Major industries like travel, retail, automotive, telecom and others see their traditional business models changing very fast. At Shanghai-based SOSV managing director William Bao Bean helps startups to make money in new ways, based on data, and capture fast emerging markets, he tells at the Phocuswright Europe conference in Amsterdam last week. Companies should not cling to melting margins, but identify where money can be made, he argues.Read More →

Chinese surveillance technology, especially social credit systems and facial recognition, is seen by Western media as a final end to privacy. But Tencent watcher Matthew Brennan sees this innovation works differently on the ground, in China, he explains in Metro.Read More →

A short video clip of Tencent watcher Matthew Brennan went viral, as he noted facial recognition tools at China’s airports. Most reactions from outside China were rather negative, he notes at CGTN, but in China itself, facial recognition is becoming the new normal. More debate is certainly needed, he adds.Read More →

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has implicitly admitted he wants to learn from China’s WeChat. Marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok sees here a pivotal moment where a leading US platform starts to learn and copy from China’s success story, she explains in the South China Morning Post. Ashley Dudarenok: There are keyRead More →

Growing used to be easy for Tencent and other Chinese IT giants, as mobiles proliferated and consumers got used to the internet. But, as the limited growth by Tencent showed last week, the company has to diversify its key games asset into other industries and global expansion, says Tencent watcher Matthew Brennan to the South China Morning Post.Read More →

Chinese apps like Tiktok and WeChat make inroads into the US, and American companies start to copy their features. Fintech analyst Sara Hsu says fierce domestic competition makes those apps better than what we know outside China, as younger generations like their lives through apps. So, if they do well, they can cater for much more than only chitchat, se tells at CGTN.Read More →