BNN Technology signs three-year deal with Zhejiang Xinhua

AIM-listed Chinese technology, content and services company BNN Technology has signed a three-year cooperation agreement with Zhejiang Xinhua to create a student services platform in China encompassing recruitment, financial services and funding for student innovation and enterprise.

The partnership with Zhejiang Xinhua will offer student recruitment services for both full-time and part-time jobs, access to crowdfunding, venture capital or angel funding for student innovation and business plans, micro lending for purchases of mobile phones, laptops, tablets and other items relevant to students and a large platform for B2C sales for the group's existing and future product ranges, such as mobile phone top ups, mobile data, petrol card top ups and other services.

Zhejiang Xinhua, the provincial office of the Xinhua News Agency, will be responsible for organising media channel resources on which to launch the student platform, including the Xinhua News Agency mobile app and local government mobile app. It will also coordinate relationships between universities and colleges, local government business management departments and other related parties, as well as leveraging its existing commercial relationships to support this initiative.

Chief executive Darren Mercer said: "This important development will put us at the heart of one of China's most valuable user groups, namely its 35 million students. This partnership allows our platform to benefit from new potential revenue streams in the provision of recruitment services and higher margin B2C sales of our existing products to this user group.

"Furthermore, the student platform is expected to develop into a substantial database, which we believe will be attractive to a broad range of advertisers seeking to target this sector. We are delighted to be working with some of China's largest organisations across the whole spectrum of the platform and are excited about the opportunities this will create for the group as we aim to take a substantial position in one of China's most important consumer markets."

At 0810 BST, the shares were up 3.1% to 65.75p.