Question: What do you get when you put the world’s biggest smokers in the world’s most polluted cities – and then wait for +20 years? Answer: You get approximately 20M super-smoking Chinese men. A unique population that has likely inhaled more carcinogens than any other human beings alive. And as they are almost all men, […]
In Part 1 (article here), I wrote about how both Carlsberg and Danone encountered setbacks in China. And then how Carlsberg, in particular, came back and succeeded. In this article, I have two more examples of “what to do when things go wrong in China”. This time in automotive. I think the story of Ford […]
Hospitals are an exception to the China success story. The private ones are still mostly small and frequently distrusted. The public ones are more trusted but can often be like time traveling back to 1990. While more trusted in terms of actual care, they are operationally frustrating for patients and financially difficult for doctors and […]
In the past year, SF Express, STO, YTO, and the other China express delivery giants have all hit the accelerator. Faced with mounting competitive threats, express delivery in the PRC has morphed into an arms race in capabilities and capital. In Part 1, I explained what I think is behind the recent acceleration. In this […]
AB-InBev has closed their $104B mega-acquisition of SABMiller. As part of this, they agreed to sell SAB’s 49% stake in Snow beer . This was a preemptive move to get Chinese regulatory approval. As a result, quasi-SOE CR Snow will now become 100% state-owned (by China Resources Enterprise). This is a real shame. Because lost […]
There are approximately 200M Chinese between 15 and 24 years of age. These are the millennials everyone is talking about. They are about 15% of the population and they are changing pretty much everything in consumer China. Probably the defining aspect of this group is that they have, by and large, been raised in abundance. […]
This spring, the video of bloodied David Dao being dragged down the aisle of a United Airlines flight went global. It became news everywhere but it was the reaction in China that was probably the most surprising for United Airlines. There are lots of opinions as to why the Chinese reaction was so strong – […]
Bike-sharing has taken off in China far faster than in any other market where it’s been offered. This new model with unexpected and shocking popularity has attracted lots of investment capital and media coverage. The attention has also raised questions about potentially razor-thin margins, wide-spread bike vandalism and theft, and government regulation. Hype, scrutiny and […]
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud recently had a high profile meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Saudi Arabia is aggressively seeking foreign investment to diversify its economy away from oil. So the relationship with China is a high priority for the country. The Xi-Salman meeting produced the usual photos and […]
I eat at Pizza Hut in Beijing all the time. Partly because it’s close to campus and partly because the brutality of Chinese restaurant competition is fun to watch. Chinese restaurants are developing economy hyper-competition. They fight for the high-traffic and high-visibility locations. They fight for good managers. They try to localize to China and […]