Following two quarters of revenue decline, the Australian online group buying market has begun to stabilise, according to new research from technology analyst firm Telsyte.
Telsyte said the Australian online group buying industry for the second quarter this year shows it generated $117 million – a 5 percent decline from the previous quarter but indicating the industry is stabilising following two quarters of double digit decline.
According to June-quarter figures, consumer spending on coupon-style offers from companies such as Groupon and LivingSocial and local players like Nine Entertainment Co’s Cudo and Yahoo!7’s Spreets followed a 14 percent fall in spending for the three months to March and a 10 percent drop in the December quarter, compared to this quarter’s 5 percent.
However, Telsyte now forecasts consumer spending in the sector to top a record $600 million for 2012, but all the growth will come from the second half.
“The market has peaked in what I call the first wave of group buying,” said Telsyte’s senior research manager Sam Yip. “The second wave will see sites leverage technology like mobile deals, customer data segmentation and real time “push” deals through location-based services.”
