Technology

Baidu Mobile Monetization Rising, TAC Cost Higher A Surprise

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Baidu Engineering TeamBaidu Management that mobile revs for the first time accounted for >10% of total revs in 2Q13. This would indeed mark a significant improvement from levels of 5-6% that we had earlier estimated. Mobile represents 20+% of total Baidu queries, and that mobile (incl. tablet) CPC’s are at least a 40~45% discount to desktop despite improving click-through. It thus seems clear that conversion on mobile significantly lags that of desktop.

Baidu’s Traffic Acquisition Cost [TAC]
We were quite surprised with the surge in TAC to RMB880m up 182bp QoQ to 12.2% of total revs, and well above 50-100bp sequential growth expected by many. While the co attributed most of the growth to increased

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Google Gets Serious Wearable Computing with Glass – Funds HiMax

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Google Glass Means Serious BusinessGoogle and Himax have entered into an agreement to invest in Himax Display Inc. (“HDI”; Himax’s subsidiary company that manufactures LCOS chips/modules), in order to fund production upgrades and expand capacity for LCOS chips/modules used in applications such as Google Glass. While the deal would be completed by end-3Q13, Google will hold a 6.3% interest in HDI plus 8.5% preferred share options. Google will join the core group of HDI shareholders, including Intel Capital Corp, KPCB Holdings and Khosla Ventures.

Himax will also invest an additional amount in HDI to fund its

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InfoEdge Growth Tapered in Core Naukri.Com Business

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Naukri Slowdown in All BusinessesInfoEdge India, owner of the Online Recruiting Business Naukri.Com reported a tepid growth of mere 8% YoY, reflecting poor demand conditions. Collections over half-year ended Jun-13 were up 9% YoY. Management remains cautious on the revenue growth outlook given no signs of a pick-up in the Indian economy, and therefore its core recruitment business. It reiterated its strategy of focusing on market share at the expense of near-term margins.

Overall, Standalone revenue grew 14% YoY and normalised profits were flat YoY. Collections growth for the six-month period ended Jun-13 for the Naukri.Com, and 99acres business was up 9% YoY and 50% YoY, respectively. In Jeevansathi (Matrimonial / Dating classifieds),

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Why India is a Failure in Telecom Technology compared to China ?

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Why is India Failure in Telecom TechnologyOne of the foundations of our China Telecom Technology is the development / support of the domestic technology standards, and domestic telecom equipment vendors is the Chinese government’s pre-eminent policy objective. This approach results no doubt in structural over-investment by the operators and lower returns on invested capital. The decisions to build three parallel national wireless networks based on three different standards and then deploy 4G TD before China Mobile’s 3G TD network is loaded may make no economic sense but

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Google Online Ads Growth to be Stronger in Q2- 2013

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Google’s Domestic desktop CPC growth is likely to range in high single to low double digits yoy across our contacts. Growth in the proportion of lower priced mobile clicks was offset by growth in average mobile CPCs. A number of our contacts noted that growth in Product Listing Ads (PLAs) CPCs continued as more and more retailers continue to come to auction. Further, our checks indicate most advertisers have not yet adopted Google’s new enhanced campaigns in AdWords due to the need to rework their campaigns to reflect the grouping of tablets and desktops in enhanced campaigns. As such, we would not

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How LinkedIn Poses a Threat to Naukri’s Old Recruting Model ?

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LinkedIn Eating into Naukri Recruiting BusinessNaukri emerged as India’s Largest Recruiting Platform in the old fashioned way of connecting Job Seekers with Employers. Ability to mine the potential candidate database, short-list relevant candidate profiles, manage their response and the ease/efficiency of doing the same are the most critical factors on which the efficacy of the recruitment service depends. While Naukri.com has been able to sustain its market share through effectively implementing these, alternate sources of recruitment like social recruitment (Linkedin) and advanced search technologies (like semantic search) have emerged.

Linkedin originally a professional networking portal

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Amazon’s Subscriber & Save Offerings – Traction in Grocery a Surprise

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Amazon Subscribe and Save GrocerySubscribe & Save has multiple benefits for AMZN, as it increases user purchase frequency and Amazon’s share of wallet within the $285bn consumables (ex fresh) market. Subscribe & Save is also a form of behavior modification, as habitual subscription-based ordering has the potential to alter consumers’ traditional offline shopping behavior and traffic flow. Not surprisingly, the most penetrated categories so far are Grocery (~4%), Beauty (~1%), and Health & Personal Care (~1%).

Subscribe & Save is essentially Amazon’s version of automatic replenishment. It offers users discounted prices on select items (typically sold in bulk) when they choose to have them automatically replenished from Amazon.com at regular, pre-determined intervals (every 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 months, etc.) (see below). This service

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How Sohu Winning the Internet Battle with Local Apps in China ?

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Sogou is considered a core business for Sohu, with a product offering that includes Pinyin, browser and search. Further, Sogou has reported strong growth in recent quarters. It is a source of innovation for the company and its apps provide Sohu with a mobile starting page.

Sogou’s core products are Pinyin, browser and search. Sogou Pinyin is the top software application for Chinese language input, with 88% penetration based

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TRAI for Reduction in 900MHz Spectrum Pricing & Data Tariffs

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TRAI IndiaMs. Anuradha Mitra, Principal Advisor (Financial & Economic Analysis), Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) met Telecom Industry Analysts and here are some of the feelers the officer has given during the interaction.

The regulator indicated that failure of two auctions has given a reason to re-think the spectrum pricing mechanism. Also, the flat 2x multiplier to derive the price of 900Mhz spectrum across circles could be tweaked to adequately capture the benefits of more efficient spectrum depending on circle dynamics.

The recent reduction in data tariffs

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