WHITEFISH, MT / ACCESSWIRE / June 2, 2015 / Global e-commerce sales are expected to hit $1.5 trillion this year, according to a February 2014 report from eMarketer. At the same time, only about 900 million of the world's 3.1 billion Internet users speak English. In fact, the Asia-Pacific region alone is expected to surpass North America as the largest e-commerce market, growing to over $1 trillion by 2017 compared to just $660.4 billion in North America and $445 billion in Western Europe.
The problem facing many e-commerce retailers is the widespread language barrier that prevents them from accessing global markets. In a 2011 TransPerfect study, 63% of e-commerce customers said they are more likely to buy from a website available in their native language, but 73% indicated that they regularly encounter e-commerce websites that aren't available in their native language (half even attempt to translate on their own).
Yappn Corp. (OTCQB: YPPN), a real-time multilingual technology provider that amplifies brand and social messaging by expanding online commerce and providing customer support in native languages, provides an ideal solution to this problem. Using its proprietary technology, the company can accurately translate an entire e-commerce website into 67 different languages in real-time, while supporting integrations with many common e-commerce platforms.
If the video below does not display correctly, please use this link to view an interview with David Lucatch, Yappn CEO: https://vimeo.com/129026087.
SECFilings.com Executive Interview | Mr. David Lucatch / Founder and CEO / Yappn Corp. (OTCQB: YPPN) from TDM Financial on Vimeo.
Plug and Play Platform
Shopify Inc.'s (NYSE: SHOP) successful initial public offering underscores just how popular small e-commerce shops have become in just a few short years. While Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) clearly dominates the industry's sales, Shopify indicated in their F-1 SEC filing that their merchants averaged 300 million monthly unique visitors that generated 5.3 million monthly orders for 350,000 different products, as of the first quarter of 2015.
Yappn plans to target these small to medium-sized e-commerce platforms in the near-term as a way to instantly reach an enormous target market. Over the coming month, the company plans on launching a Shopify plugin capable of instantly providing store owners with accurate translations into more than 60 languages, helping improve conversions among those 63% of shoppers that prefer to buy from stores in their native language.
Over the coming quarters, the company plans to expand beyond Shopify and develop plugins for other popular platforms including the open-source Magento platform (powering over 200,000 stores around the world) and Shopline. The company also plans to provide real-time translation for popular e-commerce support platforms like LivePerson Inc. (NASDAQ: LPSN) and RightNow Technologies Inc. - acquired by Oracle Inc. (NASDAQ: ORCL) - among others.
Tip of the Iceberg
Yappn plans on applying the same technology platform that it is using to revolutionize the e-commerce industry to a number of other verticals, including customer support and social media, over the long-term. With an unparalleled ability to process accurate real-time translations, the company is leagues ahead of other competitors that use live translators to type closed captioning on television broadcasts or convert marketing messages into different languages around the world.
The company's cloud-based Windrose platform - hosted in Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Azure(R) network - automatically detects a user's language either via an internet or mobile connection and then instantly translates content. In addition to e-commerce, the platform can be especially useful for marketers looking to reach new audiences. The platform already has built-in support for more than 50 global social networks.
The market for global language services - a market that Yappn is disrupting - is expected to grow from $34.78 billion in 2013 to more than $47 billion by 2018, according to Statistia, representing a compelling growth rate. Capturing just a fraction of that market could unlock significant value for a public company that's trading with a market capitalization of just $6.8 million, according to data from OTC Markets, as of May 26, 2015.
Upcoming Catalysts
Yappn has a number of near-term catalysts that investors may want to take a look at when considering the stock. During the three months ended February 28, 2015, the company reported revenue of $528,846 - up from just $5,875 a year ago - and gross profit of $388,663 as it began to commercialize its technologies. These figures are well positioned to grow significantly over the coming months as it rolls out its plugins and Windrose platform.
Over the longer term, the company's attractive 73% gross margin suggests that it would need revenue of approximately $8 million per year in order to break even on a net basis. The near-term launch of its plugins could set the stage for significant revenue growth that could quickly reach these levels over the coming quarters. If successful, the company could become quickly attractive on both an intrinsic and growth basis moving forward.
Investors may want to take a closer look at this potentially disruptive micro-cap opportunity, especially as it moves from development to commercialization with a proven platform targeting billion dollar industries.
To learn more please visit the company's website at www.yappn.com.
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SOURCE: Emerging Growth LLC
