Twitter flies East, signs up Facebook partner Komli to lead advertising sales in Southeast Asia

Twitter has ramped up its efforts to draw revenue from its growing user base Asia by bringing in its first advertising partner for Southeast Asia, after Komli Media revealed it had secure an exclusive deal to sell its Promoted Products in the region.

Southeast Asia has a combined population of 600 million people but, more importantly, some of its biggest markets are there. Semiocast estimates that Indonesia and the Philippines are home to the microblogging service’s fifth and tenth biggest user bases, while three cities from the region — Indonesia’s Jakarta (1st) and Bandung (6th),  and Singapore (11th) — are among its top 20 global cities.

Komli will manage all Southeast Asia sales for Twitter advertising products. With the aim of increasing the understanding of how Twitter’s products — such as Promoted Tweets, Promoted Accounts and Promoted Trends — can be of benefit to brands, it will roll out education and training programs for agencies and large advertisers in the region.

“We’re really excited to be working with Komli as we enter into Southeast Asia, which is one of Twitter’s fastest-growing markets” said Shailesh Rao, Twitter’s VP of international revenue. “We are seeing significant interest from marketers who want to use our Promoted Products to build their businesses and connect with consumers, and working with Komli , and its management team, gives Twitter a strong partner with a footprint throughout the region.”

Komli already has similar partnerships with Zynga and Facebook, and the firm has a strong presence across Southeast Asia, particularly after it bought Admax Networks, one of the region’s biggest Web advertising networks, in an undisclosed deal in February.

The ad firm says that half of the world’s social network users — circa 800 million — are based in Asia, so it is of little surprise to see Twitter extending into the region, as Facebook and other have done before it.

Indeed, news of the partnership comes hot on the heels of Twitter snagging its first pan-Asia executive, sales and commerce specialist Aliza Knox. Formerly Managing Director of Commerce for Google in Asia Pacific, Knox is the first executive hire for Twitter’s new Singapore office, which will drive sales and strategy for the Asia region – sans Japan, where Twitter has a country office.

Komli is one of Asia’s largest Web advertising firms and, as well as Southeast Asia, it covers India — where it is headquartered — and other markets. It has raised a total of $60 million in funding from Nexus Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners and others.

Image via oh_pretty_love / Flickr