This document is the second issue of Asia Snapshot 2015, which provides a summary of research, trends, and interesting people in Asia. It highlights that 4 out of 6 entrepreneurial hotspots are in Asia, and Asia's consumers are driving global growth. ASEAN is seeing increasing homogenization of consumers across its 626 million people. Women in China are making great strides in business leadership positions. Mobile internet and gaming are huge industries in Southeast Asia. Singapore remains one of the best places to do business and ranks highly on global competitiveness indexes.

1. Asia Snapshot 2015
A mashup of research, trends and
interesting people in Asia.
Issue #2 Published at
www.CallumLaing.com
“Connecting Leaders”

2. My usual disclaimers apply: This is not intended to be a comprehensive guide and the hard
work of finding this data was done by other people who deserve all the credit. I have
merely cherry picked the stuff that stood out for me and made me say ‘ooh’.
“Welcome to the second edition of Asia Snapshots.
I hope you find it interesting and perhaps it will spark some ideas of
how you could get more involved in this amazing region.
If you’re new to this report, then it is intended for anyone looking to
do business in Asia. It is quite literally a mashup of other peoples
research, interspersed with highlighting some cool individuals that
I’ve come across along the way.”
- Callum
@laingcallum”

3. BNP Paribas http://goo.gl/aeb6rd
“4 out of 6
entrepreneurial
hotspots are in Asia”

4. “Be bold and yet be meticulous
in everything you do”
Jerome Lim, Director of Ming Fa Fishball
“Believe in yourself. If you
don’t, no one else will.”
Christine Edwards, Founder of Honeycombers
What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?

5. “Asia’s
consumers are
driving
global
growth.”
http://www.dbs.com/insights/index.html

6. “Up from 81 million
households today.”
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/asia-pacific

7. http://www.economistinsights.com/business-strategy/analysis/redrawing-asean-map
“ASEAN is the Association of
South East Asian Nations
(about 626m people)”

8. What’s happening in ASEAN?

9. Padmini Pandya, Strategic Business
Planning of SapientNitro
What’s the best piece of advice you ever
received? “Get out of your own way.”
Adrien Choux, Founder of The Chinese Timekeeper
Who inspires you? “Guy Laliberte (founder of
Cirque du Soleil). Visionary, passionate,
philanthropist and a great poker player … quite an
inspiration!”

10. http://www.economistinsights.com/business-strategy/analysis/redrawing-asean-map
“Interesting to note the
homogenisation of the
ASEAN consumer”

11. Not everything moves
fast in Asia…

12. http://www.freetheworld.com/2013/EFW2013-complete.pdf
Pretty colours.
But not that
‘free’ in Asia
yet.
Correlation of
wealth and freedom

13. http://insights.fb.com/2014/10/08/coming-of-age-on-screens/
“Don’t worry, be happy.
Indonesia & India seeing the positives in
Facebook and beyond.”

14. https://www.techinasia.com/infographic-numbers-indonesia-2014
“This is Indonesia”

15. “Doing business is about developing trust,
especially in Asia. Think ‘how can I help’ without
expectation of return”
Sam Lau, Founder of Total Loyalty
“’Nothing in life comes easy’.
It reminds me that I must always work
hard, be determined and persistent.”
Jia En Teo, Co-Founder of Roomorama
What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?

16. www.newzoo.com/insights/
newzoo-report-1-1bn-southeast-asian-games-market-to-double-by-2017
“Amongst other things, Indonesia is the fastest
growing Games market. Maybe that’s why
they’re happy?”

17. https://www.techinasia.com/
asia-dominates-gaming-ipos-set-earn-45b-annual-revenue-2018-report/
2014 saw a record US$24 billion worth of video
game company exits worldwide in 2014
Asia accounted for over half the games IPOs in
2014
“Asia is the number
one games market
in terms of
revenue”

18. “Meanwhile in
China…”

19. The number of Chinese women in senior management
positions has recently doubled, with 51% of those jobs
held by females, making China a standout in Asia.
Some 550 publicly-traded companies, or about 21%,
have women on their boards.
China has two of only four companies in the world
with all-female boards.
.
http://fortune.com/2015/01/15/
the-number-of-chinese-women-in-top-corporate-jobs-is-exploding
“Half of the world’s self-
made female billionaires
are Chinese”

20. www.economistinsights.com/marketing-consumer/
analysis/rise-and-online/multimedia
Women in China

21. “That the failures I had were in fact the
best things that ever happened to me.”
Mouna Aouri Langendorf, Founder of Woomentum
What have you just learnt recently that blew
you away?
“There is no point doing what you are doing
without an end game. Choose where you want
to be, what you want to do and work out a way
to get there.”
Charlie Brazier, Founder of BW Furniture

22. Women in China
www.economistinsights.com/marketing-consumer/
analysis/rise-and-online/multimedia

23. www.economistinsights.com/marketing-consumer/
analysis/rise-and-online/multimedia
Women in China

24. https://www.techinasia.com/asia-biggest-series-a-rounds-2014/
“Startups in China
are seeing some
funding lovin’.”

