Vietnamese startup mWork and Japan’s online marketing company Interspace Co Ltd launched their alliance – Interspace Vietnam Co Ltd, and affiliate marketing platform AccessTrade, on Thursday.
mWork holds 51 per cent in the joint venture, while the overseas partner owns the rest. “mWork has a strong marketing base and team that can successfully deploy the business,” said Shinichiro Kawabata, CEO of Interspace Japan, commenting on the the majority stake of mWork in the alliance.
AccessTrade, established since 2001, is the leading affiliate marketing platform in Japan and Southeast Asia, with the footholds in Japan, China, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam.
The Japanese company is now targeting a foray into the Philippines.
AccessTrade is an intermediate platform, which connects trade and online service companies (in various areas such as e-commerce, retail, banking and finance, online booking) with media partners that are website and blog owners, to promote their products to users.
The Japanese firm brings the product to Vietnam through a joint venture as it recognised the impressive growth of internet users, shopping online and the boom of digital marketing and e-commerce in the country.“Vietnam boasts a great, encouraging potential for e-commerce, thanks to its young population, which accounts for some 40 per cent of the total,” commented Andy Nguyen, the CEO of Interspace Vietnam.
The Vietnamese market has become increasingly attractive investment in the online advertising space, as it clocked a 67 per cent growth last year, one of the highest growth rates in the Asia Pacific.
The affiliate marketing alone has grown 15 per cent.
“The Vietnamese online marketing sector is moving fast. According to the figures we have collected, the size reached $120 million in 2013, next to Indonesia and Thailand. And we believe it will continue to grow,” said Kawabata.
Meanwhile, Interspace chose mWork as a partner because it is the number one in affiliate marketing and has a focus on mobile content. The company currently owns Vietnam’s staggeringly largest affiliate network of 60,000 media partners.
The core team of mWork are experienced people in the internet industry, as well as serial entrepreneurs and ex venture capitalist. Nguyen, who is also vice president of mWork, used to work with Cyberagent Ventures. He was the lead of the first fundraising round for mWork from the Japanese venture capital fund.
The company has launched an office in Jakarta, Indonesia, and its future goal is to become Southeast Asia’s leading mobile internet firm.
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