Web 2.0

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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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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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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How to use Airtel Free Zone Mobile Internet for Accessing Google, Gmail, Google+

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Here is a Step By Step Illustration on How to use Airtel Free Zone Mobile Internet for Accessing Google, Gmail, Google+

Point your phone’s browser to airtel.in/freezone ; click “Enter Free Zone” to access Google’s search engine, billions of Web
sites, Gmail and Google+ without paying for data as shown below.Airtel Google FreeZone

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Peek Into Infoedge Investee Companies – Zomato, MeritNation, MyDala

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Meritnation - Infoedge CompanyInfoedge has invested a total of Rs2.8 bn, in nine Internet start-ups since listing in 2007. Of these, detailed financials for two companies, namely Zomato and Meritnation. Management views these as high risk-high return investments. It believes the benefits derived from even one success story could completely outweigh the losses on others. Further, it believes these are necessary to keep attracting people with new ideas and to stay ahead of the competition.

The largest investee companies, namely Zomato and Meritnation, appear well-funded for now. Both of these are tiny compared to international comparable. They are seeing strong

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How will Amazon Fresh Impact Offline Grocerry Retailers ?

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Amazon Fresh - Online Grocery Retailing ModelAfter testing for 6 years in Seattle, Amazon launched AmazonFresh in LA, which is the beginning of Amazon’s grocery expansion efforts to potentially all large metro areas in the coming years. The grocery category is a ~$600bn opportunity in the U.S., but Amazon’s strategy will likely target the top 20 metro areas (MSAs) by population, which we estimate is a $220bn opportunity.

Some of the Attributes to AmazonFresh that may differentiate it from its competitors and diminish the negative impact of AmazonFresh include – charging fees ($7.99-$9.99 per deliver below $100), Amazon Prime Fresh program (high $299 upfront fee), opportunity to sell non-grocery products that have higher margins, third party marketplace and AmazonFresh may target a higher income customer.

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