Chris Abraham » latin america

Naspers Makes Strategic Investment In OLX

Chris Abraham — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:10:05 +0000

In a big announcement, OLX has finally publicly announced that they just received a strategic investment from South African media conglomerate Naspers in the range of $20 to $40 million. The full story by Leena Rao is over on TechCrunch, Naspers Makes Strategic Investment In Craigslist Competitor OLX

We’ve been hearing recently that South African media conglomerate and recent DST investor Naspers was sniffing around Crasiglist competitor OLX. Today, we confirmed with OLX co-founders Alec Oxenford and Fabrice Grinda that Naspers has made a strategic investment in the online classifieds company.
While Buenos Aires-based OLX is not disclosing the amount invested, we’ve heard from sources that the investment was in the range of $20 to $40 million. Naspers also bought out the shares of all of OLX’s previous investors, which include Nexus Venture Partners, The Founders Fund, DN Capital, General Catalyst Partners, and Bessemer Venture Partners. Prior to this round of funding, OLX had raised nearly $30 million.
While the free classifieds site has trouble competing with Craigslist in the U.S., OLX has a strong user base internationally, and is the current leader in Latin America and Asia. The company, which is seeing over 125 million unique visitors per month worldwide, has a presence in 90 countries in 40 languages.
In 2007 OLX has made an investment in Edeng.cn, a Chinese free classifieds site and acquired Mundoanuncio.com, a Craigslist-like classifieds site targeting the Hispanic market, in 2006. OLX also has a hold on the Philippines market thanks to a white label partnership with Friendster. And OLX scored a similar deal with social network hi5.
So why does Naspers want a stake in OLX? The conglomerate has been making a number of investments in the emerging Latin American market, including BrandsClub, Grupo Abril, Movile and Buscapé. According to a joint statement made by OLX and Naspers, the South African firm’s long-term, general strategy “is to acquire/establish a core internet community within a specific country/region and to then expand the operations by adding additional services such as e-commerce, communication, social networking, content and gaming.”

Via Marketing Conversation via TechCrunch. Disclosure: OLX is a client of Abraham Harrison

Social Media Marketing Success in Latin America

Chris Abraham — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:56:29 +0000

With over 180 million internet users and 900% growth rate since 2000, there is no denying it; audiences in Latin America are massively moving into the online arena and what used to be predictions are now reality. Incredibly enough, this is not the main reason why we see an unbelievable potential for social media in these markets. The main reason is the culture.

We have invested our resources in finding a very diverse staff that is in touch with cultural trends in Latin America. We were moved to do this after watching numbers like mentioned above and the growth of Twitter, Facebook, Orkut and blogging amongst others. There are a few facets to the Latin American culture that present a great opportunity for social media. We fully understand the particular cultural differences within these countries, which is why we chose a diverse team that will work with the highest cultural knowledge whether it’s in Mexico or Brazil.

What they do have in common is the need to be part of the conversation. Generally, the whole web has grown to be this way, but what makes Latin America special is the way that opinions are expressed. The interaction surrounding blog posts is incredible. There are millions of blogs in the region and we are proud to be one of the first Social Media companies to explore the market and already have a track record of great success in Latin America.

Abraham Harrison has worked with international companies that expanded into this market and with local companies that needed professional assistance. The results were above even our own expectations and above what our clients could even imagine. As the information age progresses into an increasingly globalized world, our strong presence in Latin America is guaranteed by our strong engagement and conversation skills.

Via Abraham Harrison & Marketing Conversation

My Client OLX Expands to São Paulo, Brazil

Chris Abraham — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:06:19 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

We’re all pretty excited about how well our client, Fabrice Grinda, and his online classifieds site, OLX, is doing. So well, in fact, that they just opened a new office in São Paulo, Brazil. Kudos to the gang at OLX global and especially to the Latin American offices in Argentina and now Brazil.

