Hong Kong’s Tink Labs, a success story that begun five years ago, is now in an even better position to expedite its goals since pocketing another US$125 million last year from investors.
“We aim to be in 101 cities by the end of this year. We are now at 30 plus and are on track to meet our goal,” said Akina Ho, executive vice president of global hospitality business at Tink Labs.
Ho rattled on a list of countries it is eyeing which included Indonesia, Thailand, Australia, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Germany (where a ITB launch is imminent), North America and more.
Tink Labs brings mobile devices pre-loaded with local city guides, free of charge to the hotel guest. Called handy, these devices are left in hotel rooms and are attractive for guests as it offers unlimited global calls, data and in-property and inter-device direct dialing.
Hotels are also racing to get these devices in their rooms as they promise to steer guests towards hotel promotions and services. Tink Labs claims that it found, through an independent study, that guests would spend an additional US$21 per night on average when staying in a room that includes a handy device.
“We have no problems getting into hotels. In fact, we are getting invited to go to places quicker than we can manage or want,” said Ho.
She said the activation rate, or rate of usage of the device by guests, is about 80 percent of the hotel occupancy.
Since getting the partners and the customers to use the device seem easy enough to come by, what are its biggest challenges then?
“Regulations that we have to get through. Shipping a phone into a country isn’t like shipping pencils. We have to get through a lot of regulations. Although having partners and investors like Foxconn helps a lot,” she added.
Tink Labs’ young chief executive officer Terence Kwok was quoted in media saying it was “more than halfway” to becoming a unicorn, inferring that the company’s valuation is hovering above US$500 million.
Not bad for the resume of a 24-year-old who hit on a big idea.
