Peel’s quest to be the dominant smart remote technology continues.
The company announced last week at the 2014 Mobile Asia Expo that ‘Alcatel OneTouch’ a brand of TCL Communications, has agreed to preload Peel on some of its latest smart devices. Another Chinese smartphone maker, ZTE, had earlier agreed to do the same on the ‘Star 1,’ its flagship phone, released in April.
As we’ve recently covered, Peel has 75 million activated users globally and plans to have its app preloaded on at least 300 million devices sold in the next few years. These goals are lofty, but they’re certainly attainable for a company that has its app preloaded on all the latest Samsung tablets and smartphones, along with the HTC One.
Advertisers are only beginning to realize Peel’s potential. Last month, History Channel used Peel to promote its series ‘The World Wars.’ Peel’s advertising solution gives marketers the powerful ability to reach consumers at the last moment before they choose what to watch. More intriguing for Peel’s long term prospects is the data that it will be able to collect about viewer habits. Not only will the company be able to make smarter content recommendations, but it could become a TV analytics and research company mentioned in the same conversation as Nielsen and comScore.
To help it enter the Chinese market more quickly, Peel recently acquired Shanghai-based Mozitek. Mozitek had ties with many Chines device manufacturers in place. Peel has also just received funding from Alibaba.
“We believe strongly that success in China will lead to success in the global marketplace,” said Thiru Arunachalam, Peel’s CEO and co-founder. “Our goals were to first create a product that appealed to Chinese consumers and then to have our app bundled on every single smartphone made in China. We have been in China now for more than a year and know we have a product that Chinese consumers love. We see Smart Remote becoming like the camera on phones, a must-have for every OEM in China.”