[august 31, 2015 – hong kong] legend holdings corporation (“legend holdings”, stock code: 3396.hk), one of the largest diversified investment groups in china, officially announced its strategic investment in social touch at a total consideration of us$ 58.50 million, which is regarded as an important signal sent by legend holdings for investing in mobile marketing industry after “internet plus” action plan was released and indicates that mobile marketing-concentrated enterprises represented by social touch have entered a booming stage under the trend of mobile internet.
the investment will become a strong force to drive social touch to become the largest comprehensive service platform for mobile marketing in china by integrating upstream and downstream resources to lead the development of big-data mobile marketing.
"unicorn” companies are expected to emerge under the rapid market development
as is known to all, the era of big data has already begun with the springing up of social platforms. since traditional business models have been re-structured and enterprises become much closer to consumers, more and more enterprises wake up to the value of mobile marketing and are transferring their resources of advertising and marketing to digital media and social media from traditional media. thus, the scale of mobile marketing has increased rapidly while enterprise owners have constantly increasing their investment in mobile marketing.
according to the data from a third party, the overall scale of global mobile advertising market in 2014 reached us$ 40.2 billion, in which that of chinese enterprises represented by alibaba and baidu accounted for 11.3%. meanwhile, china witnesses rapid development in its mobile advertising market which has increased by nearly 6 times to us$ 6.4 billion, and will overtake the uk and japan to become the second largest mobile advertising market in the world; in the future, china’s expenses in mobile terminals of the advertising market will play a leading role in all digital advertising sections. the overall trend of mobile marketing is predicting very fierce competition in the development of mobile marketing over next few years. however, outstanding “unicorn” companies will eventually emerge.
social touch, established in 2011, is a digital marketing solutions provider in the era of mobile social network. being the company first putting forward the concept of big data-driven marketing in china, social touch has always focused on mobile digital marketing, helping customers realize the value of digital marketing through a full set of marketing solutions integrating “strategy-software-big data-advertisement delivery”, so as to achieve the mobile internet transformation. in less than four years, social touch has served over 100 large enterprises including p&g, tencent, airbnb, alcon, three squirrels and chucheng and over 1,000 small and medium-sized enterprises, having accumulated a team of over 800 versatile talents from digital marketing, saas software, big data and mobile advertising.
zhang rui, ceo of social touch expressed, “the strategic investment made by legend holdings will further enhance social touch’s leading position in the field of mobile marketing in china. in the future, social touch will continue to increase the investment in a number of sectors including product innovation, consultation service, technology research and development, and mobile advertising, helping more enterprises to rebuild their relationship with consumers and achieve mobile internet transformation for their businesses in the era of ‘internet plus’”.
reportedly, clients of social touch are mainly divided into two types: traditional enterprises in need of mobile social transformation, covering businesses including fast moving consumer goods, offline retail, electronic products and financial services; and digital innovative enterprises, with businesses involving internet application, e-commerce platform and so on.
"having dedicated to industry and investment for more than 30 years, legend holdings has rich assets and resources, excellent brand awareness and cultures, and keen insight and deep understanding of the patterns of corporate development and management. meanwhile, as a strategic investor, instead of pursuing short-term benefits, legend holdings, together with its investees, upholds a common goal of ‘being bigger and stronger’, providing flexible investment models including ‘equity investment + debt investment’, which will support social touch to upgrade from excellence to perfection.” zhang rui continued.
currently, social touch has a business portfolio of four sections, respectively marketing strategy & execution service, procurement & delivery service for mobile native advertising, management software & implementation service for corporate mobile marketing, and management & analysis service for corporate mobile marketing data.
grasping opportunities of china’s important economic transition, legend holdings focuses on “internet plus”
mobile internet is changing everyone’s lifestyle and influencing the operation model of each kind of business. the national strategy of “internet plus” leads the transformation of chinese enterprises, the springing up of social media, and the change of netizens’ consumption modes, which makes social marketing more and more important. therefore, new marketing models have become a driving force of corporate development under current market environment while the value of enterprises proving relevant services has increases constantly. legend holdings stated that, “internet, especially mobile internet, is one of the important directions of legend holdings’ strategic investment. two main reasons of the investment in social touch are as follows: first, the industry in which social touch develops indicates great potential. in the wave of massive entrepreneurship, a great batch of small and medium-sized enterprises have emerged in china, while traditional enterprises started to rebuild their business models. all industries are facing with the trend of internet. therefore, corporate service market, particularly in the marketing field, demonstrates huge growth potential and investment space, and future industry leaders may emerge in the market. second, social touch and its team indicate great potential. social touch, a leading player in china’s social marketing field, provides one-stop marketing service to clients through a close integration of technology and service, and has accumulated a great number of large outstanding clients and new clients of small and medium-sized brands. zhang rui, ceo of social touch not only has rich experience, but also has recruited talents from multiple fields including marketing, big data, crm, it solutions and so on, based on which he has built a team with great capability of innovation and high professional proficiency.”