Our Client, Global Classifieds Giant OLX Expands in Brazil
Huge Growth Expected in Leading Latin American Online Market
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL – (February 4, 2010) – OLX, already present online in 90 countries, has announced the opening of a new office in Brazil. OLX.com.br has grown by 450% in the last two years and already counts 14 million visits per month in Brazil, with more than 1 million published items. The online classifieds company expects continued strong growth, aiming for 20 millions visits per month in 2010.
“The new office complements OLX’s presence in Latin America and allows us to be closer to our local clients, create marketing action plans and provide better technical support and stronger client relationships,” says Rodrigo Ribeirão, head of operations of the new Brazilian unit. Through those efforts, OLX anticipates attracting an even bigger Brazilian customer base, advertising and buying and selling online.
OLX offers seven categories of ads: real estate; autos, motorcycles and boats; community; classes; jobs; meeting people and services. The market for autos, real estate and jobs has the highest demand, representing more than 1 million ads published in Brazil and around 40 million around the world.
OLX sees Brazil as a very promising market since the country already has 67 million internet users and 14 million of them visit the OLX.com.br site every month. “We see Brazil as one of the most attractive online markets in the world. With the largest and most mature online market in Latin America, our goal in having a local presence is to better understand the Brazilian internet user and adapt our products to the needs and preferences of the local buyer and seller. Furthermore, with the opening of the Brazilian office, we expect our local activities to grow by 175% in the next two years, reaching 3.5 million active ads on the site,” explains Alec Oxenford, founder and CEO of OLX.
About OLX
OLX is the next generation of free online classifieds. OLX is used in over 90 countries in 40 languages. The company was co-founded in March 2006 by Internet entrepreneurs Fabrice Grinda and Alec Oxenford. OLX is privately held. The company is based in New York, NY and Buenos Aires, Argentina and operates two leading online classifieds networks hosted at www.olx.com and www.mundoanuncio.com. For more information, visit: www.olx.com.br
CONTACT:
Fabrice Grinda
Co-CEO
OLX, Inc.
#(917) 371.5441
fabrice@olx.com

Global Classifieds Giant OLX Expands in Brazil

priya — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:27:01 +0000

Huge Growth Expected in Leading Latin American Online Market

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL – (February 4, 2010) – OLX, already present online in 90 countries, has announced the opening of a new office in Brazil. OLX.com.br has grown by 450% in the last two years and already counts 14 million visits per month in Brazil, with more than 1 million published items. The online classifieds company expects continued strong growth, aiming for 20 millions visits per month in 2010.

“The new office complements OLX’s presence in Latin America and allows us to be closer to our local clients, create marketing action plans and provide better technical support and stronger client relationships,” says Rodrigo Ribeirão, head of operations of the new Brazilian unit. Through those efforts, OLX anticipates attracting an even bigger Brazilian customer base, advertising and buying and selling online.

OLX offers seven categories of ads: real estate; autos, motorcycles and boats; community; classes; jobs; meeting people and services. The market for autos, real estate and jobs has the highest demand, representing more than 1 million ads published in Brazil and around 40 million around the world.

OLX sees Brazil as a very promising market since the country already has 67 million internet users and 14 million of them visit the OLX.com.br site every month. “We see Brazil as one of the most attractive online markets in the world. With the largest and most mature online market in Latin America, our goal in having a local presence is to better understand the Brazilian internet user and adapt our products to the needs and preferences of the local buyer and seller. Furthermore, with the opening of the Brazilian office, we expect our local activities to grow by 175% in the next two years, reaching 3.5 million active ads on the site,” explains Alec Oxenford, founder and CEO of OLX.

About OLX

OLX is the next generation of free online classifieds. OLX is used in over 90 countries in 40 languages. The company was co-founded in March 2006 by Internet entrepreneurs Fabrice Grinda and Alec Oxenford. OLX is privately held. The company is based in New York, NY and Buenos Aires, Argentina and operates two leading online classifieds networks hosted at www.olx.com and www.mundoanuncio.com. For more information, visit: www.olx.com.br

CONTACT:

Fabrice Grinda
Co-CEO
OLX, Inc.
#(917) 371.5441
fabrice@olx.com

Thanks for Blogging About The Conversation Behind Closed Doors

Chris Abraham — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:16:14 +0000

We at Abraham Harrison LLC are pretty happy about the response we have received from bloggers, on Twitter, and online to a recent outreach we did on behalf of the US Chamber of Commerce and Baird’s CMC in support of their new study, The Conversation Behind Closed Doors — Inside the Boardroom: How Corporate America Really Views Africa (be sure to read the full executive summary here in HTML and PDF). Long story short: thanks so much for all of your support, bloggers and writers! We so appreciate your support!

You Can’t Sell a Nothing Burger to Bloggers

Chris Abraham — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:27:12 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

Taylor Donlan (hire him), employee number one at Abraham Harrison LLC, emeritus, started our hallowed tradition of ensuring our clients provided us with a worthwhile gift to our bloggers, be it embargoed news, exclusive content, newsworthiness, humor, a perfect fit, or even a $2 off coupon in the case of Snuggle Creme — and if you’re honest, is it entertaining?

