The Internet market in Asia is still in the early stages. But, of course,
it is growing fast – and the growth rate will continue for some time. U.S.
companies understand this and want to make certain they have a substantial
global penetration.
However, building global Web presences can be extremely difficult and
costly. Why not outsource it? Well, this is what
Asiacontent.com
does. The company has established a full-solution, handling content
management, localization, community, e-commerce, and advertising.
Asiacontent.com went public in April. This was definitely an
accomplishment, since many IPOs had been withdrawn during this time.
Although, Asiacontent.com’s stock has been hit hard. The stock now trades
at $3-1/32.
So far, Asiacontent.com has been able to sign-up an all-star list of
customers. They include such biggies as CNET, MTV, SportsLine.com, NBCi, E!
Online and others. In all, there are 22 sites, which are targeted in such
markets as Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia
and India.
The customer base is making a big impact on Asiacontent.com’s traffic
metrics. Its network of Web sites saw its page views soar to 226 million in
the second quarter of 2000. This was a 226 percent increase from the first
quarter of 2000. Registered users increased 180% to 623,000. What’s more,
the stickiness of the site went from 3.9 minutes per session to more than
10.5 minutes per session.
In the past quarter, the company generated $3.2 million, up from $300,000 in
the same period last year. The sequential growth rate was 121 percent. But
losses were $14 million.
The Asiacontent.com model has the potential for scaling. In fact, the
company has announced that most of its infrastructure is complete. Thus,
expenses should be under control. And there are many more sites that will
likely be customers (the most recent was CBS MarketWatch).
Asiacontent.com is young, established in May 1999, but it has done a great
job building a pan-Asian network of top sites. As the Net in Asia surges,
so should Asiacontent.com.