Observers got alerted when internet giant Tencent said it wanted to take search engine Sogou private, even tough Soguo is smaller than market leader Baidu. Marketing specialist Ashley Dudarenok explains to KR-Asia why the move makes sense, “Sogou lacks Baidu’s larger market share but possesses better search technology and algorithms, allowing for better user experience,” she says.Read More →
Chinese internet users have been voicing loud opposition against the possible deal by Bytedance to sell Tiktok to Microsoft, as the company might be hit by a ban by US President Donald Trump. But the verdict by startups and investors in China has been milder, says Shanghai-based VC William Bao Bean to Techcrunch.Read More →
Donald Trump’s plan to ban Tiktok from the US is straight-up Sinophobia, says former Baidu communications director Kaiser Kuo to Slate. Most successful apps in China will not make a decent following among consumers in the rest of the world, he argues, just because they are too much adjusted to China’s internet rules and customs, he adds.Read More →
India has been one of the hotspots of investments from China, but that might end now the hostilities between both countries increase, says business analyst Shaun Rein to AP. Chinese apps have already been banned by the Indian government, and startups seem to be next. Anti-Chinese feelings among consumers might be putting Chinese investors also off.Read More →
Many industries have to rethink the way their business and business models are organized when they resume action as the coronavirus crisis subsides. The travel industry is one of them, says Shanghai-based VC-veteran William Bao Bean, at WebInTravel. “Travel needed to solve a very big problem – high customer acquisition costs – and he said it needed a new model in which everyone wins, and not like now “where everyone loses but the platform”.Read More →
If China is on your strategic agenda, 2020 is the best time to enter this tough market, says marketing guru Ashley Dudarenok at her videoblog. It is never going to be cheaper and more strategic if you are planning anyway to enter the China market.Read More →
The European Union needs to cooperate with China, argues Harvard scholar Shirley Ze Yu at Bloomberg. While the EU is contracting because of the coronavirus pandemic, China is still showing positive predictions, although at a lower level than in the past. China is eager to expand it’s Belt&Road Initiative, and Europe can make good use of it, she tells.Read More →
Chinese listings at US stock markets got recently under fire. Former US assistant trade representative Harry Broadman looks with some amazement at this market at the International Finance Law Review (IFLR). “After decades of working in China intensively on financial accounting, there is not a single state-owned enterprise I’ve worked on that I can think of that abided by international accounting standards,” Broadman says.Read More →
China’s government has been trying to phase out shadow banking as a risky form of lending money. But now the country’s economy is hit by a trade war, COVID-19 and other mischiefs, shadow banking might make a return, says financial analyst Sara Hsu at the East Asia Forum.Read More →
China is taking over the US, and the US are among the least competitive countries in the world, says super-investor Jim Rogers on SBTV.Read More →
While the rest of the world is firmly into a lockdown, China is slowly getting back to normal. That is only one of the reasons why the country is leading the way after the coronavirus crisis, says William Bao Bean, partner, SOSV Capital and Managing Director, Chinaccelerator from Shanghai to Webintravel in a podcast.Read More →
LSE-scholar Shirley Ze Yu discusses China president Xi Jinping’s Eurasian ambitions at the Belt&Road 2.0 Initiative for the Royal Society of Asian Affairs in London, including Huawei, 5G and the digital expansion of the country. She is currently writing a book on hardware giant Huawei.Read More →