Heytea started in 2012 as a premium tea brand, but it has since become entangled in the China tea wars, following a trend to go cheap. Consumer experts Ashley Dudarenok and Arnold Ma are two of a range of experts figuring out whether Heytea can survive in Campaign Asia. will international growth offset China’s quality challenges?Read More →
Returns on China’s stock markets have been great, but that reflects only marginally on the consumer market, warns Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein at CNBC. Only six percent of Chinese citizens hold equity, unlike, for example, the US, he says. 90 Percent is still trading down and not spending more on luxury goods, he adds.Read More →
Hong Kong is economically fast integrating with the rest of the Greater Bay Area (GBA). Hong Kong-based strategy expert Ashley Dudarenok looks at the challenges and opportunities at the GBA in an overview at the Macao News.Read More →
The EU still remove early 2026 the €150 de-minimis threshold, with the intention to stop cheap imports from Temu, Shein and Aliexpress from entering the EU untaxed. Björn Ognibeni, co-founder of ChinaBriefs, explains why the plan is EU-propaganda that will not stop cheap products from China, he tells at Let’s talk Marketplace.Read More →
Most traditional Hollywood film releases fail in China, but Zootopia shows exceptional success. Branding expert Ashley Dudarenok explains in the Jing Daily why this Disney release has been an unprecedented success.Read More →
Leading China economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®, looks at what is known about the upcoming 15th 5-year plan, bound to be approved by the National People’s Congress in March 2026. Most of the known information suggests no major changes, with an ongoing focus on manufacturing rather than consumption, as in the past, he tells Keith Yap in the Front Row Podcast.Read More →
For years, the growth of AI was built on scaling up its GPUs, but innovation expert Alvin Wang Graylin, author of Our Next Reality: Preparing for the AI-powered Metaverse, sees now a move to more collaboration. Nvidia is not the only winner anymore, as competition is growing and AI models can develop through more experience and need less capacity to grow, as China’s Deepseek proved earlier this year, he says at the Big Bang Future Lab.Read More →
Alvin Wang Graylin, author of Our Next Reality: Preparing for the AI-powered Metaverse, explains why there is no AI race any country can win. He discusses at the Thinkers Forum why the AI bubble everybody is talking about is not the right one.Read More →
L’Oreal bought this week a second Chinese cosmetic company to strengthen its market position in China, a strategy becoming more common among foreign brands, says branding expert Ben Cavender to Reuters. Fierce domestic competition and a sluggish consumer market are the basis of this change of strategy.Read More →
TikTok, Temu, and Shein are better in branding than most Western brands, argues branding expert Björn Ognibeni on his weblog. The result of this miscalculation is evident in performance differences: While many Asian platforms boast strong user retention and high time spent on site, Western providers are struggling with declining conversion rates and rising acquisition costs.Read More →
Sharon Gai, author of Ecommerce Reimagined: Retail and Ecommerce in China, started her career in Alibaba’s early days and now watches the e-commerce evolution in both China and the US. She discusses her career with Grace Shao, touching on AI, branding, and innovation.Read More →
Starbucks sold 60 percent of its China business earlier this week, hoping that local input could help its operation. But Shanghai-based business analyst Ben Cavender sees that the US company still has major difficulties in cracking the Chinese market, he writes at WHTC.com.Read More →