Singapore – With over one in three consumers subscribed to it, Netflix has emerged as the most popular streaming service in Singapore. In this latest data, market research company YouGov also indicated that the same platform encompasses the largest proportion of contented customers garnering an 83% average satisfaction rating.

Among the platforms, Disney+ is the next most popular, with one in six (17%) subscribers. Singtel TV and StarHub TV are also tied at the same level, with around one in ten consumers indicating they are subscribers. Amazon Prime Video, Viu and Apple TV+, on the other hand, were noted to have less than one in ten consumers subscribed.

Furthermore, consumer satisfaction is relatively higher, as Disney+ and Amazon Prime ranked the second highest satisfaction rates at 74% and 73%, respectively.  Viu’s rating also remains favourable with over two in three subscribers expressing their satisfaction. This percentage is higher than satisfaction with Apple TV+ (61%) and SingTel TV (60%) services, with around three-fifths of the way there. Over half of StarHub TV (56%) subscribers also said they are satisfied customers.

The data also revealed the factors affecting consumers’ willingness to pay for streaming or TV subscriptions. More than one-quarter cited these factors as not being TV watchers (28%) and finding the costs of streaming subscriptions too high (27%). Other common reasons include having difficulty finding what they want to watch (13%), poor viewing quality or experience (7%), and poor or no internet connection (6%).

Singapore – Singapore’s multi currency digital payments platform YouTrip has recently announced that it has raised US$50 million in its latest Series B fundraising round, led by new investor and global venture capital firm Lightspeed. 

The sizable investment by Lightspeed is a vote of confidence in YouTrip’s ability to deliver innovative and hyperlocal solutions, and its leadership in building a scalable business strategy to tap into the vast market opportunity in Southeast Asia.

The new capital will be used to further propel the company’s growth trajectory by investing in more technologies to deepen product and innovation capabilities, and expanding its regional team by hiring over a hundred new talents as it launches in new markets across Southeast Asia. 

Committed to its mission of providing accessible, convenient, and seamless digital payment services, YouTrip specifically aims to expand its regional presence across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Furthermore, YouTrip also plans to grow its portfolio of services to help SMEs accelerate their cross-border growth plans in the digital economy. This includes enhancing its current expense management capabilities as well as introducing new features such as credit lines to cater to the diverse needs of businesses as they expand and grow.

Caecilia Chu, CEO and co-founder of YouTrip, said, “The latest funding round is YouTrip’s largest to date and is a testament to our strong potential in the B2B and B2C payment spaces. We are confident in our ability to catalyse the growth of cross-border commerce, bringing accessible, integrated and seamless digital payment services to millions of users across Southeast Asia and beyond.”

Arthur Mak, co-founder and chief product officer of YouTrip, also added, “We remain committed to developing hyper-personalised offerings that meet the unique needs of our users, and are excited to bring our innovative payment solutions to diverse markets in Southeast Asia so that more can enjoy the intuitive convenience and cost-saving benefits effectuated by our B2B and B2C products.” 

Meanwhile, Pinn Lawjindakul, partner at Lightspeed, commented, “My personal experience of the pain point reinforces my conviction in what the YouTrip team has built. Their multi-currency digital payments platform enables everyone to have a safer, smarter and superior experience with foreign currencies and digital payments. We are excited by their depth and vision, and look forward to partnering them in this next phase of growth and expansion.”

Morocco – Locations Media Xchange (LMX), an enterprise software provider for out-of-home (OOH) media owners, has announced a partnership with FC Media to launch measurement and booking automation across all their inventory.

This partnership will enhance FC Media’s ability to access validated data, enabling them to build value for their clients and grow OOH budgets while attracting digital buyers, as well as facilitate the creation of an “always on” e-commerce-like platform for sales and programmatic advertising.

FC Media’s expertise in OOH display, coupled with LMX’s software solutions, seeks to empower FC Media to further organise their operations and elevate their offerings.

Srikanth Ramachandran, founder and group CEO at Moving Walls, said, “We take pride in our collaboration with FC Media, where we’ve successfully deployed their data-driven self-serve solutions, delivering substantial benefits to advertisers across Morocco and North Africa.”

Meanwhile, Saad Bencharef, director of data and digital transformation at FC Media, commented, “This partnership provides us with cutting-edge audience measurement solutions that bring unprecedented insights to our advertising campaigns. In the pipeline, we have an exciting e-commerce website that’s set to revolutionise the way we connect with our audience!”

Additionally, FC Media will be launching an event  tailored for their esteemed customers, where Ramachandran will be sharing his knowledge on OOH media as part of the partnership, offering valuable insights to media buyers and agencies in Morocco.

Singapore – SEEK, the parent company of Southeast Asian career platforms JobStreet and JobsDB, has launched an accessible, easy-to-use and free platform called JobStreet Express, which is now live in Singapore. 

With the launch of JobStreet Express, SEEK aims to help employers in Singapore fill the gap in semi-skilled workers, allowing many Singaporeans to obtain employment efficiently and safely. 

