Jingdong (formely called 360Buy) is adding a supermarket channel to its e-commerce site, bringing more than 5,000 types of groceries, packaged foods, beverages and snacks. The good news for the customers is that they can buy a single item if they wish. Jingdong that switched to its current branding in March, is a direct challenge to Yihaodian, the country’s largest food-only specialist e-store, which is majority owned by American retailer Walmart.

Source: techinasia.com

Hugo Boss goes digital in order to promote its upcoming May 30 Shanghai fashion show: video campaign, live webcast and social media. The move proves that the brand is not only focusing its efforts on the Chinese market, but also highlights that China is an optimal location for debuting its collections on an international stage. At the same time, this is a statement that China is not only a valuable market but also a global taste-making center.

Source: jingdaily.com

Mobile  can play a valuable role in reducing the risk of "showrooming", according to a new study based on responses from 38,000 people in 43 countries and released by TNS. “The impact of digital development, mobile Internet and online shopping are coming together in a way that is posing a very real threat to traditional bricks and mortar retailers. However, there is also opportunity to mitigate that risk for brands that get their customer engagement right,” Matthew Froggatt, Chief Development Officer at TNS, said. Among those who showroom, two-thirds use their phone and experts see this as a great opportunity for brands to interact with consumers via mobile and turn browsers into buyers. More than one-fifth of smartphone owners are keen to receive mobile coupons while shopping. At the same time 13 percent% of the consumers are interested in a ‘virtual sales assistant,’ who will help answer their questions in-store about a particular product. The survey concluded that the key for brands and retailers is to find ways to make buying in-store the convenient option.

Source: retailinasia.com

Baidu announced that it has acquired PPS.tv's streaming video service for $370 million, which means that the Chinese search company is now in a position to challange market leader Youku-Tudou for a bigger share of China's web video marketplace. According to Baidu's official press release the acquisition "creates China's largest online video platform" but doesn't mention any specific numbers. PPS.tv will continue to operate as a sub-brand of iQiyi, according to the release, but current iQiyi CEO Gong Yu will also be CEO of the new PPS sub-brand. Current PPS president Xu Weifeng and CEO Zhang Hongyu will remain onboard as co-presidents. 

Source: Techinasia

Suning Commerce Group announced the results of the financial report for the first quarter of 2013: the group realized operating revenue of CNY27.201 billion, a year-on-year increase of 20.14%; meanwhile, its e-commerce business realized revenue of CNY4.499 billion, a year-on-year increase of 134%. According Suning representatives the business development strategy is clear and the focus is to realize the full integration of online and offline sectors, including organizations, products, prices, and services. In the future the company will promote its open-platform strategy and improve the variety of its branded sales units. 

 Source: iresearch.com

The chairman of security software company Qihoo 360, Zhou Hongwei, announced that he will appeal to China's Supreme People's Court after his company lost a lawsuit against Tencent regarding unfair competition, on the 25th of April. Qihoo 360 was accused of breaching good faith and equal competition practices while maliciously working against Tencent. Zhou denied the allegations and said the court ruling was unfair and an example of the court's tendency towards regional protectionism. In the past 3 years, the two companies have been engaged in a protracted legal battle with the latest verdict representing Tencent's third win against Qihoo. 
Source: wantchinatimes.com

The future looks bright for the Chinese mobile gaming market with 20 billion yuan estimated turnover by 2015. No wonder that game developers and distributors in China are searching for ways to attract more people to download gaming apps. Statistics show that more than 32 percent of the total spent by a consumer on mobile devices is for gaming purposes. The results of a survey conducted by Flurry Analytics revealed that 24 percent of the consumers are using social networking apps.And since China has established a number of online payment services, players can purchase more paid content from app stores. Young players are more likely to download paid games because they are more aware about the intellectual property and they trust the online payment services.  At the beginning of the year China overtook United States as the world's biggest market for active Android and iOS smartphones and tablets.Still analysts warned that China's mobile gaming market might not be as healthy as anticipated. The market is still highly unstable for the gaming market.
Source: chinadaily.com.cn

According to a 2013 study conducted by Epsilon, there is a growing preference among Chinese people to buy made-in-China products. Although six out of the 10 Chinese respondents endorsed foreign brands, experts revealed that local-brand supporters have grown to 43 percent from 31 percent in 2011. These trends are already visible in the Chinese fashion industry. Self-branded products from other industries, such as cars and consumer electronics, are also becoming extremely popular. More Chinese people said they would support Chinese-made cars, especially after the Diaoyu Island dispute between China and Japan. Experts believe that "it will be very hard to tell if a brand belongs to China or a foreign country in the future,"(Regina Leung, vice-president of the marketing division at Epsilon International).
Source: chinadaily.com.cn

China's online payment service have been growing rapidly in the past decade and the main players, Alipay and Tenpay had a 46.6 percent share of the payment market last year and 20.9 percent share, respectively. Alipay, the online payment arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, had a total of 800 million registered accounts by the end of April. Tencent's Tenpay announced that it counted 200 million registered users by the end of last year.Both companies have been trying to expand their business portfolio by entering a wider range of services, such as micro loans and mobile payment services.
Source: chinadaily.com.cn

According to Bloomberg, the world’s biggest online retailer is considering a more conservative valuation than what the social-networking company achieved last year.While Alibaba, based in Hangzhou, China, has said it has no timetable for an IPO, analysts are anticipating an offering this year or next. Proceeds from the IPO would be used along with additional cash to buy back stock held by Yahoo! Inc. Alibaba is already in the early stages of a Facebook-like speculative fever over its valuation. With revenue projected to increase about 59 percent this year, echoing. Facebook estimates at the time of its IPO, some analysts have said Alibaba could be valued at as much as a $100 billion -- right around the $104 billion price tag Facebook fetched in its offering.While investors may clamor to own a piece of the world’s biggest e-commerce platform, that kind of price could produce disgruntled shareholders and a legacy of ill will if the stock drops -- the same fate that befell Facebook, which went on to lose half of its market value. Investors, who have seen the most-traded U.S.-listed Chinese stocks fall 6.8 percent this year while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has rallied 13 percent to a record, also need to be comfortable with the price.
Source: Bloomberg

Alibaba.com has unveiled a new section on its website called Buyer Community which is designed to serve as a knowledge base for the members who use the B2B website to source products. Vincent Wong, head of Buyer Service and Development for Alibaba.com, announced that “this is meant to be a resource for the members who may not know exactly what products they want or who may want to understand the market better before they buy”. The mini-site’s three subsections include: Discussion Forums, Site Resources and Trade Intelligence.

Source: alizila.com

China will become the world’s largest online retail market in 2013, following years of rapid expansion according to Ministry of Commerce. It is true that online consumers are not only growing in numbers, but are also growing in sophistication and question the official news sources and advertising, preferring instead to get retail wisdom from online reviewers and social networks. A Boston consulting report revealed that more than 40% of online consumers in China post product reviews on the web, and one of the most common channels they use for this is Sina Weibo. According to a McKinsey survey, the reliance consumers place on objective online opinion is greater in China than anywhere else in the world.

Source: CKGSB Knowledge

According to a report by the US-China Business Council (USCBC), China is America’s third-largest export market in 2012 behind only Canada and Mexico.  Between 2003 and 2012, total U.S. exports to China rose 294 percent, an increase of nearly $81 billion. Over the same period, the growth rate of U.S. exports to China was nearly three times that of U.S. exports to the entire world, which increased by 111 percent. Last year, the U.S. was the fourth-largest source of Chinese imports, after the European Union, Japan, and South Korea. Forty-two states have achieved triple-digit export growth to China since 2003, and four states experienced quadruple-digit growth over the same period: Alabama, Nevada, South Carolina, and Vermont.

Source: alizila.com

According to a new report from the Ministry of Culture, China’s Internet cafes are in decline, as home broadband and mobile connections become more accessible. This is the first decrease in eight years, the country had 136,000 cyberbars nationwide as of the end of 2012, a decrease of 6.9 percent year on year. The revenue of Internet bars plummeted by 13.2 percent to 53.7 billion yuan (8.7 bln U.S. dollars), the report showed. According the same source, Internet bars employed more than 1.03 million people.

Source: chinadigitaltimes.net

China’s social media landscape is more complicated than its European equivalent since each network is always looking to „upgrade” and „evolve” and monetize faster and further than its competitors. And when it comes to reaching success through digital engagement in China this is what you should have in mind: get a precise message for a precise audience and communicate on the right platform for your business. Think global and act local. You have to be genuine and play the strenghts of your brand’s authenticity, especially in China where counterfeit goods are a real concern. Be ready to pay, all the major social networks in China have taken steps to monetize their services and offered advertising rates depending on the type and size of campaign.

Source: Clickz Asia

Tencent, China's biggest Internet company, has won its third lawsuit against Qihoo 360, a leading Chinese antivirus software developer, over the latter's unfair competition, notes chinadaily.com. Qihoo 360 was accused of breaching faithfulness as well as equal competition and was obvious in malicious competition against Tencent, according to Guangdong Provincial High People's Court ruling. The antivirus software developer was fined 5 million yuan ($802,568) as compensation to Tencent, this being the highest compensation sum that has ever been ordered in Internet competition lawsuits in China.

