NEW YORK, Aug. 13, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FingerMotion, Inc. (OTC QB: FNGR), a US FinTech company with mobile payment and recharge platform operations in China, today provided a supplemental corporate update in a letter from its CEO Martin Shen to its shareholders.
To Our Shareholders
The China Unicom Portal Partnership
The China Unicom (NYSE: CHU) deal was an extremely positive step for our company. Because of this agreement, we were able to onboard companies such as Pinduoduo (NASDAQ: PDD), JD.com (NYSE: JD), and Alibaba’s Tmall to our platform. We believe that this agreement validates our business model of targeting top-tiered e-commerce platforms and showcases our capability to handle our e-commerce partner’s significant user base. These e-commerce sites would likely not have allowed us to interface with their platforms unless they were convinced we had the capability to process over a billion transactions per month.
The partnership agreement between FingerMotion and China Unicom allows FingerMotion to have direct access to users for their top-up fulfillment, and also allows FingerMotion to sell any and all mobile phone products available from China Unicom through the China Unicom brand portals. China Unicom will remain responsible for all inventory and fulfilment costs of physical products, meaning FingerMotion will have very limited capital costs in handing all revenues coming through the portals. This partnership allows FingerMotion to share profits with the second largest telecommunications company in China. The expected rollout of the China Unicom portals should begin before November 2019.
SMS Business
The SMS business through China Unicom is now in full operation. While the overall size of the top-up market will continue to grow organically, we believe that growth in the SMS market will accelerate.
In the past, SPAM has been a major problem plaguing the SMS industry as there was an oversaturation of messages that were not being policed. Recently, the government of China instituted a policy of oversight, which curbed and eventually stopped SPAM messages. Since the government essentially reviews all messages before they are sent, SMS in China is now essentially SPAM-free with respect to legitimate users, and we are poised to take advantage of this new landscape.
Our business model relies on clients who regularly send messages to their retail customer base. We buy our messages at bulk wholesale prices, then immediately sell the messages to our retail partners, allowing them to share, in part, in the discounted rates. This allows us to generate revenue and increase our margins with little risk of inventory. Unlike our portal business with China Unicom, we grant our customers 30-day payment terms, so this business requires us to invest in carrying client receivables.
Big Data Insights
Our previous press release mentioned Big Data. Big Data means all the metadata that FingerMotion can aggregate from the massive China Unicom user bases of the top-tiered e-commerce platforms. While we will not own the data, we are responsible for collecting, storing, and securing this data, and we will be given access to analyze and potentially formulate powerful conclusions from the accessed information. Our analytics team has already begun gathering the information. We predict that using Big Data could represent a major growth driver and become a business multiplier for us. However, to ensure adequate development, we predict that we are at least 6 months to a year away from formally introducing this business unit.
We are well aware of the obligations we have to consumers to keep their information private and safe. We will only use data we accumulate with each individual consumer’s permission and we will explain what information we wish to obtain, and how we will use this information to save money for the consumer.
Capital Requirements
Almost all rapidly growing e-commerce companies need money for marketing. Our need for working capital arises from the structuring of the top-up transactions from e-commerce companies. The e-commerce company top-ups require us to have funds on account with the telecommunications companies. The SMS business is also capital intensive because we need to buy the messages at least 30 days in advance of payment. However, we do not need marketing money to increase our user-base, unlike most FinTech companies, which spend massive amounts of money to capture and retain users. Therefore, we continue to be committed in pursuing financing options.
Corporate Governance and Transparency
We want to reiterate that we are a US company with operations in China. Most of our e-commerce competitors in China, if not all of them, are foreign filers. Therefore, as a US filer, we believe we offer a greater level of transparency and oversight. As a company, we are working to become Sarbanes-Oxley compliant, and we have been actively working to finalize our Corporate Governance and Code of Conduct policies.
In line with future planning, we have hired an in-house investor relations representative to assist in answering investors’ questions. In addition, we plan to update our website and keep the information up-to-date and current. We hope you appreciate our efforts in this regard as we move to establish a better rapport with our investors.
Our focus is on sustainable profitability. Like other e-commerce FinTech companies, we are focused on customer acquisition and growing our Gross Transaction Volume (GTV). But our strategic relationships also give us unprecedented access to users and the ability to sell a wide array of products and services to this expansive user base. We believe our inflection point to profitability is only months away, and we hope that our investors appreciate the progress we have made this year and can see the future direction of our company as we do.
Sincerely
Martin Shen
CEO, FingerMotion Inc.
About FingerMotion Inc.
FingerMotion is an evolving technology company located in China with a core competency in mobile payment and recharge platform solutions. It is one of five companies in China with access to wholesale rechargeable minutes through top-up credits on the mobile phone. As the primary business continues to grow its user base, the company is developing value added technologies to market to its users. The vision of the company is to rapidly grow the user base through organic means and have this growth develop into an ecosystem of users with high engagement rates utilizing its innovative applications. Developing a highly engaged ecosystem of users would strategically position the company to onboard larger customer bases. FingerMotion eventually hopes to serve over 1 billion users in the China market and eventually expand the model to other regional markets.
Safe Harbor Statement
This release contains certain “forward-looking statements” relating to the business of the Company. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein are “forward-looking statements” including statements regarding: the continued growth of the e-commerce market and the ability of the Company to continue its expansion into that market; the ability of the Company to attract customers and partners and generate revenues; the ability of the Company to successfully execute its business plan; the business strategy, plans, and objectives of the Company; and any other statements of non-historical information. These forward-looking statements are often identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “believes,” “expects,” “predicts,” “should,” “will” or similar expressions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release. The Company’s actual results could differ materially from those anticipated or implied in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in the Company’s periodic reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on its website (http://www.sec.gov). All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. Other than as required under the securities laws, the Company does not assume any duty to update these forward-looking statements.
For further information e-mail: info@fingermotion.com