When all is said and done, earned media blogger PR doesn’t cut it unless bloggers are willing to take up the cause and blog about our clients. We’re not a paid placement company like some and we can’t make anyone do anything, especially bloggers who are the epitome of cat herding. They need to choose us, we can’t just tap them.

When we have a kick-off meeting about a new client, we always carefully consider whether what the client has to offer is compelling enough to actually earn coverage online — and they oftentimes don’t make the grade.

In fact, we recently went through this ourselves and we discovered that this needed to become a collaborative litmus test: Dan didn’t think the US Investment in Africa Study had any legs because it was academic but Mark and I knew there were lots of other Foreign Affair wonks like us in the blogosphere; Mark and I didn’t think bloggers would want to blog about Snuggle Fabric softener, but Dan knew he had a star on his hands and the metrics proved true: more earned media blog posts and tweets ever in our history, to date!

In fact, we have done a lot of thinking about this:

Why am I on about this this morning? Well, my friend Sally Falkow did it again in the form of her latest blog post Online Success is About Telling Stories:

Every business is now a publisher, said Vaynerchuk. The right content is the key to engagement. But you have to figure out what content will fill a need for your audience. It’s about providing information, being useful and being entertaining.
[...]
It’s vital to be listening to your audience and responding with content that makes sense and offers value. The major shift in media consumption, and the low barrier to entry for publishing online, make it possible for anyone and everyone to create content.
[...]
Success online is about telling stories and producing great content. The right content creates engagement. Engagement creates loyal followers and customers.

So true.

In order to be compelling enough to attract bloggers to blog about you or your clients, you must be appealing, you must be attractive, and you must be willing and able to tell your story, share your process, and tease out your narrative.

Our favorite clients thinks about this quite a lot — the best clients to work with generally already get “entertaining:” advertising agencies and content companies.

At the end of the day, if we are handed a nothing burger by our client, it is off to the drawing board to develop the story, to explore a narrative, to ask the right questions and prospect the right bloggers and self-selected interest groups.

Sometimes, even with the best narrative ever and the most generous gifts, you wind up with a nothing burger with nothing sauce and you sit back and scratch your head. What we have discovered over time is that these sorts of failures often have to do with targeting, messaging, or oftentimes both.

This happened to us recently as well. Perfect gift, great story, excellent narrative, the whole nine yards; however, we were reaching out to Central and South America in Spanish and Portuguese. Well, Latin America hated our messaging for cultural reasons. In many Spanish-speaking countries, young, successful, wealthy entrepreneurs are considered villians instead of being heroes, a very American view.

We didn’t need to change our gift, we just needed to change our angle of attack which came down to our messaging, our pitch, and a couple-few adjustments to our Social Media News Release and that did the trick! It was cultural!

Via Marketing Conversation

The Market Will Have a Very Bad Day Today

Chris Abraham — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:22:36 +0000

I just read on the wire that “India’s Sensitive Index tumbled 2,029.05 points, or 11.5%, to 15,576.30 in the early minutes, forcing trade to be halted for an hour” which might act as an indicator that the US and European markets may well plunge when they’re opened in the morning. Hopefully, the automatic safe guards will prevent too much of a run in the market. Quite a few people believe that Martin Luther King, Junior, again has saved the day as his birthday on Monday kept the financial markets closed in the US, possibly protecting it from the worst of it. Via the New York Times

