SET Announcements

Mr. Nelson Leung, CEO of VGI Global Media Plc. (left picture) and Mr. Sammy Hsieh, Co-founder and CEO of iClick Interactive Asia Limited (right Picture)

Bangkok and Hong Kong, 24 April 2019 – VGI Global Media Plc (VGI) (VGI.BKK), Thailand’s number one online to offline (O2O) solutions provider across advertising, payment and logistics platforms, and iClick Interactive Asia Group Limited (“iClick”) (Nasdaq: ICLK), an independent online marketing and data technology platform in China, have entered into an agreement to form a joint venture (“Joint Venture”) that will enable brands in Southeast Asia to capture the multi-billion dollar Chinese consumer market through a range of technology-driven marketing solutions.

The new partnership will leverage the respective strengths of VGI and iClick to provide brands across Southeast Asia tremendous business opportunities and deepen their engagement with the large and growing customer base in China. Together the firms will generate significant cross border marketing opportunities, which can be addressed through a suite of mobile and new media products, including:

• Mobile Application - An AI-powered mobile application that generates personalized digital content based on users’ interests and preferences, allowing brands to target consumers more effectively with highly granular segmentation.
• China Solutions - China solutions comprise a wide range of digital marketing offerings ranging from marketing intelligence tools, social, and mobile solutions. These offerings not only help clients gain in-depth insights of the Chinese market based on iClick’s 780 million consumer profiles, but also provide an efficient way for clients to acquire the right consumers across multi channels in China, especially the significant number of Chinese outbound travellers.

O2O Solutions - 10,000 new mobile charging stations with the ability to display marketing messages that will be introduced and placed throughout VGI’s network across Thailand, in prominent locations such as BTS SkyTrain stations throughout Thailand’s leading mass transit system, and the distribution centers of Kerry Express, the leading parcel delivery company in Thailand.

Nelson Leung, CEO of VGI, said, “This collaboration represents an exciting new digital development in Thailand, as well as the entire Southeast Asia region. We are delighted to join forces with iClick, strategically combining our strengths and unlocking the potential of our companies to improve our influence and market share within the region. Through iClick’s expertise in digital market analysis and knowledge of the markets in China and more widely in Asia, we will be better positioned to offer targeted, customized and measurable marketing solutions to our customers. We will also continue to expand our O2O solutions to meet the demands of the ever-growing Chinese market.”

Sammy Hsieh, Co-founder and CEO of iClick, added, “By offering a variety of innovative solutions, this Joint Venture will strengthen both VGI’s and iClick’s footprint within the region’s digital market. With the fast-changing demands of consumers, the capability to offer effective, flexible and targeted products and services is vital to the success of the future of advertising. We are confident that this strategic alliance with VGI will create even greater and more innovative marketing platforms for brands in the region, and open doors to many new business and investment opportunities between our companies going forward.”

The Joint Venture will address the significant potential of the Southeast Asia market. China is the highest ranked country in the world in terms of number of outbound travellers. According to the data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, with nearly 150 million outbound trips were made by Chinese travellers. The most popular destination for these travellers was Thailand, followed by Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. Chinese outbound travellers also exhibit a strong propensity to spend while abroad. This group spent USD 258 billion in 2017, contributing 21% of global total spending while abroad, making China the top country in this metric. The Joint Venture has also identified opportunities not limited to the travel sector, and plans to capture potential benefits in retail, consumer goods, healthcare and entertainment, amongst others.

The establishment of the Joint Venture will be subject to certain regulatory approvals.