Notably, JobStreet Express was built to be mobile-first to cater to the majority of users in this segment who are regularly on the move. The platform also aims to close the application process in just a matter of hours or days, unlike traditional recruitment processes, which could take weeks or even months.

To fast track and simplify the hiring process, JobStreet Express will be making resumes optional on the platform before the end of the year. As long as talents provide the necessary information directly on their profiles, employers will no longer need to look at resumes for every role they post. This will allow talent to focus on applying for jobs rather than designing or updating their resumes. 

Over the next several months, JobStreet Express will be making enhancements, with some optional paid features to be made available in due course, catering to specific user needs. However, the platform’s basic functions, including the ability for any employer to post any semi-skilled role and the ability for easy application, will always remain free and accessible to everyone across Singapore.

SEEK has been developing JobStreet Express for over 18 months, readying for the Singapore market. The platform was first launched in Indonesia in October 2022 and is now present in four localities—Bali, Bandung, Surabaya and Yogyakarta, with more cities in the pipeline. With this in mind, SEEK plans to expand JobStreet Express across APAC in the near future.

Anshu Nahar, managing director for express & flex at SEEK, said, “The semi-skilled segment has traditionally been underserved. People in this segment often resort to unstructured and sometimes unsafe means to find jobs and talent. Both employers and talent feel that existing solutions just don’t work for them anymore.” 

“Through JobStreet Express, SEEK is committed to serving this segment with a dedicated platform, backed by millions of dollars of investment, our years of expertise, world-class technology and trusted brand,” he added.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Locations Media Xchange (LMX), an enterprise software provider for out-of-home (OOH) media owners, announced its integration with Xibo’s SSP Connector, empowering Xibo users to access and execute advertising demand directly from the LMX platform.

This integration bridges the gap between Xibo and LMX, enabling Xibo users to access advertising demand from the LMX platform and streamline the supply path for advertisers, ensuring greater transparency and efficiency on a global scale.

Moreover, the integration also marks a step forward in enhancing monetization capabilities for Xibo users while providing advertisers with a direct route to a diverse and comprehensive digital signage network.

Talking about the integration, Srikanth Ramachandran, CEO of the Moving Walls Group, said, “With this integration, Xibo users gain direct access to our expansive advertising demand network. We are excited to offer this opportunity to Xibo users, allowing them to tap into premium advertising demand effortlessly.”

Meanwhile, Dan Garner, director of engineering at Xibo Signage, commented, “We are delighted to add LMX by Moving Walls as a partner via our SSP connector; representing an exciting opportunity for Xibo networks in the region to unlock the power of programmatic DOOH.”

With this integration in mind, LMX and Xibo Signage said in a press release that they will continue in their goal to enrich the capabilities and opportunities available to digital signage networks, to ensure that both advertisers and media owners can seamlessly and efficiently connect within the evolving digital out-of-home landscape.

Singapore – Along with the peak season of summer 2023, consumers are turning to their mobile devices more than ever before for travel and transportation needs, increasing year-over-year usage by 14%, which is more than three times the total from the summer of 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report by mobile analytics provider data.ai.

Data from the report mainly suggests that time spent in travel apps reached new heights with time spent on Android phones surpassing four billion hours, or an average of more than one billion hours per month, between May and August 2023.

Interestingly, the increase in time spent between 2022 and 2023 came mostly from apps used for more day-to-day travel, not vacations. Transportation apps and rail & coach booking apps had significant increases in time spent in the summer 2023 season.

Meanwhile, apps related to vacation and business travel like integrated travel service, hotel booking, and airline apps, were able to mostly maintain the gains seen from the previous year, with time spent in these apps notably surging in the summer of 2022 with consumers planning trips for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

The report also listed the travel and transportation apps that saw the most time spent in the summer of 2023, with transportation apps being prominent in the list with apps such as Where is my Train, inDrive, and Grab Driver being top breakout apps of the season. 

However, apps outside of the transportation subgenre such as Flightradar24, United Airlines, Trainline, and Jet2 managed to reach the top breakout rankings in many key markets like the US and the UK. 

“The trend seen in the results suggests that this is not just a one-off spike following the pent-up demand after pandemic-related travel restrictions, and that these travel and transportation apps will continue to see positive growth, especially during peak travel seasons,” data.ai said in a press statement.

Australia – Content management system (CMS) Storyblok was recently utilised by Spendesk, a fintech platform, to scale its website and consolidate all of its content into one CMS. 

Previously, Spendesk used two CMSs to manage its content, but the developers experienced technical limitations and the content team could not edit or build pages quickly without breaking the website. 

Upon experiencing this, they decided to migrate to a single CMS that met the needs of the marketing, development, and design teams and optimise both internal collaboration and the overall experience for clients.

After making the move to Storyblok, Spendesk reduced page creation time by 80%, experienced up to two times faster CMS speeds, and achieved a 25% smaller codebase by using dynamic pages.

Lionel Paulus, senior front-end engineer at Spendesk, said, “Pages that used to take hours to build now only take minutes with Storyblok. The Visual Editor gives our content team complete autonomy by delivering a live preview of the pages they’re working on. While our previous CMSs were expensive and didn’t provide the benefits we needed, Storyblok’s CMS capabilities deliver great value.”

