Social Commerce Startup Carousell Is Raising $50M To Expand In Asia

Carousell, a three-year-old mobile marketplace that enables social commerce, could emerge as the next big e-commerce player in Southeast Asia. That’s because, according to multiple sources in to the investor and e-commerce communities in Southeast Asia, the Singapore-based company is currently trying to raise a whopping $50 million Series B to expand its footprint across Asia.

Carousell did not reply to multiple requests for comment or confirmation of its fundraising plans.

Founded in May 2012, Carousell’s app is a peer-to-peer commerce marketplace, much like a Craigslist for mobile. Users post items that are for sale, those interested in buying them then initiative a conversation to finalize a price, payment (which happens outside of the app, for now) and a place to meet/mailing options to deliver to goods. The company’s tagline — “Snap to Sell, Chat to Buy” — emphasizes the focus on social commerce made easy. (Developing its tech — and potentially adding an in-app payment system — could also be on the cards for such a big round, but that’s us speculating as this has not been confirmed by sources.)

Timing would certainly suggest that Carousell is out in the field raising new capital. It’s been more than a year since it closed a $6 million Series A led by Sequoia in November 2014. It previously took an $800,000 seed investment led by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten.

At the time of that Series A, we reported that “eventually, Carousell’s founders hope to take it further into the Asia-Pacific region” and that’s exactly what this round — which we understand that the company has been talking to investors about for around a month — is aimed at doing.

The Carousell service is currently available in Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan, where it can be access via iOS and Android apps as well as its website. The exact scope of the startup’s planned expansion isn’t clear, but more markets in Southeast Asia — such as Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines — are likely to be priorities, in addition to reaching other parts of the wider Asian continent.

While Carousell has spawned a dedicated following and gone beyond early adopters — as the existence of parody Tumblr “Carouhell,” which documents some of the stranger stories from the service, shows — its mission is challenging. Most e-commerce happens on larger, well-backed sites like Rocket Internet’s Lazada and Zalora, SoftBank-backed Tokopedia in Indonesia, and social networks like people’s Facebook and Instagram pages. Building out the Carousell marketplace/platform is an addition challenge beyond encouraging people to sell their goods via a P2P system.

That said, the genre seems to have plenty of potential in Asia — and Southeast Asia, in particular — where many people are thrifty and private sales of unwanted or no longer used items are commonplace offline. In the emerging peer-to-peer commerce space, there are few sites with the calibre of investors or size of funding of Carousel. Another $50 million in the kitty would certainly help to move things forward.

Sony Says It Has Now Sold More Than 30 Million PlayStation 4s

With the holidays incoming, Sony has picked today to reveal that it has now sold more than 30 million PlayStation 4 consoles to date — over 30.2 million to be precise — putting it well ahead of its rivals in the video games race.

The announcement comes ahead of this year’s Black Friday sale, for which Sony is offering a $300 PS4 bundle with Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection in the U.S.. (The bundle is $369.99 CAD in Canada, while there are also other deals for fans in Europe.)

Sony, which recently discounted the PS4 to $349, reached 20 million sales in March, meaning that it clocked 10 million sales in just eight months. That’s a fairly impressive average of more than 1.2 million per month.

Competition-wise, Microsoft’s most recent announcement on Xbox One numbers came one year ago when the console reached 10 million units sold. VGChartz, which keeps an unofficial count of sales, puts the total number of Xbox One units shifted to date at 15.6 million units, while Nintendo is estimated to have sold close to 11 million Wii Us.

Apple Confirms It Will Open A Retail Store In Singapore, Its First In Southeast Asia

Apple has confirmed that it will open its first retail store in Southeast Asia, located in Singapore, as the U.S. phone maker begins to increase its efforts in the region’s fast-growing smartphone market.

The company quietly began hiring for staff to fill its upcoming Singapore last week — as Tech In Asia first reported — and today Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s Senior Vice President for Retail and Online Stores, confirmed that an Apple Store is indeed coming.

“We have more than 900 incredible employees working in our Singapore contact center and are thrilled to begin hiring the team that will open our first Apple Store in Singapore — an incredible international city and shopping destination,” Ahrendts said in a statement sent to TechCrunch. “We can’t wait to deliver the service, education and entertainment that is loved by Apple customers around the world.”

In addition, Reuters reports that the store, and the company’s entire operations in Singapore, will be powered by renewable energy in a move that mirrors initiatives in the U.S., Europe and, most recently, China.

Apple hasn’t confirmed when the store will launch or where it will be located, although there’s been speculation that the firm has already secured retail space at Knightsbridge, in the city-state’s much-sought-after Orchard Road shopping hotspot. That’s according to a note from the existing tenants who claim they are vacating to make space for Apple’s store.

Apple currently uses a mix of licensed third-party retail partners, carriers and its online store for sales in Southeast Asia. Singapore is a country that is among the first wave of launches for new Apple products and therefore a logical first step for expanding the company’s retail footprint. It isn’t clear whether the company is actively planning to introduce its own stores in other parts of Southeast Asia, which is already a focal point for Samsung and smartphone makers from China, such as Xiaomi and OnePlus.

Analyst firm IDC reported this summer that sales of smartphones across Southeast Asia, which counts a cumulative population of over 500 million, grew by 66 percent year-on-year to reach 24 million units between April and June. While that volume is far below China or the U.S., the regional market in Southeast Asia is far from saturated — unlike China and the West — and that spells opportunity.

Exact marketshare for Apple in Southeast Asia isn’t clear but, despite mid- and low-end devices accounting for the bulk of sales in emerging markets and its lack of an own-retail presence, the U.S. company is largely seen as a premium brand by consumers across the region.