ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that ITOCHU has entered a capital and business partnership with iPrice Group Sdn. Bhd. (headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Paul Brown-Kenyon, CEO; David Chmelař, Co-founder; Heinrich Wendel, Co-founder; hereinafter “iPrice”), a startup company that operates the largest price comparison website in Southeast Asia.

The e-commerce (hereinafter “EC”) market has been enjoying significant growth in Southeast Asia in recent years and is expected to continue to expand in the future with intensifying competition among EC operators. In this environment, there will likely be ongoing needs among people in Southeast Asia who consider online purchases and compare products and prices in a cross-sectoral manner on comparison websites without going through many different EC sites.
Moreover, the percentage of credit card payments is low on EC sites in Southeast Asia, while the use of deferred settlement is rapidly increasing at an average annual growth rate of 25%. Accordingly, comparison websites are required to enhance settlement functions to ensure flawless purchase experience for users.

iPrice operates the largest price comparison website in 7 countries and regions in Southeast Asia, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Hong Kong. iPrice has established itself as a leading company in Southeast Asia, as its comparison website offers access to information on more than 7 billion products offered by more than 8 million partner participants. It instantly and automatically displays optimal products using the company’s proprietary machine learning algorithm. Most recently, iPrice has reinforced settlement functions in its comparison website through cooperation with financial institutions, etc. in Southeast Asian countries in order to enhance customer satisfaction and expand and improve services in response to needs of EC business operators.

ITOCHU concluded a partnership agreement regarding settlement functions between iPrice and PT. ITC Auto Multi Finance (hereinafter “IAMF”), ITOCHU’s wholly owned subsidiary which provides deferred payment services to cellphone purchasers in Indonesia. Using IAMF’s unique credit granting functions and implementing deferred settlement functions specifically for cellphone terminals, popular products in price comparison websites, ITOCHU aims at improving users’ purchase experience in the price comparison website through the capital and business partnership with iPrice.

ITOCHU transforms business through its "market-in" approach, which is a basic policy included its medium-term management plan, and this effort is in line with this policy. ITOCHU will continue to make efforts to develop new businesses in mobile technology fields in response to the needs of customers in Southeast Asian countries.