Buongiorno turns to China with eDongAsia purchase

Buongiorno S.p.A., one of the leading multinational conglomerates in the mobile content market, announced it entered the Chinese market by way of its acquisition of eDongAsia. The acquisition occurred through Buongiorno Hong Kong Ltd., the company’s joint venture with Mitsui & Co. Ltd.
The firm will acquire 80 percent of eDongAsia, worth about $2.7 million, and the remaining 20 percent will stay under the company’s current shareholders.
According to Buongiorno, the Chinese Industry Ministry’s latest figures show that the Chinese mobile phone market is the world’s largest, with 449 million customers and an average annual growth of 65 million new users.
In China, Buongiorno plans to offer business-to-business services for the telecom and media sectors and introduce its successful Blinko.com brand to Chinese consumers. Blinko is already a well-established market leader in mobile multimedia content in the United States, Europe and Latin America. The Web site offers ringtones, wallpapers, games, themes and other content for mobile phones.
“The Chinese mobile content market is buoyant and it represents a tremendous opportunity for global companies operating in the digital entertainment market, as Buongiorno. We therefore decided to cautiously enter the Chinese market by leveraging on a small-sized, fast-growing entity,” said Andrea Casalini, CEO of Buongiorno S.p.A. “This will allow our group to seize the local challenging business opportunities without facing risks in the short term.”
The acquisition marks the latest expansion for Buongiorno, which recently entered markets in Russia and India and has plans to move into Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia.