Microsoft promotes Adam Anger to GM in Greater China

Anger (pictured) has spent more than 15 years with Microsoft in different roles across several geographies.  Most recently, he served as the head of the Windows business group for the Greater China region. Prior to that role, he was senior director of Microsoft Hong Kong’s business and marketing organisation.

As the new general manager, Anger is responsible for Microsoft’s consumer online business for the region, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.  He leads a team focused on marketing these services to consumers and growing the digital advertising revenue across Microsoft’s online advertising properties including MSN, Windows Live, Xbox Live, Bing, and mobile.

He will work closely with Anderson Liu, general manager of MSN China, and Leslie Chu, country manager of Microsoft Advertising and Online, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Anger says MSN (China) has been in operation in for more than six years and is well recognised and used by valuable audience segments. He added that Microsoftwas continually innovating in search and mobile and expanding their communications capabilities through the recent acquisition of Skype.

According to the MSN users’ spending power survey, provided by Nielsen in July, 2011, MSN China users tend to have a higher income, social status and purchasing power. They are also among the most active in key verticals including, auto, luxury and consumer gadgets. 

Microsoft has launched self-owned channels on msn.com.cn and built other digital content partnerships in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea and now Indonesia, and global partnerships with Nokia, LinkedIn, Facebook and Yahoo!.

Anger acknowledged that the Greater China region was certainly not immune to the global economic uncertainty in the last few years.  However, according to iResearch, August 2011, China continues to be an area of opportunity with an economic growth of 9.1 per cent last quarter and digital advertising increasing at 19.4 per cent year-on-year.

“We expect that consumers will continue to spend more time online, and will continue to focus on providing innovative advertising solutions that help advertisers tell their stories to audiences across the region,” he said.

Reported last July, Baidu partners with Microsoft for English search in China, while globally Microsoft has appointed Chris Capossela as its new global marketing chief and put him in charge of its consumer channels business earlier this year.