In Part 1 (Why the #1 Business Solution to Coronavirus in China Is Live Streaming, Especially Taobao Live), I argued three big things are happening in digital China right now. Covid19 is radically altering the behavior of hundreds of millions of consumers (and businesses), resulting in what is being called the quarantine economy. Everyone is […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses whether Baidu can become the new AT&T in China. He considers factors such as Baidu’s strengths in search and artificial intelligence, as well as the challenges it faces from rivals like Alibaba and Tencent. For example, Baidu has a strong foothold in the Chinese search market, but it faces competition from Alibaba in the e-commerce market and Tencent in the social media market.
One of the big digital China / Asia stories of 2019-2020 has been the movement of Alipay into services. And I don’t think people have quite realized what a giant Alipay (i.e., Ant Financial) has become in China and increasingly globally. From a recent article by Technode: In what Alipay CEO Simon Hu dubbed the […]
Ctrip has forecast its revenues will drop 45-50% in first quarter. From KrAsia: Coronavirus spurs somber outlook for online travel companies Chinese major online travel agency Trip.com announced on its recently released Q4 earnings report that revenues would decrease by about 45% to 50% year-on-year (YoY) as a result of the coronavirus. Trip.com has already […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses Huawei’s financial performance in 2019, as well as the recent fraud scandal at Luckin Coffee. He argues that Huawei’s strong financial performance is a sign of its resilience, and that the Luckin Coffee scandal is a reminder of the risks of investing in Chinese tech stocks. For example, he notes that Huawei’s revenue grew by 19% in 2019, despite the US government’s restrictions on its business.
Huawei released their 2019 financial results last week. And I had the opportunity to interview Karl Song, the VP of Corporate Communications, prior so I knew what was coming (but I got embargoed). You can see that interview here. And it was fascinating. Step back and consider what a truly crazy year Huawei had. Has […]
The big news yesterday was that Luckin Coffee has disclosed an internal investigation into fabricated sales for 2019. From CNBC: Luckin Coffee disclosed Thursday that an internal investigation has found that its chief operating officer fabricated 2019 sales by about 2.2 billion yuan ($310 million).Shares cratered more than 80% in premarket trading after the release […]
A couple of topics for today. About how all business begins and ends with the customer. HeyTea and Why You Have to Thrill Your Customers. There was an interesting article last week about retail tea company HeyTea – and their rumored funding round at a price of 16B RMB ($280M). HeyTea is a popular and […]
Didi and Uber are two of the largest ride-hailing platforms in the world. However, they are facing increasing competition from other companies. In order to maintain their market share, these companies need to make it difficult for drivers to switch to other platforms. One way to do this is to create high driver switching costs.
Much of our discussion about digital platforms (Alibaba, Tencent, etc.) has been about their business models. And all their strengths, which are formidable. But I haven’t talked much about the experiences of the user groups on these platforms. What does this mean for merchants and brands selling on Alibaba? For restaurants on Meituan? For content […]