Weekly Insights Jun 17, 2016

Executive Summary

• In New York this week, the Fung Global Retail & Technology team hosted an event called Breakfast with the Disruptors: Women-Led Beauty & Fashion Startups, which attracted a standing-room-only crowd of more than 150. The event featured presentations from seven women-led startups that competed for a $2,500 prize.
• In a survey of more than 1,000 US consumers, 72% of respondents said they prefer to use a laptop or desktop to shop online. Only 28% said they prefer to use a tablet or smartphone. In addition, 42% said they have never used a tablet to shop online, while 32% said they have never used a smartphone to shop online.
• Germany’s Metro Group is trialing robots from Starship Technologies to carry shoppers’ purchases through a store in Düsseldorf, so that customers can focus on “hands-free” shopping. These autonomous robots are also being tested to deliver online purchases to customers.
• On June 10, messaging app Line kicked off its IPO, which is scheduled for July 14 and looks to raise $917 million with an initial share price of $26.21. The Japanese company plans to dual list on the Tokyo and New York Stock Exchanges. Line has 218.4 million active users, but added only 13 million new monthly active users last year.