Although based on research conducted in a single market (Texas) these findings are indicative of national trends. According to a recent study by Yankee Group, Hispanics average 15% higher ARPU, 21.5% more minutes of use per month than the average user, and spend 35% more per month on data services than the average user (Amoroso, 2006). Based on such research, it appears that that low-cost or advertising-subsidized mobile language instruction services may offer consumers a unique means to not only improve their quality of life and access to information, but also represent a highly attractive medium for mobile advertising.
Hispanic TV Marketing Importance
On the eve of the lastest US Census, we are about to find out that the Hispanic population in the US is growing faster than any other US demographic. Not only Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the US, the Hispanic population is highly dynamic. Its purchasing power is growing faster than that of any other group, at twice the average national rate. In 2008 the US Hispanics purchasing power leaped to $870 billion. In 2015 it is projected to reach $1.3 trillion. This means approximately 12 out of every 100 purchases made in the US in 2015 will be made by Spanish-speaking households.
In itself, this is hardly the news. Businesses in the US have been aware of the demands and power of the Hispanic market for a few years. As a result, companies scrambled to develop Spanish-language sales and customer support options.
Still, many businesses were missing the point that to successfully market a product to a Spanish-speaking audience, they had to market it in Spanish in the first place. Research showed that even second-generation Spanish speakers, who might even be more fluent in English than in Spanish, retained preference for Spanish-language messages.
Put it simply, it wasn’t just the parents or grandparents that preferred Spanish-language ads, but the children and grandchildren. And a Spanish-language TV network and e-commerce site present the best way to deliver marketing messages to this audience.
Current Holdings
The X-Change Corporation intends to form and develop two divisions focused on serving Hispanic markets in North America, a bilingual home shopping network and a Latino-targeted media-delivery service.
Management intends to develop and leverage relationships with existing home shopping networks to build significant Hispanic audiences that purchase merchandise on the web and through mobile devices. These relationships and the know-how of management will conserve capital that would ordinarily be required for buying, inventory warehousing management, development of an online sales infrastructure, shipping and returns, customer service, and the focus on effective merchandising and marketing. The Company's management understands and is in a position to monitor the buying preferences and behaviors of its markets--each of which has unique characteristics. The Company will develop intriguing episodic productions that feature popular Hispanic talent promoting their product lines, an approach that has been successfully implemented at other home shopping platforms such as QVC.
The Company's media-delivery network will be similar to the approach taken by video services such as Hulu® with a focus on providing popular Hispanic entertaining and informative content as streaming media to the web and mobile devices. The state of the art of video-delivery technology is sophisticated and advanced, and this business is considered a content-licensing and promotion play, where the entity's value grows with viewership. Revenue shall be derived from advertising, subscriptions, and the sale of smartphone applications. Channels will organize content on offer to the widely varying tastes of its markets and individual subscribers, ranging from romance to mystery to science fiction to drama to police procedurals. The content will be a combination of individual segments, serial productions, and motion pictures.
Management
Senior management for The X-Change Corporation include:
Haviland Wright, Ph.D., President & Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Wright is an international technology consultant and investor who served as chief development officer for Profitability of Hawaii, a Honolulu-based software development firm. In addition, he is a director of Ventura-based software company, Elixir Technologies Corporation, where he was chairman from 2003 through 2006 and managed a successful turnaround. He also serves as an Independent Director of Boston-based Compass Group of Mutual Funds, managed by MFS, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sun Life of Canada. He was a director of LCD display developer Nano Loa, Inc., based in Kanagawa, Japan, which he founded with LCD pioneer Akihiro Mochizuki. Dr. Wright was formerly chairman and CEO of LCOS (liquid crystal on silicon) display manufacturer Displaytech, Inc. He served as chief scientist and senior vice president of Interleaf, Inc., following Interleaf's acquisition of Avalanche Development Company, an SGML pioneer that he founded in Boulder, Colorado. Dr. Wright received his B.A. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in mathematics and history; his M.B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School, where his areas of concentration were accounting and systems sciences. He completed the CPA and CMA accounting certifications, has held faculty positions at the University of Colorado and the University of Denver, and has authored numerous articles for research and industry publications.
