Group buying is all the rage, all over the world. In South Africa, numerous industry players have come to the fore since early 2010, and as predicted, some of them are dying off.
In the US, it started two years ago, but its hype has stayed wildly alive with Groupon’s IPO taking the centre stage. Unfortunately many argue that it isn’t the right time, and the rest argue that there will never be a right time. Even so, LivingSocial.com, the second largest group buying site in the US, is now rumoured to be doing an IPO of their own.
Now the blogs and news websites are going wild with speculations of an IT bubble, not simply due to this group buying industry IPO frenzy, but more so because LinkedIn, Twitter, RenRen and even Facebook have made or are looking at IPOs. Now, while investors are hungry for tech stocks, it is quite clear that you need to have made profits and have a sturdy business to list, and to list well.
The website Pandora, an online music service, listed recently, and its shares rose and fell in two days, now at 20% less than their IPO price. Investors have therefore already lost money there. LinkedIn has also lost major share price since listing, as have others. However, LinkedIn still trades above its initial price, which is perhaps proof that things are watertight, for now.
The problem is this, and was aptly described in a post overseas: “Pandora showed that if you’re still trying to figure out your business model and you go public, then the market is going to call you out on it.”
Yet there are those saying that there is no bubble at all. BusinessInsider.com posted saying that this time the wave of IPOs and investment is not like before, and it is still too early to tell. Also, they say that if a company lists and gets burnt, that is how things should be, and this sort of thing will correct the market and not cause a bubble.
But simply looking at any company that lists without ever turning a profit, can we feel safe? Group buying in South Africa is eventually dependent to some extent on what occurs in the overseas market.
In your opinion, is there a tech bubble coming at all?
