Category: Enterprise IT

NIU Technologies Announces Q1 2020 Financial Results: Expansion is Undeterred under Global Pandemic, Expects Growth and Profit in Q2 2020

NIU Technologies (“NIU”, or “the Company”) (NASDAQ: NIU), the world’s leading provider of smart urban mobility solutions, today announced its financial results for Q1 2020.

Road to Recovery with a Revenue of RMB 232.9 Million

For Q1 2020, the revenue is RMB 232.9 million, which decreased by 34.4% YoY due to lower sales volume. The total number of e-scooters sold worldwide was 40,160 units, decreased by 39.4% YoY, which is attributed to the damaging effects of the global pandemic. The number of e-scooters sold in China reached 34,316 units, decreased by 43.5% YoY. On the other hand, the number of e-scooters sold in international markets reached 5,844 units, increased by 5.9% YoY. The number of franchised stores in China is 1,033, which decreased by 17 stores. The international sales network has expanded to 33 distributors covering 42 countries.

The revenues per e-scooter increased by 8.2%. The higher revenues were attributed to increased accessories, spare parts, and services per e-scooter, which is now RMB 1,168 compared to RMB 671 in the same period last year. In addition, the gross margin was 23.6%, compared to 21.3% in the same period of 2019. This increase is driven by higher e-scooter revenues from the Company’s international markets, and a higher proportion of revenues from accessories, spare parts, and services.

Many aspects of the Company’s operations were damaged because of the ongoing pandemic. The two-wheeler e-scooter market has been hit by shutdowns of factories and retail stores. However, the Company was able to persevere and provide support to distributors and dealers with its strong cash and financial position.

The company extended credit payment date for selective distributors and granted full rebate to dealers that suffered from the pandemic – including those who missed the sales volume target in the Q1 2020. The Company also provided training to dealers in China on e-commerce and organized branding and marketing activities to support dealers to accelerate retail sales.

The Company benefited from the strict measures and recovery actions by the Chinese authorities. Supply chain and operations has returned to normal in early April 2020. The Company expects revenues of Q2 2020 to be in the range of RMB 585 million to RMB 655 million, which represents a YoY increase of 10% to 23%.

Arrival of New Products and Expectation to Return to Healthy Growth in Q2 2020

The Company has continued to expand its product portfolio in 2020 and has continued growing its business. Q1 2020 R&D expenses were RMB 22.7 million (including RMB 2 million of share-based compensation), which increased by 58.6% compared to Q1 2019. It increased by RMB 14.3 million and represents 9.8% of the total revenue. In May 2020, the Company launched a new product called MQi2. This is NIU’s flagship product under the new national standard for electric bicycles in China. The MQi2 inherits the design language of MQi series and it is also equipped with the Company’s most up-to-date technologies. The NIU app is now upgraded to 4.0 version, which is optimized for better interactive experience, improved GPS positioning and anti-theft security. The Company also plan to launch another model under the Gova series in June 2020.

Meanwhile, the Company’s long-term expansion plans are in good progress. Retail sales network expansion in China will resume in Q2 2020 and there is also plans to acquire land use right for a new piece of real estate in Changzhou for further factory expansion in light of the rebounding recovery demand in China.

After being listed on NASDAQ for around 1.5 years, the Company is now added into MSCI’s China Small Cap Index, which will take place on May 29th 2020. This demonstrates recognition from the capital market.

NIU Technologies CEO Dr. Yan Li said “Since May, distributors and dealers in selective international markets resumed operation and we are working closely with them to re-activate our expansion plans. We are very excited about the enriched product portfolio and we are looking forward to the continued growth of our business and pleased to see demand is recovering in China. Our China sales are expected to return to healthy growth in the second quarter.”

Virtual Electronics Launches VEnterface Services Platform

Virtual Electronics PTE LTD, a Singapore-registered outsourcing software development company, has launched a new smart collaboration services platform, VEnterface. The platform aims to facilitate collaboration among innovative Singaporean and Australian entrepreneurs, and improve their decision making using data discovery and data leveraging.

Dr. Victor Paul, Senior Representative of Virtual Electronics PTE

VEnterface platform features include:

– Tools to estimate different innovative market entry variants (Algorithmic business)
– Higher visibility of collaborators on the platform (Matching service)
– Data-driven procedures to make well-weighted decisions on collaborations (Data-driven business)
– A platform-based community for cooperation and partnering (Opportunities of sharing economy)

Businesses in Singapore and Australia will benefit from its cutting-edge technology and expert IT solutions, backed by their main office in Singapore and development offices in Ukraine and Belarus. The company aims to leverage its prime location in Singapore while opening a new office in Adelaide, South Australia as an entry point to the Australian market and creating more partnership opportunities in the region.

