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Journalist China
Business news from China By Doug Young.
Doug Young, journalist, has lived and worked in China for 20 years, much of that as a journalist, writing about publicly listed Chinese companies.
He is based in Shanghai where, in addition to his role as editor of Young’s China Business Blog, he teaches financial journalism at Fudan University, one of China’s top journalism programs.
He contributes regularly to a wide range of publications in both China and the west, including Forbes, CNN, Seeking Alpha and Reuters, as well as Asia-based publications including the South China Morning Post, Global Times, Shanghai Daily and Shanghai Observer
The following is Part 3 in a multi-part series about the rise of WeChat, the popular mobile instant messaging service owned by Tencent.
WeChat thrives on self-made media
By Lanie Nie
While many popular WeChat subscription accounts are still affiliated with established organizations, the social media upstart has also given rise to a new generation of “self-media”. This new group of publishers comes as a welcome development in the Chinese media space, comprising independent professionals from sectors like tech, finance, fashion, media and education who have seized the opportunity to broadcast their know-how and build online audience networks of their own.
Without some expert “gatekeepers” from traditional hierarchical publication systems standing in their way, this new group of voices on WeChat have become a celebration of grass-root content creators. Articles from these new publishers can be easily found online, and members of this group are gaining personal influence among readers, listeners and viewers on WeChat who want to hear their latest views.
US software giant Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the subject of 2 major news stories today, casting a spotlight on a pair of very different trends involving e-commerce and foreign companies in China. The first news bit has the world’s largest software company formally launching sales of its Xbox gaming console in China through a tie-up with JD.com (Nasdaq: JD), spotlighting the rapid rise of China’s second largest e-commerce company following its own tie-up with Internet giant Tencent (HKEx: 700) earlier this year. The second news bit looks more ominous, with word that Microsoft is being probed by one of China’s anti-trust regulators. Read Full Post…
Earlier reports of e-commerce leader Alibaba’s strong political ties appear to be overstated, following word that archrival Tencent (HKEx: 700) has become the first of China’s major Internet firms to win a highly sought banking license. Both companies had been aggressively expanding into financial services over the past year, though each was reliant on partnerships with other companies that already had licenses to offer services in the highly regulated sector dominated by big state-run companies. But now Tencent will be able to offer many of those services on its own, following this ground-breaking award of a license from the nation’s banking regulator. Read Full Post…
PC giant Lenovo (HKEx: 992) has never been a company to sit still for very long, which is both a positive and negative trait, as it announces yet another new foray into the smart devices sector. The company’s inability to be satisfied with the status quo has helped propel it to the world’s top PC maker through a series of acquisitions over the last few years, making it one of China’s best known global brands. But that same inability to focus also means Lenovo is constantly venturing into new areas, both for products and geographies. Some of those look good, but many often lead to headaches and disappointment. Read Full Post…
The following is Part 2 in a multi-part series about the rise of WeChat, the popular mobile instant messaging service owned by Tencent.
By Lanie Nie
Wechat finds tipping point with new functions
If WeChat’s story can be divided into two parts, the big dividing point would be the launch of its 5.0 version on August 5, 2013. Before that, users of the popular mobile chatting app were mainly focused on fancy gimmicks like “shake“, “people nearby” and “drift bottle” that help users make contact with a few strangers. The hyperactive “moments” feature is also very popular, allowing users to share photos, status updates, links and locations with friends; and so were “official accounts” that enabled business owners, media outlets and even individuals to push out messages and articles to their followers.
