Hundreds of unlocked ofo rental bicycles have been found buried under construction waste in Chengdu. The bikes were in miserable conditions with deformed tires, broken chains, and damaged seats, but were fairly new, produced as early as March this year. The incident was reported to Chengdu Wuhou Police and the police is investigating, Chinese media The […]
Posted inHeavy Hitters
Tencent rolls out A-list Hollywood producers to announce better patriotic content
Stories and characters, such as Harry Potter or Mulan, can link people from different backgrounds and across borders, build up trust and lead mankind in the right direction, says Cheng Wu, Vice President at Tencent. He believes China should contribute more to the existing pool of the influential intellectual property (IP) with Tencent’s help. Cheng […]
Posted inTurf Wars
Tencent and ByteDance founders argue on WeChat Moments about Douyin
Tencent’s CEO and chairman, Pony Ma, and founder of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming, were caught bickering today on their WeChat Moments, a function similar to Facebook’s wall. Tencent is the parent company of WeChat while ByteDance is the parent of Jinri Toutiao and Douyin (called Tik Tok overseas). Zhang Yiming shared the news that ByteDance’s short […]
Posted inThe Numbers
Huawei tops China smartphone sales for Q1 2018: Jiguang report
China’s homegrown smartphone brands are continuing to overshadow their international peers on domestic turf. Huawei has topped domestic mobile phone sales for several consecutive quarters so there is not much news there. However, the new Jiguang report shows that OPPO has been steadily gaining popularity. The top five phones in China for Q1 2017 were […]
Posted inThe Numbers
Douyin is the most downloaded app in the Apple App Store
Douyin has become the world most downloaded non-game app in the iOS App Store, according to market research company SensorTower. The short video app has been downloaded 45.8 million times from the App Store during the first three months of 2018 exceeding Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. However, Facebook is still in the lead for overall […]
Posted inUp and Comers
Social e-commerce service Sibu raises $7 million to boost mini-program project
Social e-commerce platform Sibu Group has secured a RMB 50 million ($7 million) B round from China Growth Capital. The fund will be used to boost the R&D and marketing of its mini program project dubbed 77 Seconds (77秒), a service that allows small cosmetic retailers to create mini programs for their WeChat micro stores. “Sibu […]
Posted inNews
Tencent’s photo editing app goes viral, attracts concerns over data privacy
A new photo editing feature that lets netizens create selfies looking like they’re in the last century has gone viral in China. Picture of My Past Life in Chinese (前世青年照) has collected over 80 million pictures over the past few days, boosting the app behind it, Tiantian P-Tu (天天P图), to the second most popular app […]
Posted inThe Numbers
WeChat drove nearly $33 billion in consumption in 2017
China’s most popular app WeChat is so much more than just an instant messaging app. It’s also where Chinese people order food, make doctor’s appointments, hail their taxis, and even give to charities. In addition to providing handy services to users, it opens huge opportunities for businesses, big and small. WeChat drove a total of RMB209.7 […]
Posted inViews
ZTE and corporate cultural fever in China
Editor’s note: A version of this originally appeared on Sacha Cody’s blog and was written by Sacha Cody and Betty Luo. Sacha is an Anthropologist and China Studies scholar based in Shanghai. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the Australian National University and is currently researching international Chinese enterprises. Betty Luo is a Research Analyst and […]
Posted inOn the Cusp
Ofo slows down orders from bike makers
Ofo only ordered over 80k bicycles from its manufacturing partner Shanghai Phoenix so far this year. This is far short of the anticipated 5 million bikes per year the two companies have planed one year earlier, local media is reporting. The two companies reached a 5-million-bike deal in May last year, at the peak of […]