Rebirth of England.

Chapter 894 The King of Social
Although in the interview Ivanta said that Android will participate in the acquisition of Nokia's devices and services division.

But in fact, she is not very interested in this - after all, she has completed the acquisition of Motorola Mobility, and the company's operating conditions have improved now, but it is far from returning to its original size.

However, both Microsoft's WP system and Nokia's mobile phone division are in competition with the industries involved in Ivanta's IC Capital.

So she was happy to disrupt the situation through this interview.

It would be great if this could help Nokia raise its prices and make Microsoft pay more - or even just mess up the cooperation between the two parties.

Just like Ivanta's answer, which implies the relationship between Stephen Elop, the current CEO of Nokia, and Microsoft, it can also create pressure for Stephen Elop in the acquisition negotiations with Microsoft - the other party must fight for a good price for Nokia, otherwise it will be easy to be considered as still "loyal" to Microsoft...

Having said that, even if Nokia chooses to sell their equipment and service departments, it does not mean that Nokia will withdraw from the mobile phone industry. It can only be said that they have withdrawn from the mobile phone manufacturing industry. However, Nokia's accumulation in the mobile phone industry for so many years, not to mention their still possessing the ability to research and develop related technologies, even the many patents in their patent library, just by collecting patent fees from those mobile phone manufacturers, is enough for them to still make huge profits from this industry.

"There is news that Twitter will go public this year. I wonder what IC Capital, as Twitter's largest investor, thinks of this?"

When reporters asked about Twitter's IPO, Ivanta said:
"Twitter is currently developing very smoothly, with more than 2.5 million active users. It has been seven years since its development, and it is the right time to go public. This matter is still in progress. If there is definite news, Twitter will release an announcement to the media."

Up to now, Twitter has gone through five rounds of financing. IC Capital has participated in all rounds except the last one. Therefore, they currently hold approximately 5% of Twitter's shares and are the largest shareholder of Twitter.

In the E round of financing completed by Twitter in September last year, they received up to US$9 million in financing, and Twitter's valuation has reached as high as US$5 billion.

In addition to IC Capital's holdings, Twitter founder Evan Williams currently holds the largest stake, reaching 10.5%; another co-founder Jack Dorsey holds 5%; and current CEO Richard Costolo holds 1.5%.

In addition, other venture capital firms that participated in Twitter's investment include Sequoia Capital, DST Global, and KPCB, and the proportion of shares they hold ranges from 6% to 10%...

As Ivanta said, Twitter currently has more than 2.5 million active users - of course, this number is still a long way from Woaw's more than 8 million monthly active users.

But at the same time, Twitter users are extremely active and information can be widely shared in a very short period of time.

For example, as early as the 2008 US presidential election, O'Neal's Twitter popularity continued to rise, and he used it as the "center" of his grassroots campaign plan.

In November, after his election, Okuma publicly thanked his Twitter followers.

In addition, Twitter is not only a giant in the mobile social networking field, but also a new channel for business promotion.

The company makes money by selling embedded targeted advertising models, and Twitter's advantage is that businesses can publish ads based on their user preferences and geographic distribution, and can also invest in relevant ads based on what they are doing, which fully locks in the target customer base, and the content is similar to the content published by users and is easy to accept. Therefore, Twitter's successful advertising model has become a new model for mobile advertising. Woaw also borrowed from Twitter's successful advertising model and launched a similar advertising product last year.

Wall Street giants currently interested in becoming underwriters for Twitter's IPO include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch. Most of these investment banks initially estimated Twitter's market value to be around US$100 billion.

But Ivanta insisted that Twitter's market value could not be lower than $150 billion, and the specific details of its listing are currently under negotiation.

After all, Barron knew that in his previous life, Twitter’s market value exceeded $250 billion on the day it went public…

Speaking of Woaw Technology, IC Capital is also one of the major shareholders of this technology company, which has now become an Internet giant.

Woaw first emerged in the PC Internet era. After the rise of mobile Internet, Woaw was also one of the first social networks to launch a mobile APP version. The Woaw Chat they launched has now replaced the status of the original Whatsapp. In fact, because it was backed by Woaw's huge user base from the beginning, the development of Woaw Chat was even faster than Baron's previous Whatsapp.

In addition, in May last year, Woaw also acquired the online photo-sharing service provider Instagram (IG) for a high price of US$5 billion. This is a very popular photo-sharing application on Apple Appstore and Android Paly Store.

After being acquired by Woaw, Instagram has achieved rapid development relying on its larger user base, topping the download rankings of Appstore and Play Store for several weeks last year.

It is worth mentioning that IC Capital is also an early investor in Instagram, and it was Ivanta who facilitated Woaw’s acquisition of Instagram, which also led to a slight increase in IC Capital’s shareholding in Woaw.

Currently in the United States, 4G networks have covered most states. Therefore, after being acquired by Woaw, IG (Instagram) has timely launched a short video sharing function in addition to the original photo sharing function.

IG users can quickly create a 15-second MV by combining their own videos with music from the music library, or choose their favorite popular songs and make music videos through lip syncing and body movements.

After they launched this feature, it quickly became popular among users, especially young users.

High school and college students see this as a very cool thing, and the number of young users on IG is increasing rapidly.

In particular, the many filters and gameplays that IG subsequently added were very popular with users and caused a sensation in America and even Europe.

By launching new applications and acquiring potential companies, Woaw Technology currently occupies the largest share of global social networks. Although companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo also have some applications similar to Whatsapp, Skype, Yahoo Messenger, etc., the number of their active users is far less than that of Woaw's applications.

As a result, Woaw Technology's advertising revenue has now surpassed Yahoo, and the gap with Google is gradually narrowing.

(End of this chapter)