, who are engaged in business in Denmark.

    The involvement of businesses in the travel show is expected to improve business-to-businesses deals, increase travel packages sales, and expand the network of cooperation between Indonesian and Danish businessmen.

    Danish Travel Show is the largest annual travel exhibition in Northern Europe participated by about 1 thousand participants from 42 countries and attended by more than 65 thousand visitors from Denmark and other European countries. In 2016, the event was attended by some 4 thousand tourism businessmen, 1,196 exhibitors from 51 countries, 11 airlines, and 80 travel agencies.

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  • Impressive Primark sales growth boosted by new stores

    Impressive Primark sales growth boosted by new stores

    The impressive Primark sales growth over the last half year has been boosted by network expansion with the addition of 16 stores across both Europe and the US – and exchange rates.

    The value retailer expects to end the first half with 329 stores, and 13.1 million sqft of trading space – up 12 per cent year-on-year. Like-for-like sales to date are flat compared with last year at a group level, brought down by store cannibalisation in the Netherlands, but fared better at home, up 2 per cent.

    But tourists drawn to Britain by the low pound have driven sales up 10 per cent at the company’s two London flagships.

    Parent company ABF expects Primark’s sales over the half year to be 11 per cent ahead of last year at constant currency rates. At actual exchange rates, sales are expected to be up 21 per cent.

    Kate Ormrod, senior analyst with GlobalData, says margin pressure will remain the big story for Primark in the second half, especially given its commitment to maintaining prices until August.

    “That’s a necessary move given the importance of staying price competitive at the value end of the market. As a result, operating profit margin for the full year is expected to fall. Some form of price increase can still be expected on Primark’s more expensive products, with investment in design and fit used to justify any hikes, ensuring shoppers still receive value for money,” she says.

    “Being known as the price leader affords Primark some protection at a time when disposable incomes are being squeezed; however, ensuring product ranges remain fashionable and relevant will be imperative to retain appeal.”

    Ormrod says this is particularly important as emerging players such as boohoo.com and Missguided continue to encroach on Primark’s fast fashion unique selling point, enabling them to steal customers and share.

    “Further investment in menswear to address new trends will be important to build Primark’s fashion credentials, as its offer remains more basics-driven than those of rivals such as New Look and H&M,” she concluded.

  • Starbucks Korea polls 1 million customers

    Starbucks Korea polls 1 million customers

    Starbucks Korea is killing two birds with one stone – improving sales by making customers happier.

    According to the coffeemaker, the number of participants on its mobile survey platform “My Starbucks Review” has exceeded 1 million. Surveys are offered to Starbucks members who use Siren Order – ordering food and beverages on a smartphone, instead of having to wait in line.

    Starbucks Korea app

     

    The platform has been serving the coffeehouse well in terms of gathering customer feedback, officials said, and some 20 of the suggestions coming from customers have either been adopted or are expected to be introduced in the near future.

    One of the suggestions was related to Grapefruit Honey Tea, a seasonal drink temporarily introduced last year that was met with unprecedented popularity. Following the soaring demand, Starbucks decided to introduce the tea as an official menu item, and ended up selling over 1.2 million cups in just five months.

    Other successful ventures with the help of consumer input include the Starbucks Card Holder, with over 10,000 units sold since its launch late last year, and special edition coin pouches for chocolate coins, which sold out in just five days (50,000 batch) in early January.

    “We’ll continue to take into account customer feedback, to offer better products and services,” an official said.

    -Kevin Lee

  • Myanmar distribution platform on way

    Myanmar distribution platform on way

    Singapore-listed Yoma Strategic Holdings has partnered with international wholesale/retail food company Metro Group to establish an integrated wholesale Myanmar distribution platform.

    Metro Wholesale Myanmar aims to address the “evolving needs” of professional customers. Yoma Strategic holds a 15 per cent stake in the business with the remaining 85 per cent taken by the German group.

    “Metro Myanmar will leverage on Metro’s procurement capabilities and Yoma Strategic’s logistics, warehousing and fleet-leasing businesses to fast-track its growth,” the companies say in a joint statement.

    Metro Myanmar is looking at improving the nation’s supply chain. It will be offering more than 3300 food and other items to such customers as hotels, restaurants and independent small retailers.

    As Myanmar retailers need to source products in different ways from distributors and importers, Metro is looking at creating a one-stop wholesale distribution platform.

    “We are confident our partnership with Metro will bring global knowhow in modern wholesale distribution and contribute to bringing reliable and safe food to the people in Myanmar,” says Yoma Strategic CEO Melvyn Pun.