Source: chinadaily.com

China’s search engine giant Baidu released its Q1 2013 earning showing that a major milestone was reached as daily mobile search users counted 100 million for the first time ever. This is in addition to over 80 million collective users of its mobile apps, such as the Google Maps-beating Baidu Maps app.  In terms of numbers quarterly revenues went up 40% from the same period in 2012, that is US $961 million and operating profits went up 5.7 percent from Q1 2012 ($355.9 million).

Source: techinasia.com

Today, China counts more than 180 million broadband subscribers and the number continues to grow, according to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). Even if the growth of broadband internet is impressive, the report points out that China has actually skipped broadband and moved straight on to mobile with more than 1.1 billion mobile subscribers and over 200 million of them on 3G.

Source: techinasia.com

In the first half of 2012, China’s online luxury market was worth 13.5 billion yuan, up 58 percent year-on-year, according to statistics by China e-Business Research Center. Specialists predict that China’s online luxury market will keep growing dramatically and could be worth as much as 23.76 billion yuan by the end of 2013. iResearch states that the figure may reach 37.24 billion yuan by 2015. One of the main advantages is that online retailers are not facing the geographical restrictions that their brick-and-mortar counterparts do. On the other side, online retailer need to be patient, since getting consumers used to shopping for luxury goods online is a long process.

Source: china.org.cn

According to Baidu’s director of international communications, Kaiser Kuo, the Chinese search engine rejected as fake a press release issued on Monday that said it was to buy US social gaming company Zynga Inc. Soon after the press release was published on the website prurgent.com announcing that Baidu would offer $US 10 per share for the company, Zynga shares jumped 4 per cent in heavy premarket trading. Zynga shares eased back to $US3.24, up 1.5 per cent, in morning trade on the Nasdaq.

Source: iresearchchina.com

In 2011, Microsoft was announcing its five-year plan to provide software design and development tools worth 1,4 billion yan to 3,000 Chinese firms. Two years later, China is one of the fastest growing destinations for Microsoft’s sponsorship with 900 local firms participating the program. The number of applications designed for Microsoft's own-brand smartphone also continues to increase by 20%-30% every month, according to the company, adding that since the launch of its latest operating system Windows Phone 8, sales of such applications have risen by 45%. The number of registered Chinese developers for applications has also surpassed 60,000.

Source: wantchinatimes.com 

The latest amendment draft of the Consumer Protection Law (Law of PRC on the Protection of Consumers Right and Interest) was presented to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee for discussion. Since the law first came into operation 20 years ago (Jan1, 1994), this has been the biggest amendment for it ever.The draft that applies to online shopping, TV-shopping, Tele-shopping and mail orders, has clarified that consumers should have the right to return goods they bought online within 7 days, exceptions are for some particular products such as real-estate or fresh food which are not suitable for returning. On the other side, after receiving the returned goods, legally vendors should refund the consumers within a week.

Source: technode.com

A new report by Taobao identified 12 types of customers based on their online shopping habbits. The most discussed category is „hand-choppers” that spends 160,000 yaun per year on Taobao and usually completes three deals every two days. The largest group of online shoppers is the „night fighters” and counts 22.8 million people from Taobao’s 500 million registered users. These customers are shopping between 11 pm and 5 am. „Hoarders” is another popular category and it is represented by 1.3 million shoppers that normally purchase goods in large quantities, usually enough to last a year, for fear that their favorie products will sell out. Other notable groups include collectors, bargain hunters, window shoppers or second handers.

Source: wantchinatimes.com

According to a new report by KPMG, streaming music is as popular as social networking (72% of web users) in terms of top digital activities in metro in China. Closely behind there is downloading music, suggesting that music listening overall sees the most interest from internet users. Other activities include streaming films (67%), accessing online news (61%), streaming live TV programming (56%), playing online games (52%) and reading digital books (51%).This means there is a significant opportunity for advertisers coming into the market. eMarketer estimates that digital ad spend will reach nearly $10 billion this year. Between 2012 through 2016, the projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is expected to reach 24.4%.

Source: eMarketer

Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba Group, announced that China's biggest e-commerce service provider will work with government agencies to end sales of counterfeit goods on the company's shopping websites.The company will trace sellers supplying fake goods online and share the information with the Ministry of Public Security, General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the State Intellectual Property Office, as well as industry and commerce authorities. The authorities will then follow the information provided by Alibaba to track down those producing the counterfeits.

