Remark Holdings, Inc. and subsidiaries, which include its consolidated variable-interest
entities (“VIEs”), are primarily technology-focused. Our KanKan
social media data intelligence platform serves as the basis for our development
and deployment of artificial-intelligence-based (“AI-based”) solutions
for businesses in many industries and geographies. We also own and operate digital
media properties across multiple verticals, such as travel and entertainment
(Vegas.com) and young adult lifestyle, that deliver relevant, dynamic content
that attracts and engages users on a global scale. Our U.S. operations are headquartered
in Las Vegas, Nevada, with additional operations in Los Angeles, California,
and our China operations are headquartered in Chengdu, China with additional
operations in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou. Our common stock, par value $0.001
per share, is listed on the NASDAQ Capital Market under the ticker symbol MARK.
We currently earn a majority of our revenue from sales of various travel and
entertainment products (including lodging, air travel, show tickets and tours)
booked through our travel and entertainment segment, consisting of Vegas.com
and its related websites (including LasVegas.com), mobile applications and retail
locations.
We also recognize revenue from the following sources:
sales of financial-technology (“FinTech”) products and services
from our KanKan business
sales of AI-based products and services from our KanKan business
various advertising mechanisms associated with our websites
Excluding general and administrative expense, the primary costs we incur to
earn the revenue described above include:
credit card fees
costs related to providing tours, such as permits, fees, fuel, vehicle leases
and vehicle repair
software and website development costs, including licensing costs for third-party
software
data acquisition and customer acquisition costs
costs associated with marketing our brands
costs associated with developing and producing the content on our websites and
the content we provide to third parties
Travel and Entertainment
Vegas.com comprises our travel and entertainment business. We believe that
Vegas.com is the premiere online booking service for all of the exciting travel
and entertainment opportunities related to Las Vegas and the immediately-surrounding
areas. Vegas.com offers users the ability to book lodging, air travel, show
tickets and tours, and its customer service team is staffed by Las Vegas locals
who are intimately familiar with Las Vegas and the various products and services
offered through the website.
Technology and Data Intelligence
We use the KanKan name in reference to our proprietary data intelligence software
(the “DI Software”). Our DI Software uses proprietary data crawlers
to collect publicly-available consumer data from most major social media platforms
around the world, and other sources of consumer data worldwide. We have also
entered into online and offline data partnerships with providers such as Alibaba
and Tencent who provide us with data regarding shopping habits, eating habits
and other types of consumer data that supplement the massive amounts of data
that our DI Software collects.
The data collected by the DI Software primarily serve as the basis for our
development and deployment of AI-based solutions for businesses in many industries
and geographies. We have developed KanKan SmartEyes, a collection of software
programs that we can configure to perform facial, gesture, and object recognition
(or all or any combination of those functions) on video streams. We seek to
deploy KanKan SmartEyes primarily in public safety, food safety, retail and
other industries (e.g., convenience stores, fast food restaurants, and retail
stores) where it can be used, among other purposes, to identify rules violations
that are then forwarded to the client (e.g., law enforcement or food safety
inspectors) for follow up. We also developed KanKan Media Box, a software program
that analyzes video, automatically recognizes and tags persons and objects in
the video, and then automatically performs edits based on the tagged items.
Our ability to “train” our DI Software to discern among certain
important consumer lending metrics allows us to provide a FinTech service for
affiliates of certain major banks in China. Pursuant to agreements with those
affiliates, we use KanKan’s DI Software to screen potential loan candidates
for short-term loans to identify high-quality loan candidates for such banks
and lending institutions.