But after the launch of WeChat 5.0, people began to wonder if the real ambition of this chatty app might go beyond its dominant role as a center for Chinese socializing on mobile. With a newly introduced mobile payment solution and an enhanced “scan” function that is no longer restricted to QR codes but also applicable to bar codes, book covers, street views and even basic English to Chinese translation, WeChat showed a strong interest in bringing out the next generation of shoppers in its post-5.0 era. Read Full Post…
After an embarrassing recent gaffe that saw him ridiculed by fellow smartphone executives, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun was back in the spotlight this week with the launch of his company’s fourth-generation phone aimed at mid-end users. The company managed to get the usual widespread media coverage for the launch of its Mi 4, which it hopes will give it a sales boost necessary to meet an aggressive growth target for this year. But that said, I do sense that media and consumers are starting to tire of the company’s relentless hype and marketing. That could ultimately hurt its growth prospects, especially as China’s mid-range smartphone market becomes flooded with similar products from other domestic manufacturers. Read Full Post…
Note: Today marks the start of a series of guest posts on the rise of WeChat, China’s wildly popular mobile messaging giant that now boasts more than 600 million users. The series by freelance writer Lanie Nie will run on alternating days over the next 2 weeks.
By Lanie Nie
Chronicling WeChat’s rapid rise
If you recently traveled by bus or subway in a big Chinese city, you probably noticed one thing immediately — nearly everyone was fixated on the small screens of their smartphone handsets, no matter how crowded the place or how long the journey. At the center of that obsession is the mobile messaging app called WeChat or Weixin in Chinese, which is owned by Chinese Internet giant Tencent (HKEx: 700) and is similar to services like WhatsApp, Kakao Talk and Line.
WeChat might share the same starting point with these popular services, but it has already been telling another story in its home market. With a claimed domestic user-base of more than 600 million, the native mobile app for average Chinese smartphone owners has become a village square of friend updates and subscription feeds, an online storefront for money market fund products as well as a portal into a taxi ride, a group-buying deal and a movie ticket reservation. It’s also an urban guide and offers business review services and a catalog of top smartphone games, which makes it fair to say the world is your WeChat. Read Full Post…
Beijing’s crackdown on excessive spending by officials has claimed one of its first victims in the media sector, with word that leading independent broadcaster Phoenix Satellite TV’s (HKEx: 2008) profits tumbled in the first half of the year due to flagging revenue from luxury goods advertisers. The news isn’t all that surprising, since Beijing’s crackdown has been going on for more than a year now. Now we’ll have wait and see how long the slowdown lasts, whether it intensifies, and who else is most vulnerable. Read Full Post…
China Telecom (HKEx: 728; NYSE: CHA) could quickly regain the growth momentum it lost in the first half of this year, with word that the smallest of the nation’s 3 mobile carriers has already launched 4G service just weeks after getting a license for the business. At the same time, media are reporting that both China Telecom and larger rival China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) are preparing to shutter their airport VIP lounges, in a move that was long overdue as each faces pressure to cut marketing costs. The pair of developments show that China Telecom should soon return to positive subscriber growth, after posting net losses in the first half of this year as it waited for a 4G license. Read Full Post…
Smartphone maker Xiaomi’s co-founder Lei Jun is a marketing master, but his lightweight status as a technology expert landed him in the middle of an embarrassing gaffe in the microblogging realm over the past week. I normally would sympathize with someone caught up in such a gaffe, as such mistakes are usually harmless even if they’re somewhat embarrassing. But in this case I don’t feel too much sympathy for Lei, who is such a tireless promoter for his company that this kind of stumble was almost inevitable.
Meantime, the number “2” seems to be a magic one for leading search engine Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), which made a rare appearance in the microblogging realm to trumpet the formal launch of its new search service in Brazil — its second major foray outside China after a dismal first effort in Japan. In this case, Baidu isn’t really trumpeting the “2” element of its Brazilian story, even though it took more than 2 years for the launch since reports first emerged of its plans for the site. Read Full Post…
A year after it shook up China’s stodgy banking sector with the launch of its Yu’ebao savings product, e-commerce leader Alibaba looks set to give the market another shot of needed innovation in a new tie-up with 7 major banks. This time the aim is to promote lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a focus on manufacturers and especially exporters. Such companies often have difficulty getting loans from traditional banks for reasons I’ll explain shortly. Thus this new partnership aims to use Alibaba’s mountains of financial data on these smaller companies to help the banks better understand underserved SMEs that are a critical player in China’s economy. Read Full Post…
