LivingSocial Extends its Asian Expansion With Acquisition of Ticket Monster
Continuing its Asian expansion, LivingSocial has acquired Ticket Monster Inc., one of the leading daily deals website in South Korea.
Over the year, LivingSocial has been actively expanding its reach, including the seemingly impenetrable Asian market. Last month, LivingSocial has started to operate in Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia, through the acquisitions of Ensogo and DealKeren.
The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. However, this latest acquisition by LivingSocial is considered to be the biggest. Founded in May 2010, Ticket Monster (or better known as TMon in South Korea) has been offering daily deals, travel packages and events to over 2 million members in South Korea and Malaysia. After a year of its operations, TMON has been experiencing rapid growth from $18,000 revenue of last year to $20 million revenue this May. TMon has now more than 600 employees and offers about 60 deals a day.
“TicketMonster is one of Korea’s most recognized and trusted brands in the nascent daily deal industry, and we are excited to bring them into the LivingSocial family,” said Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO and co-founder of LivingSocial.
“TicketMonster and LivingSocial share the same culture of innovation, customer focus and fun, and we believe that the benefits we bring to consumers can be extended to other markets in Asia and around the world.”
Once the acquisition is approved by the South Korean regulatory review, LivingSocial will be operating to 23 countries. The TMon acquisition could be the key in taking leverage of the Asian market.
Whether daily deals sites are just the latest craze or are here to stay, it is evident that daily deals have undergone significant growth. Groupon and LivingSocial are the two leading daily deals sites, which have control 90% of the total daily deals traffic. Currently, Groupon is considered the biggest player in the daily deals market which filed for an IPO last month to raise at least $750 million. Google’s also delving into the market, making an acquisition of its own this week.
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