Asian stocks extends losses into a second day

By V. Phani Kumar , MarketWatch
Last Update: 11:51 PM ET Jan 21, 2008
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Asian stocks came under relentless selling pressure for the second straight session on Tuesday, a day after fears the U.S. economy could slip into a recession triggered a sell-off that spread to Europe and Latin America.
India’s Sensitive Index tumbled 2,029.05 points, or 11.5%, to 15,576.30 in the early minutes, forcing trade to be halted for an hour. The index had finished 7.4% lower in the previous session, after dropping as much as 11% during the day.
“It doesn’t look good at all. We expected it to fall, but nobody expected this kind of correction,” said Sharmila Joshi, a trader with Prabhudas Lilladher in Mumbai.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 average tumbled 4.8% to 12,682.47, while the broader Topix index skidded 4.6% to 1,233.99 in afternoon trading. Earlier in the day, the Nikkei dropped as low as 12,666.09 — its lowest level since September 2005.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slumped 8% to 21,914.28 as the sell-off deepened from the previous session, when it tumbled 5.5%. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index plummeted 11.9% to 11,927.55. See related story.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 extended losses into the 12th straight session, slumping 5.8% to 5,257.80 and New Zealand’s NZX 50 index ran its losses into the 14th session, dropping 1.1% at 3,607.13, while South Korea’s Kospi shed 4.8% at 1,602.93.
China’s Shanghai Composite, which fell more than 5% in the previous session, sank 4.1% to 4,714.30, Taiwan’s Weighted index tumbled 6.4% to 7,585.93 and Singapore’s Straits Times index lost 4.4% at 2,789.31, while Indonesia’s JSX Composite tumbled 8.3% to 2,279.27.
Tim Rocks, regional strategist for Macquarie Research, said investors were likely to worry about the impact of a U.S. economic slowdown on exporters in Asia.
“Whenever you have got any kind of disappointment in global growth, you always have big downgrades across Asia and particularly in the export-dominated markets,” said Rocks. “On a six-month view, we’re still going to have a lot of earnings downgrades in Asia, linked to the U.S. cycle.”
Rocks said hopes of interest rate action from the U.S. Federal Reserve is “the next great hope for the markets now,” adding that an interest rate cut by the Fed would “certainly be a break for the markets.”
Regional detail
Financials came under selling pressure across the region, with shares of Mizuho Financial Group (8411)(MFG) sinking 4.5% in Tokyo, Macquarie Group (MQG) slumping 9.2% in Sydney and Kookmin Bank (KB) shares dropping 3.4% in Seoul.
In Hong Kong, shares of market heavyweight HSBC Holdings (5)(HBC) tumbled 6.2%, while Singapore’s DBS Group Holdings shed 4.6%.
The decline in crude oil and metal prices hurt resource stocks as well, with Woodside Petroleum (WPL)(WOPEY) plummeting 8.3% and Rio Tinto (RIO)(RTP) slumping 9.2% in Sydney, while shares of commodities trader Marubeni Corp. (8002) dropped 5.6% in Tokyo. In Hong Kong, shares of PetroChina Co. (857)(PTR) plummeted 10.8% and Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH)(2600) stumbled 12.1%, while in Seoul, Posco (PKX) shares dropped 3.2%.
Japanese exporters also ranked among losers in Tokyo, with shares of Toyota Motor Corp. (7203)(TM) dropping 4.6% and Sony Corp. (6758)(SNE) fell 5.1% on concerns over the yen’s rally recently.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar gained 0.6% to 106.29, recovering some of its recent losses against the Japanese currency, while the Australian dollar rose 0.3% at 91.52 yen.
Crude oil prices fell below the $90 a barrel level in electronic trading on worries related to U.S. demand. February futures of the commodity were recently $2.06 lower at $88.51 a barrel.
In the previous session, European stocks suffered their largest one-day decline since Sept. 11, 2001, with the pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index ending down 5.4% at 309.67 on heavy losses in banks and insurance firms.
In Canada, the S&P/Toronto Stock Exchange composite index sank 604.98 points, or 4.7% to end at 12,132.14. Brazil’s Bovespa sank 6.6% to 53.694, while Mexico’s Bolsa index fell 4.8% to 25,444. See related story.
U.S. markets are closed Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.
Varahabhotla Phani Kumar is a reporter in MarketWatch’s Hong Kong bureau.

Bahía Tortuga

Chris Abraham — Mon, 28 Apr 2003 17:28:23 +0000

Mark and I sailed Kinship II from Cabo – the last place from which I reported – to a small fishing village named Bahía Tortuga, or Turtle Bay.

Turtle Bay was a reluctant stop. We wanted to come in, fuel up, and then head out. Charlie’s Charts recommended Jorge, and he was the first person to zip up the Kinship in his outboard.

We decided to come to shore, to get our clothes washed, and by the time we knew it, we needed to stay over a couple days. When we wanted to go anywhere from the ship, we needed to reassemble a dinghy. Our dinghies are collapsible like origami, so once we gracefully unfold it and put it together and then mount the outboard, we are probably going to stay a couple days anyway.

Turtle Bay was nothing much. A dusty town with a couple hustlers and a single generous soul, Jorge. Jorge is an amazing fellow and although he now works for tips in aid of the Cruisers coming in and out of the bay, he was once the area’s heroic figure. He is mythologized for his prowess in catching Abalone.