    Metro is active in 35 countries with sales reaching about €37 billion (US$39 billion) in 2015-16. Its B2B wholesale division Metro Cash & Carry serves hotels, restaurants, small retail and catering firms across Europe and Asia.

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  • Doutor Coffee heading to China

    Doutor Coffee heading to China

    Japanese low-price cafe chain Doutor Coffee is heading to China following its parent company’s failed foray with pasta restaurants.

    Doutor Nichires Holdings is partnering with restaurant group Xiao Nan Guo, whose business includes high-end Chinese dining. It flourished on lavish official meals funded by taxpayer money until President Xi Jinping cracked down on official extravagance.

    As Chinese consumers become increasingly price-conscious, the partners see potential for the low-price Doutor Coffee chain.

    Doutor Nichires, which also runs chains such as Excelsior Caffe and Hoshino Coffee in Japan, had three pasta restaurants in Shanghai until about three years ago. It now has 18 overseas locations, including cafes in Singapore.

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  • Volvo Cars’ New XC60 SUV Will Automatically Steer You Out Of Trouble

    Volvo Cars’ New XC60 SUV Will Automatically Steer You Out Of Trouble

    Volvo Cars, the premium car maker, has announced that the new XC60 SUV – which will be revealed at the Geneva Motor Show – will feature three new advanced driver assistance features aimed at keeping the driver out of trouble.

    The new safety features are designed to provide the driver with automatic steering assistance or support – when required – to help avoid potential collisions. Volvo believes that these new features will make the new XC60 one of the safest cars on the road.

    “We have been working with collision avoidance systems for many years and we can see how effective they are. In Sweden alone we have seen a decline of around 45 per cent* in rear-end frontal crashes thanks to our collision warning with autobrake system. With the XC60 we are determined to take the next step in reducing avoidable collisions with the addition of steering support and assistance systems,” said Malin Ekholm, Senior Director, Volvo Cars’ Safety Centre.

    City Safety has been updated in the XC60 to include steering support, which engages when automatic braking alone would not help avoid a potential collision. In such circumstances, the car will provide steering assistance to avoid the obstacle ahead. City Safety helps to avoid collisions with vehicles, pedestrians and large animals. Steering support is active between 50-100 km/h.

    Volvo Cars has also added a system called Oncoming Lane Mitigation, which helps drivers to avoid collisions with vehicles in an oncoming lane.

    The system works by alerting a driver who has unwittingly wandered out of a driving lane by providing automatic steering assistance, guiding them back into their own lane and out of the path of any oncoming vehicle. This system is active between 60-140 km/h.

    “All three of these new features represent clear steps in our work towards fully autonomous cars,” added Malin Ekholm.

    Volvo Cars’ optional Blind Spot Information System, which alerts drivers to the presence of vehicles in their blind spot, has also received an update to include steer assist functionality that helps to avoid potential collisions with vehicles in a blind spot by steering the car back into its own lane and away from danger.

    “We have all of the benefits of the safety technology we introduced in our larger 90 Series cars in the new XC60. This is fully in-line with our strategic approach to develop automotive safety systems based on real-life, real-road safety. Our vision is that no one will be killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo car by the year 2020,” added Malin Ekholm.

    The XC60 will deliver a host of high-end safety systems, just like its larger 90 Series siblings, including Large Animal Detection, Run-off Road Mitigation and the semi-autonomous driver support and convenience system Pilot Assist as an option.

  • Techcom trust debuts on HOSE

    Techcom trust debuts on HOSE

    Techcom Việt Nam Real Estate Investment Trust (TCREIT) made debut on the HCM Stock Exchange (HOSE) yesterday under the code FUCVREIT at a par value of VNĐ10,000 (44 US cents) per fund certificate.

    Five million FUCVREIT fund certificates were floated on the southern bourse, without a specific due term for the fund’s being traded. Changes in the due term will be
    decided by investors’ resolutions.

    HOSE said in a statement that this was also the first domestic-invested fund in Việt Nam’s  securities market. The trust fund was founded by the Techcom Capital Co Ltd (TCC), an investment arm of Techcombank.

    Ending the first session, its price closed at VNĐ12,000 apiece with 8,330 fund certificates exchanged.

    The investment trust was founded as a closed-end fund with initial capital of VNĐ50 billion (US$2.22 million). The fund expects to increase its capital in the future to meet
    investors’ demands when targeting potential real-estate projects.

    By making investments in Techcom Capital’s property investment trust, domestic and overseas investors can indirectly own part of potential real-estate projects and receive
    constant earnings from those projects without spending money on direct investments in the projects.

