Will China be the next Silicon Valley? Being an occasional traveler to China, I have always been awed by the speed of economic development in such a vast country. The online channel has develop at such a pace that China is currently home to around 253 million Internet users and in terms of unique visitors, it is the largest Internet market on earth – representing 18% of the world’s online population. The size of the Internet population is large enough to be self-sustainable with its own modus operandi and business models.
In order to be successful in China, business model will have to take into considerations language, infrastructure, consumer behavior as well as legal and political system (which tend to be very different from the “west”). Thus new and innovative model will need to be formed to adapt to the online/offline structure in China.
To date, many of the online initiatives have been an adaptation of the business models in the US and UK. The following are some of the more prominent online initiatives from China.
- Alibaba – Largest online B2B market place. Alibaba turns 1o this year as well and announced that it aims to create 100 million jobs, employ 10 million people – really exciting isn’t it (click here for more details on that)
- AliPay – Subsidary of Alibaba, providing payment services in China
- ChinaUnionPay – Payment service provider in China that is integrated to the China banking system. They are portray as the “Visa / MasterCard” of China.
- Baidu – The dominant search engine in China with over 65%
- CTrip – The largest and most successful online travel agency in China
- Kaixin001 – Dub as the “Facebook” of China. Very similar to Facebook model, Kaixin001 is the biggest social network sites in China. There are many more of such sites in China that basically emulate the Facebook model.
Just few weeks back, we saw that news that Kai-fu Lee quits Google China to start his own venture (Innovation Works) – to fund Chinese technology start-ups : a platform where young Chinese can get “angel funding” to start their enterprises. According to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, Lee was expected to establish an investment firm with about 800 million yuan ($117.1 million) in funds to help technology start-ups grow in mainland China.
It will really be interesting to know how this new venture will pan out in China and whether it will fuel new business model / products originating from China – only time will tell, but it will definitely be exciting times ahead in China.
A very nice post!But the problem is How to do in detail.
In fact.Only Chinese know.
Having lived in China for nearly 10 years, I have had the good fortune to watch policy and attitudes change to technology. Beyond the typical ideas of what we in the West see as drivers of growth, we must also recognize the sheer volume being poured in by the government to create the centers of innovation. Have a look at Dalian, Xian, and Chengdu Science Parks, and now the newest project on the street, XiXi Sci-Tech Island in Hangzhou (www.xs-ti.gov.cn), where the government has already and will continue to invest billions of dollars into the infrastructure and incoming companies to build the newest technologies. Please also notice these technology development zones are not located in the familiar cities recognized in the West, but rather in China’s rapidly growing Tier-Two cities that provide great access to human resources, world-class infrastructure, and governments focused on dynamic growth.
[...] Phua Categorized Under: Online Trends, Start-up Trends No Commented Few weeks ago, I wrote on China being the next Silicon Valley and the potential of new business models being incubated that is specific to the Chinese market [...]