Source: wantchinatimes.com

Sina Weibo is continuing its monetization attempt by integrating a new module into its content stream. When a Weibo user adds a post containing link to an individual product page on Taobao, this module will be inserted right bellow that post showing related product information. Other users will be able to click and find out more details on Taobao.

Source: chinainternetwatch.com

According to iResearch, Baidu Inc announced its intent to acquire Zynga Inc., with Baidu offering to buy Zynga for $10.00 per share in cash.  Baidu’s move will enhance competition in mobile and internet gaming and its user base would be a huge boost to Zynga’s business model, considering that Baidu counts 500 million users. On the other side, Zynga who invented the entire social mobile gaming industry, really needs a win and if that comes via real people gambling real money.

Source: iresearchchina.com

Good news for the billion-plus mobile phone users in China! The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) introduced a new policy that bans telecommunication companies from texting subscribers with messages they didn’t agreed to receive or they had explicitly stated they do not want to receive. MIIT informed China’s telecom companies to upgrade their internal systems for filtering out third-part spam texts.

Source: Sina Tech 

It seems that the Chinese internet companies have a special affinity for animals when it comes to their names or their corporate mascots. In this sense the most recent example is China’s leading direct B2C e-commerce company Jingdon Mall that chose a dog as a mascot representing friendliness and loyalty. On the other corner its rival Tmall.com is represented by a cat suggesting commitment to quality and to catering to discriminating tastes. Other companies have chosen hummingbird (Xunlei), penguin (Tencent) or fox (Sohu). While some voices say that some corporate animal mascots might resemble to their companies’ founders, other explain that it’s just a cultural preference.

Source: wantchinatimes.com

Last year, the number of Sina Weibo registered users exceeded the 300 million mark at the end of February, 400 million after July and reached over 500 million by the end of 2012. According to China Internet Watch, the platform counted 4.62 million active users, up by 82% compared to the same period last year. These are some of the most popular online topics on weibo platforms in 2012:  Spring Festival transportation, London Olympic, Gangnam Style. The Weibo posts maintained a steady growth trend in 2012. It peaked during the Olympic Games, and got another new jump after November.

 Source: chinainternetwatch.com

E-banking became an important part of everyday life and it covered the largest number of users in China. In 2012, number of online bank users ranked top occupying for 7.9% share of the e-bank users, followed by ATM and telephone bank with the share of 57.5% and 28.9% respectively. According to the iResearch analysis, popularity and application of online banking is the irreversible trend along with the rapid development of Internet. Last year most frequently used function of online banking and mobile banking was adding money to online shopping account and third-party account, according the report by iResearch.

Source: iresearchchina.com

If you are wondering which are the most visible areas in China from an economic point of view, a report by the Economist Intelligent Unit revealed the Henan is the home to three of the fastest growing Chinese cities – Zhengzhou, Jiaozuo and Xinxiang. The province grew by 11.6 per cent in 2011, in part due to a huge inflow of foreign direct investment. According to a Reuters calculation based on figures provided by the Boston Consulting Group, by 2020 there will be nearly twice as many urban middle class and affluent householders in Henan than there are today in Shanghai. Chongqing, Hunan, Hebei, Anhui will also experience a boom in urban middle class and affluent households, with their numbers growing to about the size of Shanghai's currently.

Source: Reuters

Tencent, China’s largest internet company by value, is working on the development of its online gaming platform in order to commercialize its WeChat messaging service. This is the first step that the company is taking before tapping into an online-to-offline business model. At the same time, in the absence of a mature platform for developers to deploy their games in China, WeChat could develop its services without competitors. By some estimates, the platform could bring in 180 million yuan in revenue (US$29 million) per month for Tencent.

Source: wantchinatimes.com

Yahoo has announced his users that beginning August 19^th Chinese Yahoo Mail is going to be shut down and the user data will be temporarily transferred to Ali Cloud Mailbox.  Yahoo suggests that the mail history and contacts should be transferred from the Chinese Yahoo Mail before the deadline, since the data is going to be deleted and can’t be restored after August 19^th.

Source: qq.com

A new report by Alipay revealed that Chinese online shoppers who bought items overseas spent around 1514 RMB on average and the total consumption went up by 117% yoy, higher than the expansion speed of local e-commerce market, which was 64.7%. When it comes to preferences in terms of purchasing from overseas, Chinese customers bought cosmetics, infant food, clothes, health products and electronics. In terms of regions in per capita consumption Zhejiang Province, Guangdong Provinces and Shanghai are leading the top. The No.1 cross-border online shopper from Hangzhou spent 3.1 million RMB in 2012, followed by a person in Shanghai that spent 375k RMB.51% shoppers spent 101-500 RMB per order.