    In addition, with the fund’s trading on HOSE, investors can buy and sell fund certificates more easily, compared to trading in a real-estate project.

    A REIT fund is founded by investors’ capital when they purchase fund certificates and authorise the fund management board to supervise their shares. A real estate
    investment fund often spends most of its net asset value (NAV) investing in real-estate projects and real-estate companies.

    The domestic real estate investment fund has a long-term investment strategy focusing on property projects, such as office buildings, hotels, resorts and shopping centres,
    which generate constant earnings for the fund from leasing and business activities.

    The fund will also consider making investments in projects, such as apartment buildings and housing, which are developed by reputable institutional developers and have high
    possibilities of price increases, to benefit from selling products in those projects.

    In Việt Nam, there are some foreign-invested real-estate investment trusts, such as Vinaland by the VinaCapital, VPF by the Dragon Capital and VPH by the Saigon Asset Management. These funds mobilise capital from overseas investors to purchase stakes in Việt Nam’s real-estate projects and property stocks, after which the funds will be
    listed on overseas stock exchanges.

    According to current regulations, of the total NAV, a REIT must spend at least 65 per cent investing in real-estate projects and property stocks and, at most, 35 per cent investing in other types of assets, such as deposits, bonds and securities.

    When the fund seeks capital via an initial public offering (IPO) and/or increases its capital, investors can purchase more fund certificates by making payments in cash or
    they can contribute their stakes in real-estate projects to receive the amount of certificates that are of equal value to the stakes in property projects.

    This could become a new tool to help investors offload their stakes from real-estate projects by selling their fund certificates, if the projects have low trading liquidity in the property market.

  • Sunil Bharti Mittal declares war on roaming

    Sunil Bharti Mittal declares war on roaming

    Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of the GSMA and India’s Bharti Airtel, has called for an end to international roaming charges.

    Speaking on Monday’s morning keynote session at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona, the newly elected GSMA chairman said the telecoms industry has “created a disaster” with high mobile roaming charges and pledged to resolve the issue of punitive roaming rates during his tenure.

    “As the chairman of GSMA, one of the major tasks to mind is to fix the problem of international roaming. The bill shocks are creating a lot of dishonest in the minds of customers,” Mittal said.

    “We have a global network…but very few people are allowed to enjoy it,” he said, noting that consumers turn off their phones or often buy local sim cards to avoid “bill shocks”.

    Mittal said 55% of people in the developed world switch off mobile data while roaming and he estimated 90% of travelers from the emerging markets switch off their mobile data, perhaps even voice when they travel.

    “It is a disaster our industry has created,” he said, adding that telcos should not stop regulators’ attempts to force down roaming rates.

    “What have we done to our industry? This must stop. As we leave this room we are going to shake this system. I can promise you within my term at GSMA, roaming charges and bill shocks will be a thing of the past,” Mittal said.

    Mittal’s comment came on the same day Bharti Airtel announced plans to scrap national roaming charges on call and data from April 1.

    In addition to roaming, Mittal also urged regulators to allow greater consolidation in the telecoms industry to leave it in a “healthier” shape.

    “Governments have got it wrong for too long. Regulators have always felt giving out new licenses means more money for the government and more competition for the customers. It’s quite the contrary,” he said, noting that large countries only need three telecoms service providers while smaller nations could be covered by two operators.

    “One doesn’t want a situation where there are one or two ‘healthy’ operators, while another similar number struggle… You really want a few sustainable solid operators, who can put out the investments that are required to deal with the new technologies, demand for data [and the] speeds that you want.”

    Mittal cited examples from the US and Europe, saying these issues are of concern to the telecoms industry globally.

    “In Africa, again and again when I meet regulators and ministers, they talk about issuing new licenses. The time for a license and 500,000 base stations creating a value is over. You can give as many licenses as you want but please allow consolidation,” he urged.

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  • Telstra to launch LTE-Broadcast this year

    Telstra to launch LTE-Broadcast this year

    Telstra has announced plans to launch LTE-Broadcast (LTE-B) services this year, and roll out the technology across Australia by 2018.

    The company is working with network vendor Ericsson to enable LTE-B in existing Telstra Media services this year.

    Telstra also plans to launch a 24×7 linear streaming channel using the technology, initially for certain compatible Samsung devices.

    LTE-B is a dedicated technology for broadcasting media over LTE networks for enhanced mobile video services such as mobile TV broadcasting and live streaming video services. The technology is also known as enhanced broadcast multcast services (eMBMS).

    LTE-B is designed to provide a constant bitrate data channel for broadcast content, with the bitrate not decreasing regardless of how many subscribers are watching simultaneously.

