Frost & Sullivan Recognizes Frankly as 2014's Top Investment Opportunity for Early Stage Investors
-- Frankly differentiates itself in an overpopulated messaging application market by focusing on two key areas: privacy and ease-of-use
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, Sept. 23, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Frost & Sullivan recognizes TicToc Planet, Inc. with the 2014 North America "Early Stage Investment Opportunity" Award. TicToc Planet, the provider of the Frankly mobile application, has secured significant investments from strategic investors, including SK Planet, a subsidiary of SK Telecom and leading mobile operator in South Korea. SK Planet specializes in online and mobile services solutions across verticals, including digital content, integrated commerce and marketing communication. Its experience in messaging applications is a strong advantage for TicToc Planet.
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With the Frankly application, TicToc has targeted the female under 19 demographic group, otherwise known as Generation Z. One of the primary concerns of this consumer group is privacy, with 55 percent of women claiming to avoid applications that compromise privacy and 59 percent turning off location tracking features to conceal real-time updates about their whereabouts.
Frankly has incorporated features that give the sender substantial control over the message. Innovative features include "unsend," which allows the user to delete a message before it has been read by the recipient and "message expiration," which deletes the message in a specified number of seconds after it has been read by the recipient. Frankly's innovative features are supported by solid and scalable technology architecture and systems. Simultaneously, the application allows the users to convey emotions by zooming and modifying font size and color.
"By positioning itself as an application that understands the importance of privacy, combined with an attractive and intuitive user interface, Frankly has become the preferred messaging application among female audiences," said Renganathan Krishnamurthy at Frost & Sullivan. "This is an important achievement, as this customer bracket often serves as a leading proxy demographic for highly successful social products."
"Frankly is well poised to expand its user base in regions such as the Middle East and East Asia, where it has already gained traction. It also plans to grow through the provision of Frankly's software developer kit (SDK) to enable other mobile apps to integrate a messaging module within their own app environment. In terms of revenues, Frankly is expecting massive returns from diverse streams, thus reducing the dependency on any single stream. Overall, its pragmatic and achievable expansion strategy is proving extremely attractive to investors and is winning it sizeable investments," continued Krishnamurthy.
Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents the "Early Stage Investment Opportunity" award to one company that demonstrates strength of intellectual property, expertise in team management and innovation in product differentiation strategies. Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.
About Frankly
Frankly Chat is one of the fastest growing mobile messaging apps in the market with over one million downloads, and achieved top ten social app rankings in 16 countries in the Apple AppStore. As an expansion of its popular messaging technology, Frankly is also working with partners to integrate a light weight SDK to bring a social module to other mobile applications. Based in San Francisco, Frankly has raised more than $18 million in venture funding to date and is backed by world class investors. For more information about Frankly, visit www.franklychat.com.
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