MobileMonday Global

Industry News

Finnish venture capital market declined in 2009

11 Feb 2010 Investments in Finnish high-tech companies dropped 60 percent from 2008, reflecting a 30.6 percent decline in the overall investment activity. Fifty-eight companies tracked by Technopolis Online received funding worth 101 million euros. Investment activity last year remained higher than expected, but investors stayed away from larger investments like the WinWind and Blyk deals that contributed 160 million euros to the market in 2008. ...

MobileMonday to launch chapters in Africa

09 Feb 2010 MobileMonday has announced the opening of chapters in Kampala, Uganda and Nairobi, Kenya. The Kampala chapter opens its doors on March 8, and the Nairobi chapter launches on March 11. A new South African chapter will also open in Capetown. After over a year of background work, the global organization formed a partnership with the World Bank to take the commmunity's concepts to several African countries. ...

MoMo founders in MWC 2010 Barcelona

08 Feb 2010 In addition to their usual prowling activities on the tradeshow floor, MobileMonday members will have the rare chance to meet many of MoMo's founders at their meeting point in Hall 2, Stand C28. The number of MoMo members, who visit the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, have continued to grow in the past two years.

FinnMob and IMA Form Alliance

05 Feb 2010 FinnMob (Finnish Mobile Association) and IMA (Israel Mobile and Communications Association) have agreed to jointly promote their portfolio companies. The associations reprepresent over 200 companies operating in the mobile industry, and aim to offer faster access by global operators, handset and network vendors, and investors to mobile products developed in Finland and Israel.

Gemalto acquires mobile authentication company Valimo Wireless

03 Feb 2010 French digital security firm Gemalto has bought the Finnish mobile authentication firm Valimo Wireless. The companies did not disclose the terms of the transaction. The acquisition provides Gemalto a position in the growing mobile financial services market.

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Mobile Commerce in China 移动电子商务

Shanghai 11 Mar 2010 Summary of 8 March event Two very enticing presentations from Taobao Wireless Dpt Director, Song Man Yuan, and Harry Liu, CEO of TreasureBeam, sole mobile commerce and payment partner of Guangdong Mobile. Two other companies, PayPal China (M. Michael Zhao, Head of China Integration) and HandPay (M. Chen Dihao, Marketing Director) joined us for the panel discussion. Some trends first: for operator-driven m-commerce transactions, utility payment and ticketing (lottery, bus tickets, air tickets etc) are by far the most popular items. Ticketing is also avery fast growing category on Taobao wireless which is not dependent on operator billing but leveraging on Alipay mobile payment gateway. For TreasureBeam, mobile education, newspaper and insurance selling on mobile will be the next big things, in addition to traditional m-commerce (clothes, cosmetics etc) which are lagging a bit (small screens to download pictures, etc). On the downside, when working with operators, the difficulty met is in the transaction size limit, a real hurdle for air tickets (Treasure Beam has yet to launch their airticket service) and bad debt. With China Mobile introducing mobile wallet applications, some of these restrictions will be lifted. Marketing of all these applications will also be a key success factor, as users are usually unaware of all the m-commerce applications they can use on their phone. Some numbers: on Taobao, the average mobile transaction size is RMB 100. The number of daily transactions reached 100,000 in 2009 and daily transaction volume reached 1 million RMB (302 Mil RMB transactions for 2009 alone). The number of daily visitors reached 4 million at the end of 2009 (2.5 Mil daily active users over 2009 on average). Taobao Wireless saw a “hockey stick” in user growth in the second half of 2009, with 40% increase usage. TreasureBeam, on their side, claim at least 10 Mil subscribers. They also saw similar growth patterns. The presentations can be downloaded HERE . ————————————————————————————- Dear friends and supporters of Mobile Monday Shanghai, we are back with a roar for our first event in the year of the tiger, so be there THIS MONDAY, 8th MARCH! As always, you can look forward to interesting speakers, an open forum and a great opportunity to meet up with like-minded people. This Monday we talk about an extremely relevant topic that has the potential of impacting the way we go about our lives in the near future. The potential of mobile commerce has always been understood, but lets hear from our speakers about how this potential is being translated into real world commerce. The topic will touch upon: • Consumer e-commerce on mobile phone • Popular mobile commerce applications and user experience • Payment gateways and platforms used for mobile commerce Guest Speakers/Panelists: TaoBao: Song Manyuan 宋漫远 Marketing Director of TaoBao wireless Dept 淘宝无线事业负责对外合作总监 www.taobao.com PayPal: Michael Zhao 赵祺 Head of China Integration, 解决方案部总监 PayPal Beibao China 贝宝中国 www.paypal.com Treasure beam: Mr. Liu Xufeng 刘旭晖 VP, 广州天运网络科技有限公司 (the mobile payment partner of China Mobile Guangdong Corporation) www.teamix.com.cn ; www.paycm.com Handpay: Shi weifeng 施伟峰 (TBC) CEO of Handpay 上海 瀚银 信息技术有限公司 www.handpay.com.cn MoMo Cost: 100 RMB payable at the door, includes 2 beverages and light appetizers. All attendees MUST pre-register, or risk embarrassment and ridicule. Please feel free to forward an invitation to colleagues or others who might be interested. *Plenty of opportunity for socializing and networking before and after the program. 100 元入场费用包含两杯软饮料和小食。参加者务必事先在网上登记以避免无法入场。欢迎转发给任何感兴趣参加活动的人员。 *正式会议前后均有自由洽谈时间 Momo Partners’s events ...

UK and Boston Startups Present at March’s Mobile Monday Boston

Boston 9 Mar 2010 March’s Mobile Monday Boston (#momobo) featured nine startups from both the Boston area and the UK, as UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) promoted its Mobile Technologies Mission to Boston campaign. The firms that presented included: Fluent Mobile Micah Adler, CEO led off by positioning UK-based Fluent Mobile as a firm focusing on app store optimization (ASO), marketing

Earlier Happenings

• Boston Boston’s Mobile Invesment Report 2009 8 Mar 2010
• Shanghai Mobile Commerce in China 4 Mar 2010
• Silicon Valley Check-In Apps/Social Location - Social Impacts and Monetization Opportunities 3 Mar 2010
• Bangalore Mobile Developer conference - Emerging Edition 1 Mar 2010
• Sydney Mobile Monday Sydney March 2010 - Mobile Supermodels & iPad Overview 27 Feb 2010
• Boston UK vs. US Mobile Demos 23 Feb 2010
• New York New York Startup PercentMobile Takes Home the GOLD for Early Stage Innovation at the Mobile Premier Awards 22 Feb 2010
• Bangalore Tweetup – “MWC 2010 – The long and short of it” 19 Feb 2010
• Silicon Valley Slides from Feb 8th Event 14 Feb 2010