The VEnterface online platform is an information tool designed to help modern entrepreneurs to explore new business opportunities enhancing local and international collaborating. The platform is specifically designed to increase the visibility of innovative products and services in markets leveraging knowledge management techniques. As the platform aims to help all Singapore-Australia market players grow business efficiently and cost-effectively, creating an extensive network of service providers collaborating on the platform is crucial.

The VEnterface platform leverages a Virtual Assistant to help entrepreneurs input data along their entry journey. Aggregated and categorized input data can highlight the real scope of collaboration opportunities. Working with the collaboration service, members of the platform-based community will utilise carefully curated output data. VEnterface creates value for all members of the platform, identifying areas of their initial interests and demonstrating the scope of opportunities.

The entry phase of a partnership is crucial because collaborations inevitably fail when encountering a lack of clearly defined expectations and responsibilities. The latter depends heavily upon their expertise, skills, and resources of both parties. For a successful collaboration to take place, both partners must make sure that they have the abilities and resources to handle the responsibilities they have agreed to deliver for the project. They must also be able to understand risks and weigh the pros and cons of various outcomes.

By applying algorithms of the VEnterface knowledge base in the entry phase, entrepreneurs can avoid the negative consequences of an unfruitful collaboration due to their lack of resources or competence. The four common types of collaborative partnerships are:

– Smart procurement
– Collaborative innovation projects
– Strategic innovation partnerships and joint ventures
– Smart direct investment

The VEnterface base of knowledge defines all partnership types by risks, necessary financial investments, and outcomes. The online platform is designed to be user-friendly and easy-to-use. Keeping this in mind, the company implemented its natural language interface to guide entrepreneurs through the whole process of presenting their products and services. To improve customer experience, VEenterface integrates its intelligent AI-enabled Virtual Assistant seamlessly with a knowledge base as a tool to support a personalized conversation.

In order to place a data-driven collaboration within reach, the company adds a set of social tools that allow for communication among possible partners and help share knowledge effectively to create new options for products, services, distribution, and delivery using collaboration services. “Collaborative innovation is the best way to succeed in modern business,” said Dr. Victor Paul, Virtual Electronics. “Newcomers are more flexible in developing, testing, and launching new products, but suffer a lack of resources, competence, and market experience. Collaboration allows for consolidated financial and organizational resources.”

The platform aims to create and promote innovative products and services employing cutting-edge technology including Google’s NLP, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence. In this way, the platform helps businesses to collaborate via optimal expansion paths, building competitive advantage for entrepreneurs in both Australia and Singapore. On top of this, the company provides mobile app development and software development services that are outsourced to development offices in Ukraine and Belarus. Due to their education in the field of exact sciences and programming, specialists from Eastern Europe are well-coveted.

Any client who works with Virtual Electronics is assured that the app will be developed from end to end, for 100% readiness. Client assistance is offered when faced with difficulties in independent project development in the future.

Dr. Victor Paul, Senior Representative of Virtual Electronics PTE, says “Nowadays, there are dozens of reasons why businesses are interested in outsourcing. From our experience, entrepreneurs are often motivated by their desire to save costs while engaging the services of a qualified specialist who does not have to be tied to the company on a permanent basis.”

Virtual Electronics believes that any company that relies on growth and development should be as flexible and open as possible. This is especially true for the market of outsourcing services. The company started out in website development but realised a long overdue need for mobile app development services that will help businesses save time and money. Since 2019, Virtual Electronics has helped over 70 clients from industries spanning finance, retail, and tech.

The company hopes to further its interest in the creation and implementation of hosted products to further help clients achieve efficiency and results.

About Virtual Electronics PTE LTD

Founded in 2019, Virtual Electronics is a Singapore-registered company specialising in the development of support platforms and sub-contracted services. The company collaborates with tech business communities around the world in software product manufacturing and optomising clients’ engineering efforts to make them more efficient. With a range of industry experience in financing, enterprise and management, Virtual Electronics aims to help clients achieve business excellence with the best tech strategies.

