finishing | Zhao Xiaoxiao
editor | and Yirong
Major overseas events this week (2022.06.27-07.03) include: the US FCC commissioner called on apple and Google to remove TikTok; after five years of joint venture in e-commerce, JD.com The Thai retail giant is splitting its business; TikTok plans to build an overseas warehouse in the UK; H&M closes its first store in China; Giant sold 25% of the shares of Israeli mobile game publisher Playtika, recovering US$2.23 billion; Indian B2B retail technology platform Arzooo has won zoom founder Yuan Zheng investment and so on.
Big Events Going Overseas
US FCC Commissioner Calls on Apple and Google to Remove TikTok
On June 28, Brendan Carr, one of the members of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), said that due to data security concerns, he has sent a letter Ask Apple and Google app stores to remove TikTok. However, the app store is not within the jurisdiction of the FCC, and the three parties have not yet responded.
Karl published a letter to Apple and Google parent companies: "TikTok amounts to a sophisticated surveillance tool that can collect large amounts of personal information and sensitive data." US news website BuzzFeed disclosed a week ago that although TikTok said It is the U.S. security team that decides who can obtain the data of U.S. users, but employees of TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance have repeatedly obtained non-public data of U.S. users.
On June 17, TikTok announced that it had transferred US user data to Oracle servers to address the concerns of US regulators.
After five years of joint venture in e-commerce, JD.com and the Thai retail giant are spinning off their businesses.
Due to differences in culture and working methods, Thailand's Central Group will divest from its joint venture e-commerce platform JD Central with JD.. JD Central may be renamed JD.Commerce. The two parties are currently discussing a spin-off.
In September 2017, Central and JD.com established a joint venture worth 500 million yuan. The joint venture contract is valid for five years. On June 18, 2018, JD Central launched a trial operation in Thailand, adopting a self-operated and third-party sales model similar to JD.com in China; in September of the same year, JD Central was officially put into operation. The goal at that time was to become Thailand’s largest e-commerce platform.
Regarding the reasons for the breakup, industry insiders analyzed that the two companies had major differences in marketing strategies, management methods and organizational structures. According to Thai government data, JD Centra has suffered a total loss of approximately 5.6 billion baht (approximately 1 billion yuan) in the past five years.
If Central divests completely, the platform it operates may need to be renamed from JD Central to JD Commerce. It is reported that the executives sent by Central have basically withdrawn from JD Central. The remaining Chinese and Thai executives are all employed by JD Central.
However, according to Wisan Sirikul, corporate marketing director of JD Central, Thailand's Central Group and JD.com still cooperate on other projects, including piloting "Instant Joy" on-demand delivery with Tops supermarket.
TikTok plans to build an overseas warehouse in the UK
TikTok e-commerce is preparing to launch the "Aquaman" warehousing plan in the UK, following the Amazon FBA model, allowing merchants to store goods in local warehouses in the UK in advance to save cross-border delivery time. It is said that "Sea King" means "the king of the sea".
TikTok UK e-commerce business has been in operation for more than a year, and 50% of the total transaction volume comes from cross-border e-commerce business, which also means that a large number of goods need to be sent from China to the UK. It is understood that the logistics time for TikTok e-commerce to ship from China to the UK is at least 10-15 days, and at most it takes more than a month. According to internal calculations, Project Neptune can shorten the average fulfillment time to 3-5 days.
In addition, TikTok e-commerce is also simultaneously establishing a warehousing center in China, which will save merchants time from shipping to cross-border transfer points. TikTok recommends that merchants choose products with the following characteristics: order volume in the past month is greater than 200 pieces, unit price exceeds US$2, strong seasonality, and quick turnover.
TikTok e-commerce has been launched in the UK and six Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore. TikTok’s e-commerce sales in Indonesia have exceeded US$100 million in a single month. Average daily sales in the UK market in June were only around US$300,000.
Large overseas company
H&M closed its first store in China
The H&M store located at No. 4651, Huaihai Middle Road, Shanghai Traditional Commercial Street, quietly closed the store last week. This store is the first store of the H&M brand in the Chinese mainland market. It opened in 2007 and has been in operation for 15 years.