Supposedly, he was able to single-handedly catch so many that it was worth his while to wildly overfish and then to be fined because the kind of profits he would make off his catch could easily be paid without hurting profits. Until a decade ago, Jorge was making well over $100,000 USD and his exploits are the stuff of legend. That was, until the abalone were fished out. The grand industry of he area, culminating in an abalone-canning factory, suffered a sudden and devastating death.

As we took that extra day, we also lost the weather. We began to get to know the local cruisers and found out that there was a sudden storm that was buffeting Tijuana and mangling the weather for San Diego – our goal – and the sailing up the coast of Baja California. We stayed for a few days until we heard that the coast was clear, but it seemed like it took forever. It felt like it. The town was unpaved; the only Internet was expensive, dial-up, and often broken. I missed Wendy and we were so close to being back in the US.

Luckily, we really hit it off with Jorge and his family. From that moment on it was truly amazing.

As they do, Kinship’s twin diesels were leaking oil and we were running low. Mark decided at the last moment that we should grab some oil before leaving town – just to be safe (Mark’s rally cry the entire time). Jorge was the obvious person to ask. We dropped by and met Jorge’s lovely life, Irma. She really took to us and before we knew it, we were watching local coverage of the war, chatting about the battles and the coverage, discussing the politics of the US as it relates to the rest of the world, namely Mexico. Namely, Irma’s living room. As we waited to see if Jorge could get us the oil, Irma fed us something she calls “Abalone Cream” which is quite a famous and rare local dish and Irma’s specialty. She served it with crackers and what it amounted to was an abalone pâté. It was amazing, but nothing compared to the dinner and evening together.

I plead ignorant now because although I sort of knew that eating in Latin America is quite different than it is in the US, I forgot since we never really ate with Mexicans. When we came to dinner with three six packs of Dos Equis beer at around seven, we were the only ones there. Our dinner was waiting for us, and it was simple fried fish with rice and a salad garnished with the most delicious tortillas I have ever tasted, but we were alone.

Irma told us that Mexicans have a huge feast of the day at around noon and that in the evening there was really no required meal aside from snacks.

So, we ate alone for a while until the posse returned to the house. Apparently, Jesus was visiting after ten long years away and it was time to feast later that night. Lucky for us because along with the crowd came a huge web bag full of live, fresh, and local oysters.

For the rest of the night, I feasted, I glommed, I slurped, and I gorged on fresh Pacific oysters on the half shell. At first I tried not to be selfish; I tried to appreciate how expensive these oysters would be in DC, but it was all irrelevant, now wasn’t it? There were honestly more oysters than anybody there could consider eating.

I started by being a purist. I slurped the live fleshy bottom feeders without anything more then their brine. Fresh, salty, and a little tinny. Then, when I moved past the fear of limited supply, I began to enjoy the oysters as the locals do: a large splash of hot sauce and a pinch of sea salt, downed with a nice draught of beer.

Jesus’ feast. Well, this Jesus was from Ventura, CA, and worked as a cable guy. He wore black t-shirts and he and his Enseñada wife (he had another one in Ventura) and their loads of kids were very excited to hang out with us. He spoke English faster than a New Yorker and insisted on speaking to us in English, even though it wasn’t necessary. He buzzed around and never stopped moving. He was so incongruous with the scene: the sleepy dusty rural former cannery perched on the edge of the tranquil turtle bay and this LA Mexicano blur blur blurring, bragging his success in the US, and driving us around in his Toyota SUV, around town, showing us where he suggests we invest in real estate, where he wants to invest. Jesus wants to make Turtle Bay into the next Cabo San Lucas, to be sure.

When the night was over, I was a little drunk, thoroughly well-fed, and probably way too potent – after all those oysters – to be living such an ascetic life for such a long time so far away from such a wonderful woman.

Come morning, we buzzed back in, gave Irma a hug, discovered Irma loves cashew nuts which we will send her by post, and then said goodbye to Jorge and his enormous and lovely extended family. Supposedly, there are only two families in Turtle Bay.

I prepped the boat, folded up the dink, secured all the fuel, brought up the anchor, and we were off like a heard of elephants – the next stop San Diego. We buddy sailed for about forty-five minutes until we realized that we were not able to keep up with our buddy boat. Afterwards, we left all the other boats behind as they were waiting waiting waiting for more perfect weather. Since Mark and I don’t get sea sick, and since the time went tick tick tick, we took to the sea and bashed bashed bashed all the way back under the mantle of the frustrating motor sailing.