Dr. Victor Paul, Senior Representative of Virtual Electronics, is an expert, adviser and business facilitator in commercialisation and international technology transfer. Victor Paul has worked across a wide range of international organisations, including the World Bank and European Commission, corporations and start-ups, helping them to develop new projects, commercialise technologies, and raise capital. With a doctorate in Business Economics and PhD in Business Information Systems, he has more than 20 years’ experience in economic and business development, facilitating investment and future business opportunity for both investors and project founders, and applying technology to develop efficient systems for feasibility studies, due diligence, IP and PM. Understanding social responsibility, he creates online platforms for community projects with a focus on lifestyle, well-being and prevention of illness and ageing.

For more information, please visit www.virtualelectronics.sg or email info@virtualelectronics.com.

For media enquiries, please contact:
Alexandra Helf
+65 3159 4178
alex@virtualelectronics.sg
http://www.virtualelectronics.sg

Suprema further enhances cyber security with new BioStar 2 release

– BioStar 2 v2.8 now encrypts every data available as a default feature

In addition to existing encryption of personal data, used for authentication with passwords, fingerprint templates and face templates, BioStar 2 now encrypts every data available that may potentially link to any specific individual. With this enhancement in BioStar 2 v2.8, this upscaled security will be made available not as an option but a default feature of the system.

Introducing this new update, Young S. Moon, CEO of Suprema Inc., remarked, “We place absolute top priority to strengthen security measures and reinforce our security framework. Along with the current update of BioStar 2, we will continue to strive to make our solutions secure to make sure our customers’ personal data is protected.”

About Suprema

Suprema Inc. is a leading global provider of security and biometrics technologies. Suprema’s extensive range of products includes biometric access control systems, time & attendance solutions, mobile authentication solutions and embedded fingerprint solutions. Suprema has No.1 market share in biometrics access control in EMEA region and has worldwide sales network in over 130 countries. For more information, please visit www.supremainc.com.

Press Contact:
Chloe Kim
Manager of Marketing, Suprema Inc.
Email: jskim4@suprema.co.kr

Trintech Releases 2020 Global Record to Report Benchmark Report

60% of Respondents from the Banking and Insurance Industries Indicated Reconciliation as Biggest Challenge during the Financial Close Process

Trintech, a leading provider of financial software solutions, today announced the release of its 2020 Global Record to Report Benchmark Report. Trintech surveyed almost 200 enterprise companies across 31 countries through January 2020 to evaluate which parts of the Record to Report (R2R) process have been automated, which are in the process of being automated and where finance and accounting (F&A) organizations are looking to adopt automation in the future.

Key findings from the survey on the trends in R2R automation include:
– Reconciliations are currently the single biggest challenge for F&A organizations
– A growing number of organizations identify a lack of standardization across all processes as their main roadblock to efficiency
– Looking ahead to 2025, respondents expect their biggest challenges will be personnel related, as attracting and retaining talent becomes more critical

“Automating low-value, repetitive tasks completed by the office of finance is finally starting to gain traction – we see the interest in the benefits of financial automation growing each year,” said David King, Chief Marketing Officer at Trintech. “These insights show that there is a huge potential for organizations to achieve significant ROI through the implementation of automation technology. Now, more than ever, organizations are looking for ways to be more efficient, while increasing transparency and ensuring data integrity as part of their month end or quarter end close. The office of finance is providing insights almost daily now that are crucial for business decisions across every industry.”

In terms of organizations’ current automation practices, only 20% of respondents have “Established” or “Advanced” automation in place. The report’s findings also show that most organizations are at least starting the move towards automating some parts of their office of finance, and there are few laggards that have not started implementing automation at all.

“Organizations need to spend more time understanding risk and less time managing data – approaches that deliver that efficiently and effectively, and drive quality into the process, have immense value,” said Jim O’Connor, Managing Principal Advisory Practice at The Hackett Group.

To dive into the results of this benchmark report further, Trintech and The Hackett Group will be hosting a joint webinar, How to Prepare Your Organization for the Future of Financial Automation, on Thursday, May 14th, to give companies insight into topics such as:
– The biggest challenges for the month end process
– Roadblocks to having the most efficient process
– The maturity of financial close automation
– Key areas to focus on improving by 2025

Read the full Record to Report (R2R) Benchmark Report here. https://pr.report/H8G3eY14

About Trintech

Trintech Inc., a pioneer of Financial Corporate Performance Management (FCPM) software, combines unmatched technical and financial expertise to create innovative, cloud-based software solutions that deliver world-class financial operations and insights. From high volume transaction matching and streamlining daily operational reconciliations, to automating and managing balance sheet reconciliations, intercompany accounting, journal entries, disclosure reporting and bank fee analysis, to governance, risk and compliance – Trintech’s portfolio of financial solutions, including Cadency(R) Platform, Adra(R) Suite, and targeted tools, ReconNET(TM), T-Recs(R), and UPCS(R), help manage all aspects of the financial close process. Over 3,500 clients worldwide – including the majority of the Fortune 100 – rely on the company’s cloud-based software to continuously improve the efficiency, reliability, and strategic insights of their financial operations.

Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Trintech has offices located across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and the Nordics, as well as strategic partners in South Africa, Latin America and the Asia Pacific. To learn more about Trintech, visit www.trintech.com or connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

About The Hackett Group

The Hackett Group (NASDAQ: HCKT) is an intellectual property-based strategic consultancy and leading benchmarking and best practices firm to global companies, with offerings that include smart automation and enterprise cloud application implementation. Services include business transformation, enterprise analytics, global business services, and working capital management. The Hackett Group also provides dedicated expertise in business strategy, operations, finance, human capital management, strategic sourcing, procurement and information technology, including its award-winning Oracle and SAP practices.

The Hackett Group has completed nearly 18,000 benchmarking studies with major corporations and government agencies, including 93% of the Dow Jones Industrials, 90% of the Fortune 100, 80% of the DAX 30 and 57% of the FTSE 100. These studies drive its Best Practice Intelligence Center(TM) which includes the firm’s benchmarking metrics, best practices repository and best practice configuration guides and process flows, which enable The Hackett Group’s clients and partners to achieve world-class performance.

More information on The Hackett Group is available at: www.thehackettgroup.com, info@thehackettgroup.com, or by calling (770) 225-3600.

Media Contact:
Adrienne Kim
Vested
617-898-8155
trintech@fullyvested.com

SOURCE: Trintech, Inc.

100K Premium .Cloud Domain Names Released to Partner Sales Channels With New Pricing

Top-level domain (TLD) .Cloud announces the release of over 100,000 premium domain names with a new pricing structure to their worldwide partner network. These premium domain names are considered highly valuable for branding and marketing purposes and opens new opportunities for businesses to create modern branding and memorable websites.

Released on May 6, 2020 at 16:00 UTC, the inventory totaling 103,395 domains is available for immediate purchase from hundreds of domain name registrars and thousands of their resellers. The inventory has been released within a simple new pricing structure with nine tiers, and one renewal price across all tiers. The lowest tier is expected to retail for under USD200.

The inventory includes excellent choices for startup companies, their products, and enterprises launching digital services. Hundreds of choices in hot industry sectors such as cloud computing, business and finance, internet of things (IoT) and gaming are available.

Mou Mukherjee, .Cloud’s Head of Registry Services said, “Our premium domain release includes many short and memorable domains such as atom.cloud, pix.cloud, vid.cloud, simply.cloud and financial.cloud. These prized domains could serve as an enterprise’s key brand asset.”

By 2023 IDC predicts the global economy will finally reach “digital supremacy” with more than half of all GDP worldwide driven by products and services from digitally transformed enterprises. Since the pandemic, businesses have accelerated their digital transformation and innovation projects. Many businesses were forced to digitize their services. Cloud is no longer nice to have but a critical part of a company’s operations. As technology leaders invest billions of dollars into fast-tracking cloud services, focus on the digital economy has never been stronger.

Ms. Mukherjee continued, “Cloud has become more relevant today than ever and companies can stand out in the digital economy with a .cloud premium domain. Our new affordable pricing will appeal to diverse businesses with all kinds of budgets. We’re thrilled that businesses now have better access to excellent, premium .cloud domains.”

For more information please visit: http://get.cloud

.Cloud Domain Registry

The .Cloud top-level domain helps businesses create a modern digital identity with domain names ending in .cloud. It has secured over 180,000 registrations in 180 countries and can be purchased from the most popular domain name registrars.

.Cloud is operated by Aruba S.p.A. Founded in 1994, it is the leading company in Italy for data centers, web hosting, email, certified email (PEC) and domain registration services. Aruba is also active in key European markets including France, the UK and Germany. The company has extensive experience in the management of data centers, with its European network capable of hosting over 200,000 servers. Aruba manages 2.7 million domains, 8.6 million email accounts, 6.7 million certified email (PEC) accounts, 130,000 physical and virtual servers, for a total of approximately 5.4 million customers.