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Is Thailand’s top e-bookstore Ookbee competing with its own partners?

October 30, 2013 Leave a comment

Is Thailand’s top e-bookstore Ookbee competing with its own partners?

October 28, 2013

by Saiyai Sakawee

If you follow the Thai tech startup scene, there’s no way you’ve never heard of Ookbee, Thailand’s largest e-bookstore. It’s held up as one of the country’s pioneer startups. According to CEO Moo Natavudh, Ookbee’s market share in Thailand is over 90 percent now, and besides Thailand, the company also has presences in Vietnam and Malaysia. Founded in December 2010, Ookbee has long been a web-based online e-bookstore platform, up until recently. In fact, two weeks ago, Ookbee just launched its own iOS app, marking a big step for the startup. Previously it has worked with two major partners – B2S and AIS – to power their online bookstore apps in Thailand. In addition, later next month, Ookbee will be launching Ookbee Mee, which is an all-you-can-read online magazine subscription service. Think Netflix for magazines. It might extend to books later as well.Peaceful Coexistence

So the question arises… Is Ookbee competing with its own partners now?

Tech in Asia reached out to Moo and asked him to clarify his company’s strategy. Moo explained:

In terms of competition, Ookbee app aims to be a regional store, not only in Thailand. But locally there might be some competition with existing bookstore of ours. However, we think each bookstore has it own strengths anyway. For example, AIS has promotions for its users on its bookstore. B2S is known for its actual stores so it has a pool of loyal customers. Ookbee’s app tries to capture the remaining sector in general.

It looks like Ookbee is taking the e-book business into its own hands now, instead of just being a white-label service provider for other brands. Expect fierce competition in the near future, at least in Thailand. It’s unlikely that Ookbee’s partners will be too happy if they gradually lose their customers to Ookbee.

Filed under TMT Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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