Black Buck, Payoneer, Face++. Write down these names, and not just for the similarity with better known realities: because these apps could be the Facebook and Google of the future. The Boston Consulting Group has drawn up a list of 100 potential Big Techs of the future, coming from emerging markets: among these are the Chinese Face++, an artificial intelligence company for facial recognition, the Indian BlackBuck, the technologies for transport, and the Israeli Payoneer, specialized in digital payments. I'm very China (40) India (27, including surrounding countries) e Israel (9) the most represented countries in the BCG's list of future tech stars, but in reality the geography is quite varied. In fact, it would not be surprising if the new reference catering app were the Brazilian iFood, or if the new Uber, i.e. app 99, leader in private transport, arrived from Brazil.
Obviously, the South Korea: the social network Kakao, which in the meantime has also become a platform for games and a mobile bank, and the financial services app Viva Repubblica, downloaded by a third of the local population and already in 2016 awarded the Google Playstore App of the Year. But there is also room forAfrica, which places three pretenders to the coveted Apple throne of the future: the Kenyan M-Pes for digital payments, the Nigerian e-commerce Jumia (in the meantime transplanted to Germany) and always in the shopping field appear in the BCG ranking South African takealot.com is online.
All these realities put together, according to the Boston Consulting analysis, have an average market valuation of 6,3 billion dollars and a turnover of 2 billion: numbers clearly lower than those of competitors in developed economies, but which grow six times faster, increasing turnover by at least 70% every year. For example, Sea Group, a developer of online video games from Singapore, even increased its turnover by 163% between 2018 and 2019 and multiplied its stock market value by 3,5 times since April this year, reaching 72 billion of dollars. In short, something is moving outside of Silicon Valley and the east coast of China, which today alone host 7 of the top 10 companies in the world by market capitalization.
Two thirds of the companies that pursue them operate in the B2c sector with apps and consumer services, one third in the B2b sector. They use a wide range of both hardware and software technologies (such as cloud computing, social media, gaming, artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, cyber security, semiconductors, robotics) in the most diverse sectors, from education to healthcare, from logistics to services financial. If the American dream of Silicon Valley was usually born in a garage or in a student house, the technological challengers are often created "in the laboratory". Chinese tech challengers are frequently funded by the government, elsewhere they are the result of collaboration between universities, companies and public authorities, such as the Block 71 industrial hub in Singapore, the Skolkovo Innovation Center in Russia, the realities of Bangalore in India or Israel. In other cases, they are offshoots of large conglomerates that place industrial and financial resources at the service of startups.
Then there is another big difference, which could make the… difference: compared to the most advantaged rivals in the West, emerging big techs tend to collaborate with each other creating diversified ecosystems by activity and geography: according to a BCG analysis, the best digital ecosystems have around 40 partners and extend over 10 or more countries. A very different approach compared to the monopolistic or oligopolistic one perpetrated for some time by the various Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon. Will he pay?