Source: technode.com

Last year, 242 million Chinese users made online purchase and Chinese e-commerce market saw more that 1.2 trillion RMB in transactions over the course of the year, according to new stats from China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).  81.8 % of the e-commerce users bought at least one clothing item every six months and the most common purchase were clothing items, also shoes and hats. 40.7% used a mobile device to browse e-commerce sites at least once in the past half year and 53.6% used a mobile app connected to the e-commerce platform they were browsing.

Source: techinasia.com

Chinese cosmetics e-commerce sites are launching their own brands of makeup and skincare products by building a vertical supply chain that combines outsourced production and sales through their web stores.Vendors pushing their own brands do not operate their own factories and instead outsource their production to manufacturers which are primarily based in the southern province of Guangdong. It takes less money for an e-commerce operator to launch its own brand. Most brands sold at stores need at least 30 million yuan (US$4.8 million), but online brands just need between 4 and 5 million yuan (US$646,000-$807,000).

Source: wantchinatimes.com

Taobao Mobile is going to add a new embedded service, to better connect customers and vendors on its platform, manage the channel more effectively, and adding some fun to the mobile shopping experience. Weitao users will also be able to publish their news on Mobile Taobao. The display layout of the feed page will be slightly different though for Weitao focuses more on the content itself rather than the publishers. And since Weitao is an e-commerce app, it will allows vendors to post their products with photos and demonstrations. Interested shoppers will be directed to the purchasing page by tapping the item they like.

Source: Technode

In 2012, China search engine giant Baidu accounted for 78.6% of the total search engine market, Google for 15.6%, while Sogou 3.1% , according to China search engine market quarterly data in 2012 released by EnfoDesk. Baidu’s growth tended to slow down since the second quarter of 2012, but kept its share to 78.6%. Although in the latter part of the year, Qihoo 360 entered the search engine market, however not affecting the traffic of Sogou search. 

Source: chinainternetwatch.com

At the beginning of this month, Alibaba Group's B2C e-commerce site TMall announced four new products — TMall Albums, TMall Pre-Sale, TMall Exclusive, and "Warranty Protector" (all unofficial translations). The services which had been tested from  April 8 to April 15 at its "New Style" site and are going to be promoted  as permanent services.  "TMall Albums" is intended to support the platform's apparel merchants, while "TMall Pre-Sale" is intended to support verticals such as home decoration and foods, "TMall Exclusive" targets fashion goods, and "Warranty Protector" is intended to cover 3C products.

Source: iresearchchina.com

Chinese internet giant Tencent is planning to integrate its messaging service app WeChat, that counts over 300 million users, with e-commerce. According to Norman Tam, head of Tencent's Taiwan and Hong Kong office people can interact with their friends via the service WeChat, and buy goods, pay bills at a restaurant or even complete transactions via the simple mobile app. The regional executive announced that such services will first be available in China.

Source: wantchinatimes.com

Increasing Chinese incomes and growing Internet bookings are bringing an expected 15 percent growth of China outbound travelers from 2012-2017 in Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR). Today China is the world leader for number of Internet users and smartphones sold, and web giants such as Tencent and Baidu are making inroads in the online travel market. On the other side, the Chinese travel market is a space that sees an intensifying competition between China’s online travel agencies, including Ctrip, Qunar, and eLong.

Source: iresearchchina.com

Intel and the giant Chinese search engine Baidu are joining forces in order to create a software for the mobile Internet market in China. The two companies will use an innovation lab, where developers in China will be able to access computing systems powered by Intel chips. Intel also will give Chinese developers access to software tools, with the hope that the developers will create apps that will include voice-command and facial-recognition features. The agreement signed with Baidu is an important step for strengthening its position in the Chinese market as the chip maker continues its push into the mobile space. 

Source: iresearchchina.com

Tencent president Martin Lau announced that WeChat is counting more than 40 million overseas users, out of the total user-base of over 300 million. During the Boao Forum For Asia 2013, Lau explained that the mobile internet growth is encouraging the Chinese and Asian technology companies to find their place onto the global stage. Today WeChat has over 300 million users and offices across the world to grow its user-base.

