Testing Through Tehran

Many international brands did a robust business in metropolitan Tehran (population of 12 million) before breaking into the international scene. With a large middle class population and under sanctions by the U.S., when shunned by major companies, market entrants like Nokia, LG and Kia tried the Tehran waters before breaking into the world scene. Nokia was selling phone in Tehran in early 90s. LG Electronics has sold phones in Iran for some 10 years and consumer electronics for much longer, and Kia Motors has successfully sold cars in Iran for about a dozen years now.

E-Commerce is Expected to Continue Growth

Financial Times' James Altucher reports:

Last year, internet retail sales were up 24 per cent year-over-year and we had our first $100bn-plus year in e-commerce with overall online retail sales at $102bn for 2006. Next year, online advertising is expected to rise from $18bn to $24bn and still be a single-digit percentage of overall advertising, implying there is heavy growth ahead.

In the same report, we read that many profitable e-Commerce companies have decided to remain private. (Several examples are given in the report.)

Altucher summarizes his observations this way:

[F]irst, there are many internet companies that are generating enormous profits and revenues and have decided for now to stay private. They will go public eventually. Maybe this year, maybe next, maybe in 2009. Expect about $10bn-$20bn worth (or more) of profitable dotcom companies to go public within the next two years.

Second, because of the value being created, and because none of these companies has yet gone public, expect demand to go up for the shares of the companies that do so. What happens when demand goes up but supply doesn’t increase? Stocks go up.

The Content Business

Financial Times's mutli-media program View from the Top provides an intelligent collection of business interviews. For example, there is a recent interview with Robert A. Iger, President and CEO of Walt Disney focused on new digital platforms for content generation and distribution, including comments on "user-generated content," locally-generated content (with the Disney name) and content consumption in general. Here's Igor's prediction:

I predict that the internet-enabled computer media experience will be the primary media experience for our children’s generation as they grow up.