    Telstra group managing director for networks Mike Wright said 99% of Telstra’s 4GX-branded sites are already LTE_B compatible, and the operator aims to achieve nationwide coverage by next year.

    “Telstra’s LTE-B product roadmap will include 24 x 7 linear streaming, live sports coverage beyond stadiums, pre-loading of popular content, news clips and games highlights,” he said. “We plan on enabling LTE-B across many devices, and are excited to deliver an enhanced mobile experience to our customers.”

    In line with these ambitions, Telstra is also adopting technologies including session continuity and dynamic switching, and aims to introduce these capabilities to its network by November 2017.

    Session continuity allows for seamless transitions between unicast and broadcast areas during video streaming. Dynamic switching shifts the transmission between unicast or broadcast depending on which technology will deliver a superior experience based on the current number of simultaneous users.

    “This technology will be crucial to improving the LTE-B experience for our customers. For instance, when network capacity becomes limited and multiple users are consuming the same content, the MooD capability can shift the transmission to broadcast,” he said.

    Telstra and Ericsson are also members of the global LTE-Broadcast Alliance, which is holding its first forum at this week’s Mobile World Congress, the annual mobile industry conference held in Barcelona.

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  • Zalora Indonesia future under a cloud

    Zalora Indonesia future under a cloud

    Is Zalora Indonesia for sale? Fresh after selling off a chunk of the Philippines business, Rocket denies further Asian withdrawal.

    Last week, Ayala announced it will buy 43.3 per cent ownership in Zalora manager BF Jade E-Service Philippines for an undisclosed amount, taking its ownership to 49 per cent. The investment marks Ayala’s first foray in eCommerce.

    But what of Zalora Indonesia? Parent, German eCommerce investor Rocket Internet, is also said to be in negotiations with Indonesian retail conglomerate Map Group, according to a report by TechCrunch. Other reports say it is withdrawing entirely from Indonesia. But Zalora PR director Christopher Daguimol denies a retreat from Indonesia.

    “Southeast Asia is a diverse region, and we will always look at adapting our strategy to local country dynamics and opportunities. Our objective is to build the online fashion leader in each of our Southeast Asia markets,” Zalora said at the time it announced its Philippines divestment.

    Zalora sold off its businesses in Thailand and Vietnam last year.

    Map runs nearly 2000 retail outlets in Indonesia, including fashion outlets, and more in partnership with global firms like Marks and Spencer, and Zara. The publicly listed company has more than 22,000 employees.

    Fierce competition has started escalating in Indonesia, marked by layoffs by Berrybenka and SaleStock a few months ago, says Deal Street Asia. Giants like Lazada and MatahariMall.com are meanwhile steadily marching forward with both companies received major funding from global investors last year.

  • Ellie Goulding shoes launch this week

    Ellie Goulding shoes launch this week

    British singer Ellie Goulding will launch a range of shoes this week, in partnership with German footwear retailer Deichmann.

    Ellie Goulding shoes go on sale Wednesday March 1, marking the singer’s first foray into fashion.

    After racing to the top of the charts with her contribution to the soundtrack of 50 Shades of Grey, she has become one of the UK’s most successful solo artists of the past decade.

    Deichmann says her move into shoes demonstrates her feel for the latest trends.

    “For me, shoes are an indication of what mood you are in,” Goulding said in a statement. “Launching a collection of my own gives me the opportunity to express my style.

    “My collection includes shoes for any occasion – I really can’t decide if I like wearing heels or flats better – I am constantly changing it up.”

    Ellie Goulding shoes include sneakers, ethnic sandals, heels, wedges, espadrilles or mules. The ‘Ellie Goulding for Deichmann’ collection is defined by the motto “Rock your Look”. Bright colours, extravagant shapes, individual trims or rock-star studs give the styles a unique look.

    The accompanying campaign was shot in London by celebrity photographer Louie Banks, and styling was the task of Cher Coulter, who has already worked with stars such as Rosie Huntington-Whitley, Kirsten Dunst and Demi Moore. The director of the accompanying TV spot was no less than Emil Nava, famous for his creation of music videos for Rihanna, Selena Gomez, Calvin Harris and Ne-Yo.

    The collection will be available in selected stores and on the online shop at www.deichmann.com. Styles cost between €19.90 and €34.90. They will be sold in 21 European countries in Deichmann Group stores and online shops.

    Deichmann SE, headquartered in Essen, Germany, was founded in 1913 and is still 100 per cent family-owned. The company is a market leader in the European retail shoe trade and employs over 37,300 people worldwide. It has retail stores in Germany, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the UK.