Why do humans live in cities? And why does the urbanization rate of most countries keep increasing? Because there are lots of efficiencies when you put people and companies close together. Goods and services become cheaper and faster to distribute. Electricity, sewage, gas, and other infrastructure services become cheaper and easier to provide. And there […]
I was mulling over investing in Expedia during the beginning of the pandemic. It made sense that travel would take a hit for a couple of years. And then it would likely come back. Plus, digital marketplaces are good at scaling up and down. But I didn’t buy as I feel more comfortable with Asia […]
There was an interesting report about China ecommerce trends released by Coresight Research, which specializes in retail meets tech consulting. It’s run by Deborah Weinswig, who I’ve crossed paths with a few times in the last couple of years. I find their research to be very data-driven and generally close to my own thinking. So […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses how Meituan can compete with Alibaba in the Chinese services marketplace. He considers factors such as geographic expansion, focus on transportation or hospitality services, and ancillary opportunities such as financial services or cloud services. For example, Meituan could expand into new markets, such as Southeast Asia, or it could focus on its core strengths, such as food delivery and ride-hailing.
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 “most […]
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 creators […]
Two topics for Today’s Update / Lesson. Tencent Quarterly Results Are Awesome, Yet Again It’s almost boring how these digital giants keep putting up fantastic numbers. Numbers that any other business would dream of. Most businesses are long, hard slogs where you struggle and struggle. Margins are usually small. And growth is difficult and expensive. […]
The Chinese services market is a hotly contested space, with Meituan, Ctrip, and Alibaba all vying for market share. In this episode of Jeff’s Asia Tech Class, Jeffrey Towson discusses the factors that will determine which company wins in this space. He talks about the importance of bundling services, network effects, and switching costs.
Jeffrey Towson discusses what Ofo could have done to avoid its downfall. He argues that Ofo made a number of strategic mistakes, including burning through too much cash, expanding too quickly, and failing to innovate. Towson believes that if Ofo had taken a more conservative approach, it might still be in business today.