Yanolja Pushing to Enter Five Southeast Asian Markets

South Korean online-to-offline (O2O) accommodation booking app Yanolja is pushing to advance into five Southeast Asian countries – Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

According to industry sources on July 1, Yanolja has recently completed a survery of startups in Southeast Asia and is expected to acquire some of them to facilitate its foray into the five Southeast Asian countries.

If the company takes the M&A approach, it would be different from the way it pushed into the Japanese and Chinese markets.

Previously, Yanolja established a strategic alliance with Japan’s largest online travel site Rakuten and China’s largest online travel company Ctrip. The company allowed users to book tour packages and accommodation, which are sold in Japan and China, through an exclusive agreement with them.

However, there are no clear dominating companies in the five Southeast Asian countries. In short, there are a considerable room to maneuver for domestic firms. Given the situation, Yanolja is highly likely to acquire local start-ups and implant its business model in them. The company seems to be seeking to become a market leader in Southeast Asia by increasing its share of the home-sharing market. The primary goal of Yanolja is to become the No. 1 O2O accommodation company in Asia. The company has changed the epithet describing the company from South Korea’s No. 1 O2O accommodation booking firm to a leading global leisure platform firm.

Yanolja's aggressive advance into the global market is expected to boost its sales this year. Yanolja posted 100.5 billion won (US$90.17 million) in sales last year, joining the 100 billion won start-up club.