Dive Brief:
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SK Planet Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Seoul-based mobile company SK Telecom Co., has agreed to buy Silicon Valley-based shopping app Shopkick Inc. for $200 million, sources told the Wall Street Journal.
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Redwood City, CA-based Shopkick, founded in 2009, works with retailers to offer loyalty rewards and deals using in-store location-based beacon technology.
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Shopkick’s retail partners include Macy’s, Target, Old Navy, Best Buy, American Eagle, Crate & Barrel, Sports Authority, Toys"R"Us, Simon Malls, Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Intel, HP, Disney, General Mills, Colgate, Clorox, Revlon, and Levi’s, as well as credit card companies MasterCard and Visa.
Dive Insight:
SK Telecom’s acquisition of Shopkick makes good on its stated goal of moving into the U.S. market. Its SK Planet Inc. subsidiary invested $6 million in the Snapchat-like app Frankly last year, and the company says it will spend between $500 million to as much as $1 billion in further U.S. investments.
Shopkick has eight million users and counting. That number is only going to go up considering that the app is expanding its Macy’s services to several more locations nationwide this year.