Since the second half of last year, H&M has begun to close stores intensively in China. Its financial report shows that as of the end of last year, H&M had closed 60 stores in China, accounting for 12% of the total stores. The Xinjiang cotton incident in 2021 is a turning point for H&M in the decline of the Chinese market. According to the official website of
, H&M currently has more than 370 stores in mainland China, a decrease of about 1/4 from the beginning of last year. In March last year, due to the cotton scandal, H&M was strongly boycotted, and its Tmall and JD.com stores have not resumed operations. However, since the second half of last year, H&M Group’s higher-end brands such as COS and &Other Stories have successively opened new stores in mid-to-high-end shopping malls in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Giant sold 25% of the shares of Israeli mobile game publisher Playtika, recovering US$2.23 billion
The current controlling shareholder of Israeli mobile game publisher Playtika, a Chinese consortium ( Giant Network 's subsidiary Jukun Network, which indirectly holds shares, agreed to transfer Playtika's 25.73% of the shares were sold to private equity firm Joffre Capital.
Playtika was founded in 2010 and specializes in developing social gambling and leisure mobile games. In July 2016, a Chinese consortium led by Shi Yuzhu, chairman of Giant Network, Spending US$4.4 billion to acquire Playtika from Caesars Entertainment in the United States
Before this transaction, the Chinese consortium held 50.54% of Playtika's shares. After the transaction, the number of shares held dropped to 24.81%. The acquisition price was US$21 per share. , the total transaction amount is US$2.22815 billion, corresponding to Playtika’s valuation reaching US$8.7 billion.
Overseas investment and financing
Vietnamese e-commerce service company OnPoint received US$50 million in Series B financing.
Vietnamese e-commerce service company OnPoint recently received US$50 million in Series B financing. Financing, led by SeaTown Private Capital Master Fund, the new funds will be used to continue to expand its e-commerce ecosystem and develop emerging technologies in a data-driven approach. Founded in 2016 by Tran Vu Quang,
OnPoint is a leader in Vietnam’s e-commerce marketing industry. An integrated solution provider, OnPoint's business has now reached multiple links in the supply chain such as brand building and website establishment, online store opening and operation, digital marketing, customer service, warehousing and after-sales service.
Southeast Asia. Logistics company Deliveree received US$70 million in Series C financing
Southeast Asian logistics company Deliveree recently received US$70 million in Series C financing, led by Gobi Partners and SPIL Ventures, with participation from Inspire Ventures. Up to now, Deliveree has received a total of 109 million in financing in the past five years.
Deliveree, co-founded in 2015 by Tom Kim and Gagan Singh, is a solution provider specifically targeting the logistics industry. Deliveree currently focuses on developing business in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines (operating under the Transportify brand in the Philippines), and its team size is close to 500 people.
Arzooo, an Indian B2B retail technology platform, has completed US$70 million in financing and received investment from Yuan Zheng.
Arzooo, a B2B retail technology platform, recently received US$70 million in Series B financing. This round of financing was funded by SBI Holdings, Trifecta Leaders Fund, as well as investors Celesta Capital, 3 Lines VC and others co-led the investment. Xu Xiang, founder of American food delivery giant Doordash, also joined the new round of financing, which is his first investment in India.
Arzooo was founded in 2018 by former Flipkart executives Khushnud Khan and Rishi Raj Rathore. The mobile application they developed, Arzooo Go Store, provides virtual inventory to physical retail stores, allowing them to sell products to a wider range of customers. It is worth mentioning that the company has also received investment from Zoom founder Yuan Zheng. Currently, Arzooo is valued at more than $300 million.
UniUni, a well-known Canadian last-mile delivery service provider, has received 50 million yuan in financing. Zongteng, Yanwen and others jointly invested
UniUni, a well-known Canadian last-mile delivery service provider, recently announced the completion of a 50 million yuan Series A financing. This round of financing is jointly invested by Zongteng Group, Yanwen Logistics, Celtic Asia, and CH2M Capital. The new financing will focus on developing the U.S. last-mile distribution market and accelerating the establishment of a last-mile fulfillment service network covering North America.
UniUni was established in 2019. It provides high-quality and standard last-mile delivery and return services for leading cross-border e-commerce platforms and local companies in North America, including Amazon, Walmart, Shein, and Wish. As of the end of 2021, its distribution network has covered 6 provinces and 58 cities in Canada.
About Going Global
This is a going overseas column launched by Chuangye Bang. It talks to front-line people going overseas and tells the stories of front-line going overseas.
