A recent post on Zhihu, the Quora-like Chinese platform known for its elitist user base, asks: “Why is Kwai so annoying?” Kwai, or Kuaishou (快手) in Chinese, is a short-video social platform dubbed “the app for small-town Chinese” with 150 million monthly active users (MAU), making it one of the top apps of its breed. “It’s probably the […]
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How Tencent’s medical ecosystem is shaping the future of China’s healthcare
Here’s what used to happen when you get sick in China: You go to a public hospital to make an appointment, known as guahao (挂号). If the hospital is busy, which it usually is, you could be waiting in line for half a day. After guahao, you need to pay the consultation fee in another […]
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Alipay vs WeChat: Challenges and strategies of two payment giants going global
Cash has taken hundreds of years to establish its status as a common medium for trade, but it is quickly turning obsolete across China. Replacing it, the ubiquitous QR code-based mobile payment solutions operated by internet giants like Alibaba and Tencent. From flagship stores of top-notch luxury brands to street butcher shops, payment through third-party […]
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One year on, Apple Pay finding little traction in the Middle Kingdom
After a slow start, Apple Pay is now dominating its home country, the United States. Data from Boston Retail Partners shows that Apple Pay is now accepted by 36 percent of merchants in the United States, becoming the most popular mobile payment method in the nation. However, it’s only recording lukewarm or even cold reception […]
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Exclusive: The ONE TENCENT plan—Q&A with Steven Chang, corporate VP of Tencent
China’s internet giant Tencent announced their “ONE TENCENT” plan yesterday at their 10th MIND conference on September 12th at the Shanghai World Expo Center. Celebrating the 10th year of their MIND conference, Tencent puts forward “ONE TENCENT” to integrate content, data, and technology. This new concept aims to benefit advertisers to best make use of […]
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Taiwan Turnaround: Going Global
In part 2 of the Taiwan Turnaround series looking at how Taiwan’s internet tech scene is catching up, TechNode talks to VCs, accelerators, and entrepreneurs about how they are helping Taiwan startups to go global. Next, in the series, we check in with some star players about the talent issue in Taiwan. Read Part 1, Part 3 and […]
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WeChat’s older sibling QQ plans to stay forever young
WeChat may be the default app for almost every Chinese person, but not long ago its older sibling, QQ, had a similarly formidable position. For years, QQ had been the biggest social networking app in China. It wasn’t until Q1 2017 that WeChat, growing at 23% YoY, surpassed QQ for the first time to take the crown with 938 million […]
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Baidu launches their open platform for autonomous cars–and we got to test it
Baidu has launched an autonomous driving ecosystem with 50 partners at its first AI developers conference in Beijing. At its heart is the US-developed code for controlling the vehicles, but the scope of Apollo 1.0 is to create an entire ecosystem encompassing research universities, components makers such as NVIDIA, navigation developers such as TomTom, and […]
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Virtuos—the biggest China-based gaming company you’ve never heard of
Intergalactic visual effects helped the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens to impress audiences worldwide. What you may not know is that the movie team at Virtuos, a gaming company with studios in Shanghai, Chengdu, and Xi’an, played a part in generating the visuals of Star Wars as well as other several other blockbuster movies and […]
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Earliest Tesla Fatality Yet? Autopilot Blamed For Chinese Man’s Death
Footage revealed on Wednesday by Chinese state media revealed what may be the earliest ever fatality in a Tesla car using the autopilot function. A dashcam video recorded the Model S slamming full speed into the back of a road sweeping vehicle on an expressway 450 kilometers south of Beijing. The collision occurred on January 20th this year, […]