25. https://www.techinasia.com/
vc-investments-china-skyrocketed-2014-doubling-previous-record
“In fact all VC funding has trebled since 2013”

26. “Never take ‘No’ for an answer.”
Talenia Phua Gajardo, CEO of The Artling
“Communication is about what other
people understand, not what you say.
Build outcomes, not outputs.”
Simon Kemp, Regional Managing Partner of We Are Social
What’s the best piece of advice you ever
received?

27. https://www.techinasia.com/wechat-investment-fund-10-million-users/
Pic from tomsguide.com
One year after launch, WeChat’s investment
fund has 10 million users who’ve banked over
$16 billion!
“Banks, sit up
and take note!”

28. “Singapore remains
one of the best
places to do
business, not just in
ASEAN but the
World.”
www.economistinsights.com/business-strategy/analysis/redrawing-asean-map

29. Singapore ranks 2nd in Global
competitiveness
global-indices.insead.edu/documents/INSEADGTCIreport2014.pdf
“Globally, CEO’s always think their country
is the hardest to recruit quality talent…”

30. http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/
2015/jan/07/singapore-building-india-city-andhra-pradesh
“The go-getting entrepreneurialism of Singapore has
led its government to agree to support the Indian
state Andhra Pradesh in building a new capital city. It
will be a stupendous 7,235 square kilometres, 10
times the size of Singapore’s own 716 square
kilometres. The new city is expected to cost
£10.7bn ($16.5bn).”
“Singapore doesn’t lack ambition. But it does lack land.
Creating new cities in China and India makes for a perfect
collaboration.”

31. Mobile Internet in India 16x slower
than Singapore
https://www.techinasia.com/
mobile-internet-16-times-faster-singapore-than-india/
“Mobile penetration in India is currently at 75%”

32. BNP Paribas http://goo.gl/aeb6rd
“India leading the way in female entrepreneurs,
but according to Nasscom only 1 in 17 Indian
tech companies are started by woman.”

33. However, in terms of new wealth it is actually
India’s neighbours that stole the glory.
Pakistan and Sri Lanka were in the top 5 gainers
of ultra high networth individuals gaining 34
and 25% respectively.
www.wealthx.com

34. “If you care for others, your consciousness
expands and you’re happy. If you care only for
yourself, your consciousness contracts and
you’re miserable.”
Jack Sim, Founder of World Toilet Organization
What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?
“’Enjoy what you do’.
It is easier to say, ‘Do what you enjoy’ but
we should remember that we can choose to
enjoy anything we do as well.”
Masami Soto, Founder of Buy One Give One

35. www.wealthx.com
Pakistan and Sri Lanka were in the top 5 gainers
of ultra high networth individuals gaining 34 and
25% respectiviely. China actually declind

36. Wealthx.com
China actually declined in Ultra High
Networth individuals last year despite
churning out 159 millionaires a day.

37. Forbes counted a record 1,645 billionaires with
a total net worth of US$6.4 trillion, up from
1,426 last year.
16 are in Singapore
And there are 35 million millionaires around
the world. Give or take…

38. “Singapore and South Korea are truly
Mobile first.”

39. https://www.consumerbarometer.com/en/insights/?countryCode=GL
https://www.techinasia.com/google-asia-true-mobilefirst-region/
• Asian countries have the highest rate of
internet users who go online exclusively
using a smartphone.
• Japan and South Korea are the two countries
with the highest frequency of internet usage
in the world.
“35% of Malaysians only access the
internet through their mobile device!”

40. What have you recently learnt that blew you away?
“Did you know that Bukit Timah’s Nature Reserve in
Singapore has more species of trees than the entire
North American continent? Talk about a green dot!”
Habiba Raffa, Founder of Ayelli
What’s the best piece of advice you ever
received?
“People remember generosity.
Be generous, be kind, be direct, be
remembered.”
Howard Lo, Founder of Standing Sushi Bar

41. www.wearesocial.com

42. www.wearesocial.com

43. www.wearesocial.com

44. “I hope you enjoyed this. Please feel free to share it with anyone
you think would be interested.
We’ll be back later in the year to share what’s new”
- Callum
@laingcallum
linkedin.com/in/callumlaing