AMOBEE EXPANDS ASIAN FOOTPRINT
As traditional advertising increasingly shifts to online channels and devices, global digital ad spend is expected to almost double to US$427 billion by 2022 from about US$232 billion in 2017, according to research firm eMarketer. This growth will be driven primarily by demand from digital advertisers in Asia Pacific. To capture such opportunities, Amobee is expanding its footprint across the region.
In the past year, Amobee has made significant progress, delivering robust revenue growth and positive EBITDA for the full year for the first time since Singtel acquired it. Leveraging synergies from the acquisition of the Turn platform, it offers customers new programmatic solutions to improve the effectiveness of their campaigns. Amobee won more accolades, including the Gold Stevie Award for the Marketing Campaign of the Year for the Travel/Tourism/Destination industry at the 2017 American Business Awards for its work on Airbnb’s “Live There” global digital campaign.
HOOQ AND DATASPARK GAIN TRACTION
Our video streaming service HOOQ and advanced analytics arm DataSpark are both gaining traction.
HOOQ now offers access to more than 35,000 hours of affordable Hollywood and local content to our customers across Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. It continues to innovate its business and will launch its free-to-air live TV streaming service this year to bring users onto the HOOQ platform and complement its premium offerings.
HOOQ will also continue to focus on producing and licensing local original content across Southeast Asia to pull local audiences. It currently has about 20 projects in the pipeline. Among HOOQ’s recent local productions were Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya’s “Marlina The Murderer In Four Acts” and romantic comedy “Kita Kita,” the highest-grossing Philippine independent film for 2017. HOOQ has won exclusive broadcast rights to air two original TV series “The Oath” and “Carter” which were produced by Sony Pictures.
DataSpark has been scaling its business across the region, offering a suite of data analytics solutions to industries ranging from telecommunications, transportation, retail and marketing to urban planning. DataSpark’s mobility intelligence platform which analyses people’s data consumption patterns and movement around high traffic areas is helping mobile operators in Singapore, Australia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia optimise their network investments by allowing carriers to deploy cellular capacity where the bandwidth is most needed. In Australia, DataSpark recently conducted a mobility study on popular suburbs frequented by tourists, enabling advertisers to create campaigns targeted at the travel market.
INNOV8 DRIVES TECH INNOVATION
Our success hinges on continued innovation. To stay ahead of the curve, Innov8 has been investing in pioneering technologies. Since 2010, Innov8 has invested in over 70 companies globally across industries such as cyber security, digital marketing and data analytics. This year, Innov8 made a series of investments including the acquisition of stakes in Myriota, a maker of nanosatellites that are used for IoT connectivity; AirSpace Systems Inc, a manufacturer of drone defence systems; Qubole, which provides software that automates data analytics; and Attivo, a cyber security company that uses deception technology to protect IT networks.
In March, Innov8 and NUS' entrepreneurial arm launched the Innovation Cyber Security Ecosystem at Block 71 (ICE71), Singapore’s first integrated regional cyber security hub that aims to accelerate and support early stage and growing start-ups, entrepreneurs and academics from around the world.
ICE71 is the latest collaboration between Singtel Innov8 and NUS since establishing the BLOCK71 initiative in Singapore in 2011 to provide start-ups access to the resources they need to bring their solutions to market. The partners also set up BLOCK71 in San Francisco three years ago. Last year, Innov8 established its presence in Beijing to tap into potential opportunities in China’s technology industry.