Source: techinasia.com

It’s not a secret for anyone that the download payment would help to cover the cost of music products, increase investment in helping original music making and talent scouting. But when we are talking about China it is a difficult process in changing the consumers’ mentality, designing a comercialized paid model or providing a satisfactory user experience. According to iresearchinchina.com, in China, it's imperative to make breakthroughs in technical barriers such as limited cache in the near future. A paid model would encourage creation, a clearer proceeds division model among music sites, record companies, and music makers. A standardized market environment requires also powerful legal support from the government's copyrights law. Business models that combine the mobile internet, with its convenience of service, may be a huge opportunity for the music industry.

Source: iresearchchina.com

The iconic French footwear label Christian Louboutin gets into the world of Chinese social media with the launch of official Sina Weibo, Youku and Tudou accounts. This is the first step that the brand is taking as a part of a multi-stage campaign in order to build its presence in China and to combat rampant counterfeiting. During the next months the company is planning to launch a new e-commerce site, to service countries in the APAC region, a create a simplified Chinese official website and a dedicated anti-counterfeit Stop Fake” site.

Source: jingdaily.com

The online gaming industry in China is struggling with a decline in sales and profits due to problems of acute competition, homogeneous products and a loss of subscribers. In order to avoid collapse, the leading Chinese online firms are preparing to launch new software for the mobile gaming sector, lured by the huge market potential. The massive shift towards mobile internet services, led by smartphone development and the accelerated commercialization of mobile phone games is a major source of enthusiasm for the PC game makers.

Source: wantchinatimes.com

With China the world’s second-largest e-tail market, American department store Macy’s and the largest chain warehouse store Costco, plan to enter the asian market this year by opening online storefronts. According to a report by McKinsey Global Institute China’s e-tailing could generate anywhere from $420 billion to $650 billion in sales by 2020, and the market may equal that of the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France combined today. Unlike the other countries where online shopping is largely led by few mega size B2C (business to consumer) websites, nearly 70% of China’s e-tailings are C2C (consumer to consumer).

Source: worldcrunch.com

The future looks bright for the parisian beauty giant according to Chairman&CEO Jean-Paul Agon who predicts that a potential 250 million new Chinese consumers will be using L’Oreal’s products within the next 10 to 15 years. The company believes that China will make up the largest market for the brand no later than 2015, but probably as early as 2014. Long-term visions for its China market have been part of L’Oréal’s thinking for quite a while. The company’s luxury sales there have doubled every four years for the past decade, according to Nicolas Hieronimus, the company’s luxury president.

Source: jingdaily.com

The rise of e-commerce is reshaping the retailing business in China. A report by McKinsey&Co.  showed that some 5-6% of its retail spending in China already comes from “e-tail” compared with 5% in the United States. Referring to a new report by Jones Lang LaSalle, Forbes notes that in the future, electronics shops in shopping malls will give way to retailers that are focused on dining and fun. The same report highlights that “the bottom line is that e-commerce and ‘brick and mortar’ will continue to co-exist, and e-commerce will not mean the end of the shopping mall”.

Source: Forbes

Already with a strong presence in mainland China, with 26 boutiques there, Versace will open between seven to 10 stores in the region over the course of 2013. Bloomberg notes that the company is also considering to extend e-commerce to China, along with Scandinavia and Australia.

Source: jingdaily.com 

Over the past two years the popular microblogging site Sina Weibo has seen its user numbers shoot up, thanks to a new marketing platform for companies where they could post their own ads or collaborate with existing accounts owned by celebrities. The more followers an account attracts, the more money it charges. Ads on an account boasting 400,000 fans cost 80 yuan (US$12.80) a time. According to a former Weibo marketing professional the actual charges, however, are usually 30%-40% of the reported prices. Businesses that already discovered Wibo’s marketing potential agree that more and more popular Weibo accounts are now involved heavily in advertising.

Source: wantchinatimes.com

It seems that the world's leading luxury brands have resorted to cutting-edge anti-counterfeiting technology to combat the rampant proliferation of fakes in the Chinese market: DNA-based technology which includes DNA anti-counterfeiting ink, DNA anti-counterfeiting labels, and a DNA anti-counterfeiting chips. At the same time counterfeit products have improved their tactics with similarly advanced technology, which makes even more difficult to crack down the products. Recently, Chanel introduced a coding method to control the production process for its handbags.  The codes are incorporated into a fluorescent card, which accompanies every handbag on the shelf. With China expected to become the world’s largest luxury product market by 2015, DNA anti-counterfeiting technology can have a huge potential in the Chinese market.