Meanwhile, Dominik Angerer, co-founder and CEO of Storyblok, commented, “Spendesk’s experience proves that modern content requires future-proof ways to manage content with a CMS that is optimised for performance and works for every team.”

Singapore – Singaporean parents are increasingly concerned about their child’s safety on the internet, according to Google’s ‘APAC Kids and Families Online Safety Survey’, which mainly reveals that seeing inappropriate content online is the most experienced online safety issue by Singaporean children, with one in two children having encountered it at least once in the past year.

These findings come at a time where children in Singapore are spending more time online than ever before, with four out of five local children now spending one to six hours online daily for education and entertainment.

Notably, data from the survey suggests that the top three types of inappropriate content reported by parents were misinformation at 55.4%, deceptive ads and spam at 50.7%, and violent content at 48.7%.

However the survey also revealed that Singaporean parents are becoming less confident in discussing online safety with their children. This year’s survey found that only 79% of respondents feel confident in engaging their children on this topic, down from 83% last year.

Factors for this decline in confidence may include difficulty of finding age-appropriate and easy-to-understand examples of online safety issues and the rapidly evolving nature of the online world. In addition, nearly half of the parents surveyed said they struggle to find the right time to talk to their children about online safety.

Despite these gaps, more than half of respondents said they are willing to allow their children to spend more time online and expect to change digital rules for their child’s Internet use as they grow older. This also draws concern as parents are faced with the need to develop new rules – sometimes before even putting the fundamentals in place – which makes the online journeys of children increasingly challenging to manage.

Speaking on the results, Norman Ng, regional operations lead, trust & safety global engagement at Google Singapore, said, “Our survey results highlight the urgent need to make online safety a central part of their conversations at home. We understand that each family’s relationship with technology is unique, and we encourage parents to make good use of tools such as Family Link and Be Internet Awesome to aid their digital parenting.”

“As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. We remain committed in stepping up our efforts in working collaboratively with industry partners and experts to ensure digital literacy remains more accessible for all,” he added. 

Lastly, the survey also indicated several suggestions and tools that parents can use to a create safer experience online such as age-appropriate content restrictions via Family Link, blurring graphic content through SafeSearch, child-friendly app settings or versions such as Youtube Kids, and online education and safety resources like The library of Digital Safety Resources and the Be Internet Awesome program.

Singapore – Global professional and consulting services company Accenture has announced its strategic investment in generative AI platform Writer under ‘Project Spotlight’, their engagement and investment program that aims to help enterprises create and shape content more efficiently.

This investment allows Accenture to further provide marketing and communications professionals with Writer’s features to generate written content, synthesise various content and align writing to voice and brand guidelines.

Accenture started using Writer in 2021 to augment its writing proficiency and is now scaling Writer’s generative AI capabilities internally, while also preparing to offer them to clients as part of its existing capabilities.

This investment is also a part of Accenture’s announcement in June 2023 that the company would invest $3 billion in its Data & AI practice to help clients across all industries rapidly and responsibly advance and use AI to achieve greater growth, efficiency, and resilience.

Baiju Shah, chief strategy officer at Accenture Song, said, “Our continued investments in generative AI platforms will empower clients across all industries to transform how they create, personalise and distribute content at pace, but also safely, securely and with brand integrity.”

“We’ve entered a new era of tech-powered creativity and believe Writer’s enterprise-ready platform is a strong addition to Accenture’s comprehensive set of generative AI capabilities, tools and expertise, helping our clients capitalise on a wide range of uses across marketing and sales,” he added.

Meanwhile, May Habib, CEO and co-founder of Writer, commented, “Joining Accenture’s ‘Project Spotlight’ program will enable Writer to benefit from Accenture’s expertise from decades of deploying AI across industries and functions, and help us grow by driving broader awareness of our capabilities.” 

Notably, Writer is the latest company to join Accenture’s Project Spotlight, which offers extensive access to Accenture’s domain expertise and its enterprise clients, helping startups harness human creativity and deliver on the promise of their technology.

Singapore New data shows that Filipino consumers who visit pirate streaming sites are prone to 21.66 times greater risk of malware infections, with a verifiable detection rate of 10%. This was according to the latest study conducted by the Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA) alongside Dr. Paul Watters of Cyberstronomy.

The report’s findings reveal that when Filipino consumers access pirate torrent sites, the risk of malware infection increases 16.66 times when compared to mainstream platforms. The confirmed infection rate is 18%.

It concluded that a typical user visiting a pirate site faces the threat of infection by ransomware, numerous trojan horses, and other advanced persistent threats (APTs). These infections could occur within 42 seconds on a Windows machine and just 1 minute and 18 seconds on an Android device.

Matt Cheetham, general manager of CAP, said, “Evidence continues to mount that far from being a victimless crime, piracy can victimize consumers.” 

He added, “We look forward to the successful passage of site blocking legislation in the Senate that will allow the Philippines to both protect its consumers from online harm posed by pirate sites and grow its economy.”