Frustrating that SMA refuse to divulge any info on "game changing" deals like Qiandaibao and now this but...
It is worth considering that the third party might be right under our noses. In the Qiandaibao announcement, they sourced their references back to the Qiandaibao website. In the lottery announcement, they sourced AGTech (8279 HK), a A$1.4bn HK-listed company that provides online and mobile lottery systems and just had Alibaba take a majority stake. Agtech is to become the exclusive platform for Alibaba-offered lottery services...
AGTech runs lotteries in 80% of China’s provinces, including Hainan.
It could be anyone of course (Rexlot, LotSynergy, Agtech, CVG, VODone, China Netcom) but the reference back to the AGTech website is very interesting given they could have chosen any website and in their last deal, they referenced the company they were working with.
Furthermore, on-line lottery sales in China have been banned for almost 12 months and have only just been allowed to resume (March 11th), selectively, according to the Shanghai Securities Journal (comapnies associated with only the big end of town - Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba). However, there is increasing likelihood of Province Based Mobile Lottery Games (PBMLG) being resumed more extensively. This was highlighted when China's biggest e-commerce company Alibaba took its controlling stake in AGTech, China's biggest Lottery content, equipment, and service provider....AGTech is also rumoured to be in the front of the line to receive PBMLG pilot license...
Now remember the comment from the announcement where SMA said that this deal would provide "immediate revenue generation"...
Stands to reason that this deal could therefore only be with one of the select few allowed to operate in China (or Hainan) if it is immediately revenue generating, which by definition is only going to be one of the bigger companies.
As for revenue impact, who knows but first there was a deal with one of the few companies allowed to do cross-border currency transactions (and the 104th fastest growing tech company in Asia Pacific 2012-15 according to Delloitte) and now they have signed a billing agreement with a 3rd party that is allowed to deal in online lotteries...and we know that most of those players are banned...at the very least, SMA is building a very very high calibre suite of partners...at best, they might be partnering with some of the biggest...
I guess SMA will reveal all in due course.
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(20min delay)