Source: wantchinatimes.com

Today the internet startups in China hope to sell their operations to one of the three giants in the industry: Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, the first two each earmarked 1 billion yuan (US$160 million) for acquiring stakes in other companies. Baidu, China's leading internet search provider, has spent US$350 million to acquire PPS, an online video hosting platform, because of its large number of subscribers. According to Wang Hua, founder and partner of website Chuangxing, a company that survived its first two or three years has more chances to be targeted by one of the three big firms.

Source: wantchinatimes.com

Amazon.cn and FamilyMart retail convenience stores announced their cooperation that includes launching nearly 100 pick-up sites, covering most areas in Shanghai. According to the vice president for the transportation and distribution division of Amazon.cn, the pick-up service will encure the timely delivery of products and it allows customers to pick up the goods on their own schedule. As for the payment methods customer can use credit cards or cash when picking up in FamilyMart convenience stores or on Amazon.cn.

Source: chinatechnews.com

Today China O2O market is considered a gold mine in the age of the mobile internet and the path to success is a two-way thoroughfare. Last year, this market reached 98,7 billion yuan  (approx. US$ 15.8 billion), and the industry analysts predict that this growth will be at its peak by 2015 when China O2O market is expected to quadruple to over 418 billion yuan (approx. US$67 billion). Having this in mind merchants need to shift their focus towards improving their service and their offline experience, rather than simply relying on the traditional obfuscation of information to maintain the bottom line.

Source: iresearchchina.com

"E-tailing is only one of many drivers that will contribute to China's new model for economic growth, but it is fast becoming an area in which China could lead the world in innovation rather than relying on its historical labor cost advantage," says Richard Dobbs, director of MGI. According to a report by McKinsey Global Institute, e-tail market is already having an incremental effect on private purchasing and could raise by an extra 4 to 7 percent by 2020. Being a young and wide-open market, e-tailing allows small, innovative bussinesses to gain traction very quickly. E-tailing has the potential to create a profound 'leapfrog' effect on China's broader retail industry.

Source: usa.chinadaily.com.cn

One month after the announcement that telecoms opperators might put pressure on Tescent to start charging fees for the app, China’s largest online gaming and social networking company revealed that is unlikely to happen because they already pay for Internet access. A survey showed that 71 percent of 3,000 respondents opposed paying fees for using WeChat.

Source: Reuters

With China the biggest Internet market in the world, MasterCard, the US card issuer, is trying to get a jump on growth in China by signing an agreement with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group to enhance online payments. The two parties signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on cross-border payments, acceptance, security and risk management. By using MasterPass digital service, consumers are going to pay for good online using existing cards on various gadgets.The strong mutual commitment foresees to help combat intellectual property infrigement and to provide a safe and efficient payment experience for users of AliExpress and Alipay.

Source: iresearchchina.com

Suning’s B2C site Suning.com announced that it will introduce a new social site that is going to approach the market from three angles. This includes product category angle: Suning.com offers products in a number of categories, and has dedicated staff for each category who will provide Suning.com users with the latest information.The second angle is empasising on increasing the interaction between Suning and the customers by offering rich content and news updates.The third angle reffers to market localization: Suning has 1,700 stores around China, covering most cities around the country, and Suning.com will serve as an organizing platform for offline Suning sales, and will offer locally specialized services for Suning members around China.

Source: Tencent IT

Following the footsteps of the US search engine Google, Baidu the most popular search engine in China is testing a prototype of a device called Baidu Eye, which is similar to Google Inc’s Glass.The gadget has functions such as S an LCD display, voice-controlled image recognition and bone-sensing. Also the user's voice would control functions on the gadget this includes making phone calls and doing basic Web searches. The device would also recognize a user's gestures to take and send photos.

Source: iresearchchina.com

Chinese B2C e-commerce website Yihaodian.com and the Chinese giant search engine Baidu have established a partnership that includes cooperation in resource sharing, big data applications, advertising, wireless e-commerce and marketing model innovation throughout 2013. At the beginning of this year, Yihaodian.com became the first e-commerce operator that obtained the license for direct procurement of imported products in China.

Source: chinatechnews.com

China E-Commerce

Fresh Produce Ecommerce In China

Fresh produce ecommerce sites have emerged in recent years due to food safety concerns and rising incomes. Companies such as 360Buy and Amazon China began offering this category of goods in 2012. Most fresh produce sites do logistics themselves because most courier services are not willing to deliver perishable goods and for this reason gross margins tend to be low.

Source: TechNode

China Digital

Sina Weibo Launched English Web Interface

Sina Weibo has rolled out a partial English-language interface which has been a long time coming. Sina fully localised a version of the Weibo iphone app in English back in 2011 so a question is why has it taken so long to catch up on the web. Some issues with translation are also evident at this moment in time; however Sina hasn’t actually announced the English interface yet so it was probably discovered before the company was ready for it to go primetime.

