Online media exchange sees $2 million transactions in September

The India-based trading exchange allows unused inventory to be sold online in real time. 

The launch of www.lastminuteinventory.com was announced in end 2007, but it only went commercially live in the early part of 2009.

Commenting on the development, Sandeep Goyal, chairman of Last Minute Media, said: “This is a significant milestone for us. The success has taken some time coming, but our September performance firmly underlines that “last minute inventory” is an idea whose time has come. The quantity of transactions is not huge but it is large enough to signal mass acceptance of the concept and the portal.”

“When you are evangelising an idea as disruptive, yet as simple, as Last Minute, it takes a lot of time to create a commercially viable and alive ecosystem,” added Goyal.

The portal holds inventory from over 80 media owners including  The Times of India Group, Hindustan Times, India Today Group and most of Zee’s channels, Discovery and leaders in the radio space like Radio Mirchi. The list of direct clients today exceeds 50, and continues to grow every week.

“One of the big fears for media owners was that rates on Last Minute would affect rates in long-term deals with agencies and clients. But that fear, with surging volumes on Last Minute, has been put to rest. Last Minute is a top-up opportunity and today there is common understanding that last-minute buys cannot be used to benchmark campaign rates,” said Goyal.

He added that in coming months the company will be enhancing inventory available in digital, OOH, events, mobile as well as emerging media like DTH, broadband, IPTV as well as HITS.

Last Minute Media is an independent corporate entity, promoted by Dentsu India and the Mogae Group in India with equity participation from BCCL (Times of India Group), Star TV Network and Zee Network.