legend holdings is a large investment group with unique characteristics. by closely grasping the opportunities of china’s important economic transition, legend holdings has successfully cultivated a group of outstanding enterprises. it applies an innovative business model driven by double wheels of “investment + industry”, with its two key businesses, strategic investment and financial investment, focusing on aspects including management depth, source of assets, return on investment, and holding period, and covering all stages of corporate development. legend holdings involves its strategic investment business in six industries, it, financial service, modern service, agriculture and food, real estate and chemical and energy materials respectively. financial investment business includes angel investment, venture capital investment and private equity investment, and thus a complete investment chain has been formed.
having attached great importance to significant opportunities brought by internet, legend holdings actively carries out research and deployment. “innovation in science and technology and innovation in business models will exert great influence on all industries, while the influence of ‘internet plus’ is greatly undervalued.” said liu chuanzhi, chairman of legend holdings. “legend holdings will put greater effort into embracing internet and rebuilding traditional industries through internet, meanwhile, and will also pay attention to enterprises which perform well in the process.”
reportedly, prior to the investment in social touch, legend holdings has successively invested in a number of enterprises including lakala, a leading comprehensive internet-based financial service platform in china; eloancn, a financial service provider focusing on issues of agriculture, farmer and rural area; ync365.com, the first internet-based agricultural high-tech comprehensive service provider in china; and shiji wenkang, one of the largest one-stop internet-based medical and healthcare service platforms. moreover, legend holdings’ legend star which is engaged in angel investing and legend capital which is engaged in venture capital investment have already started to make relatively extensive investment in start-up internet enterprises which are in their growth stage at a very early time. the investment in social touch is a strategic deployment made by legend holdings in mobile marketing field, while social touch is expected to make more positive interactions with legend enterprises.
"legend holdings will continue to help its investee enterprises to increase their corporate value, provide comprehensive value-added service for brand and strategy support, management and culture sharing, assets and resource connecting, etc.; meanwhile, help social touch expand its business scope and strive to build it into the best comprehensive service platform in social marketing in china.” legend holdings expressed.
annex: relevant materials
about social touch:
social touch, established in 2011, is a leading provider of mobile marketing solutions in china. as an enterprise focuses on mobile marketing, it first puts forward the concept of big data-driven marketing and helps users realize the value of mobile marketing through a complete set of marketing solutions integrating corporate brand strategy, open social platform, automated marketing management software and precise advertising delivery. additionally, social touch helps enterprises achieve the mobile internet-based transformation through mobile marketing.
mobile marketing eco-map of social touch
clients of social touch are divided into two types: traditional enterprises in need of mobile social transformation, covering businesses including fast moving consumer goods, offline retail, electronic products and financial services; and digital innovative enterprises, with businesses involving internet application, trading market and online service, etc.
currently, social touch has a business portfolio of four sections, respectively marketing strategy & execution service, procurement & delivery service for mobile native advertising, management software & implementation service for corporate mobile marketing, and management & analysis service for corporate mobile marketing data.
about legend holdings co., ltd.
legend holdings co., ltd. (“legend holdings”) was established by 11 researches including liu chuanzhi in 1984, with the fund invested in by institute of computing technology, chinese academy of sciences. starting from single it industry, legend holdings has built an innovative business mode of “investment+ industry” after over 30 years of development and has become one of the largest diversified investment holding companies in china.
under the leadership of the management team led by the initiator and president liu chuanzhi and ceo zhu linan, legend holdings, based on its deep understanding of china, has gradually summarized unique investment concepts and strategies, established a management system with legend characteristics and make improvement constantly in practice; through forward-looking layout, flexible investment strategy and continuous value-added services, legend holdings has cultivated a group of influential enterprises in some fields and accumulated rich enterprise resources, in order to constantly increase its value; at the same time, by attaching great importance to and giving full play to the role of people, legend holdings has found and cultivated many leading figures in many industries, so as to create business platform for its employees and greatly stimulate its development vitality.
upon active system arrangement, legend holdings applies an organizational structure of parent-subsidiary company and forms two major businesses including strategic investment and financial investment, driving effective linkage and resources sharing between such businesses and constantly optimizing its investment portfolio.
on the basis of strategic investment business, legend holdings touches the industries with great potential and invests in and holds valuable enterprises for a long term. now, legend holdings has got into fix industries including it, financial service, modern service, agriculture and food, real estate and chemical and energy materials and has more than 10 member enterprises. based on its unique industry-founded background and acquaintance with the law of enterprise development and management, legend holdings actively provides customized services to all invested enterprises for management improvement, brand endorsement, financial support and other value-added service, so as to help all its member enterprises develop rapidly and make a leap from excellence to perfection.
through the financial investment business centered on angel investment, venture investment and private equity investment, legend holdings creates a complete investment industry chain to find the investment opportunities that the enterprises may have at different development stages and help the invested enterprises to increase their value as well as constantly reserve and provide project resources for strategic investment business.