LivingSocial and Scoopon Squabble over Who’s Leading the Industry

In a press release out just today LivingSocial Australia says that the latest Telsyte report on the daily deals industry reveals that LivingSocial is the leader for the second quarter in a row, selling one out of every four vouchers in 2011. The report ranked LivingSocial as number one, followed by Groupon and then Scoopon.

But oddly, in a report released just days before, the headline reads “Telsyte names Scoopon leading group buying site for 2011”.

A new research report into the Australian Group Buying market, released today by independent analyst house Telsyte, reveals that locally owned and operated Scoopon, part of the CatchOfTheDay e-commerce group, has for the second year running outperformed multinational players LivingSocial and Groupon, to take out overall market leadership for 2011.

These claims did not go unnoticed by Colin Fabig, CEO of LivingSocial Australia and New Zealand who said, “Claims that Scoopon are leading the industry are misleading and unrepresentative of the current market. According to Telsyte Scoopon has not been the top daily deal site for the last two quarters.”

So how it is that Scoopon can make such claims? Possibly it’s because Gabby Leibovich doesn’t seem to recognize outsiders as part of the equation.

“It’s a true David versus Goliath battle. The international entrants have come in and exerted their weight with massive spend on marketing campaigns and recruited an army of hundreds to try and buy their way into the Australian market,” says Leibovich.

In an earlier comment Leibovich showed his disdain for those “international entrants” specifically U.S.-based sites like LivingSocial and Groupon that want to do business in Australia saying they were “just stupid kids with a rich parent running the business”.

As our own Stephanie Taylor so aptly put it, “Wow!”  It sounds like Leibovich may still be harboring a grudge over giving Groupon back their name, even if it was supposedly voluntary.

So who is the winner anyway? Grant Arnott of Power Retail may have the best answer when he basically describes it as a draw of the hat. On any given day and depending on who you’re talking to, you’re likely to get a different answer. And under no circumstances should you ever take that answer without a grain of salt.

Just move over and hand me the popcorn. It’s going to be an interesting year.