Fernando Antonio Gómez, Executive Vice President
Mr. Gómez is a senior sales and marketing executive with over twenty-five years of experience in broadcasting, cable television, and news media within the United States and international markets. His background includes strategic marketing planning and sales and affiliate relations work throughout his career with Maya Entertainment, Batanga.com, Starmedia/Wanadoo, MSN Latino, Prime Deportiva, C3D Digital, Bravo International, The Weather Channel Latin America, The Inspirational Network, Univision, and Galavision.
Board of Directors
Directors and Officers of The X-Change Corporation include:
Richard T. Steele
Mr. Steele is President and Chief Executive of Network Distribution Group, Ltd., a Cable Television, Satellite, Broadcast, Media and Internet consulting company, which assists cable television networks with their respective network distribution onto cable television systems, broadcast stations, as well as satellite, and assists start-up internet/media companies with financial planning, funding and distribution. In the past four years, Mr. Steele has become involved with a number of Spanish-language media projects, including a children's cable television network, a cable television shopping channel, a a web membership-based enterprise, and an on-line shopping venture.
Ron Vigdor, Treasurer
Mr. Vigdor is an entrepreneur and active member of his family's international trading and investment company, where he has worked from a young age. In the late 80's, Vigdor founded an ISP and long-distance calling-card company and gained telecommunications and trade-financing experience in South America and the Caribbean. Vigdor served as lead investor and founding Chariman of the Board of Fort Lauderdale-based Balize, Inc., an early-to-market social-networking venture. He has served in senior executive and directorial capacities at companies around the world. In the last several years, Vigdor has been active in several companies, including the Canadian e-commerce and auction processor Kyozou (www.kyozou.com), GPS vehicle locator system Skyewatch, and safe-baby-bottle manufacturer BornFree, Inc. (www.newbornfree.com). Vigdor is a US citizen, married with children and living in Boca Raton, Florida.
Industry News
Biz Report - Hispanic-specific marketing found lacking
Hispanic spending power in the U.S. will have a major impact on products and services in the next five years, and most marketers acknowledge that, yet only half are marketing specifically to this demographic, found a recent report from Orci.
The Hispanic agency surveyed 9,300 senior marketers at Fortune 1000 companies via email to discover how much of their marketing, if any, was focused on the growing U.S. Latino population, estimated to exceed 50 million this year.
The results reflect a "head in the sand" approach by many marketers because, despite an acknowledgement of future culture shifts, only half specifically target the Hispanic demographic.
Even though significant numbers of marketers believe that Americans' taste in food (89%), fashion and beauty (87%), entertainment (82%) and even technology and communications (78%) will be impacted by the growing Hispanic population, over 80% of marketers have no plans to begin or increase efforts in this arena in the coming year.
"For the last 30 years a minority of companies that have been smart enough to take advantage of engaging Hispanic consumers have seen their efforts make a difference to their bottom-line. Now more than ever, businesses need to think about how to tap into the opportunity the Hispanic market presents," said Hector Orcí, co-founder and chairman of the agency.
Orci's survey also revealed that marketers could do more to engage Hispanics via social media. While 20% do have an Hispanic-specific social media strategy in place, 80% of the Hispanic population are using social media so there's huge scope for opportunity.
"Hispanics are tech savvy, young trend setters with incredible spending power," Orcí said. "Companies that recognize the potential of the market by effectively engaging them will see a return on their investment."
X-Change Corp. recently announced an adjustment to their strategic corporate direction and brought on new management and new board members. The result has been a huge surge in volume and stock price appreciation over the past few weeks.
As you can see from the chart below XCHC's price has gone from around $.01 at the end of February and hit $.04 today for a 300% rise in the last two week. Also you can see that there has been a surge in upside trading volume brought on as a result of the announcements from the company. Investors are starting to get the word that XCHC represents a great trading opportunity for future growth with their new focus on the fast growing Hispanic market.
As you can also see, the MACD and Stochastic indicators are in a strong bullish uptrend right now and we think they will stay that way as we are expecting more positive news coming from the company as they move forward.
XCHC has blown through the 13 and 50 day moving averages and the gap does not seem to be narrowing at this time indicating that there is still more steam left in this engine.
Do your homework on XCHC and read all their recent press releases and keep you eyes pealed for more XCHC news coming out as more positive news should keep their momentum going.
