Investors bored with Angry Birds can now find Brazilian mining giant Vale’s 20F annual report in the Apple app store.
In early January Vale became one of the first South American companies to make IR communications available to iPad users.
Annual report apps are still considered cutting-edge, with European companies such as Zurich Financial Services, Siemens and Pernod Ricard launching them well ahead of their American counterparts.
Roberto Castello Branco, director of investor relations at Vale, says he has shied away from Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media, which he believes work best for consumer-oriented businesses.
Launching an app is different, however, because it lets investors and other interested parties get detailed company information in a user-friendly way.
Castello Branco says Vale will also offer its sustainability report and press releases to iPad users through separate apps in the not-too-distant future.
Easy access to information
‘Our app makes it much easier for analysts, investors and anyone else who wants to keep up with information about our company to do so,’ says Patricia Malavez, Vale’s digital media manager.
She notes that iPad users can mark pages or highlight passages of particular interest. In addition, they can open up a box within a document and jot down their own private notes, updating information or adding observations.
Malavez explains that the app took two to three months to develop and is part of a larger library of apps the company will eventually produce. Vale plans to debut similar apps for iPhones and BlackBerrys later this year.
‘We’re focusing on the idea that people are not sitting at their computers anymore. They’re traveling between places,’ says Malavez.
‘We want to make Vale’s information mobile so it’s available for people five minutes before they go into a meeting. After all, that’s when they really need to know our latest numbers.’