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

Internet Companies To Become Virtual Telecom Operators?

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has released a draft regulation that would allow internet companies like Tencent to purchase telecom services and repackage them for sale to consumers. MIIT’s proposed regulation is not yet a done deal; however regulations that make it into the public comment stage are usually implemented.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

M&S Expands Into China’s Ecommerce Market

Recently, British retailer Marks & Spencer launched a Chinese version of its ecommerce website as well as dedicated retail space on Tmall.com. Although M&S has been a relatively slow mover, the company plans to pick up its mainland China expansion this year and has stated to double its domestic stores in 2013. With an added online presence, M&S will be able to make up for its late entrance and tap into the rising middle class in China.

Source: Jing Daily

China Digital

How Online Advertisers Pay In China In 2012

Since 2008 there has been a slight change in the ways that advertisers pay in China. There has been a shift between cost per acquisition/cost per sale (CPA/CPS) and cost per impression (CPM) advertising. CPM has increased in popularity from 35.2% in 2008 to 51% in 2012, whilst CPA/CPS has decreased from 52.5% in 2008 to 32.5% in 2012. This shift could be attributed to a shifting focus on building brand awareness.

Source: China Internet Watch

China Digital

China Becomes The Largest Android Market

With almost two-thirds of handsets and one third of Android devices sold in 2012, China has become Android’s biggest market, according to Informa Telecoms and Media’s latest research. According to the research, two in every three handsets sold in China are powered by android. The fast-growing smartphone market had year on year growth of 85% in 2012.

Source: China Internet Watch

China E-Commerce

Chinese E-Tailer Enters Into $160m Partnership

Specialist babycare ecommerce sites are huge business on the Chinese web and that motivated Gome to enter into $160m partnership with Quinbaby.com. The new portal, specialising in maternity and babycare products, will be online within the first half of the year and is expected to be one of China’s top three B2C online sellers in that specialist area. It is suspected that this move, by Gome, has also been sparked by a similar move by Suning, who recently acquired Redbaby.

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

Sina Weibo Breaks Record For User Activity

Sina Weibo recently announced that in the first minute of 2013, Weibo users sent 729,521 messages. The increased activity was due to a lot of New Year’s Eve variety shows on television, but also due to the growth Sina Weibo has experienced since last year’s Spring Festival. Considering Chinese New Year is much more important, it would not be surprising if this record is broken again in February.

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

China Tightens Internet Regulation

New rules to enhance the protection of personal information online and safeguard public interests’ have been issued by the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress. Real name registration by internet users and the requirement by internet providers to remove illegal information from the internet, and report it to authorities, are reinforced by this regulation.

Source: China Digital Times

China E-Commerce

China Ecommerce In 2013: An Outlook

Ecommerce has become a driving factor of China’s economy. According to China’s Ministry of Commerce, the gap between etailing and traditional retailing’s growth rate widened from 4.7 times (Q4 of 2010) to 5.4 times (Q3 of 2012). Chinese portal site Tencent has made some predictions about the outlook of Chinese ecommerce in 2013. The company states that mergers and acquisitions are inevitable due to etailers seeking rapid expansion, whilst logistics will improve due to challenges that were faced in 2012.

Source: Tech Node

China Digital

China Mobile Internet In 2012

The popularity of smart phones has greatly accelerated the development of mobile internet. In China, mobile phones are becoming increasingly popular to access the internet. The proportion of Chinese people using only mobile phones to access the internet has increased from 7% in 2010, to 15.3% in 2012. Since Chinese people rely more on public transportation, and have their hands free most of the time, it is clear that the future of the internet lies in the mobile internet.

Source: Tech Node

China Digital

Upsurge Of Broadband And Mobile Internet Users In China

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has stated that the number of Broadband internet users has increased by 24.03 million in the first 11 months of 2012. Mobile internet users have also increased by 111 million to 750 million in the same period and the number of mobile phone users has now reached 1.104 billion, an increase of 118 million.

Source: Tech Crunch

China Digital

Ku6: High Visitor Count But Low Revenues

Ku6 generated less than 4% of Youku’s revenues since it pivoted to a user-generated content model. Although it would appear Ku6 is disappearing from the public life, they still enjoy 250 million unique visitors per month. The reason behind their low revenue comes from shedding off brand advertising, which resulted in RMB 120 million in revenues per year. Due to the costly copyrighted content to support, through brand advertising, Ku6 have opted for a performance based ad system.

Source: Tech Node

China Digital

China Unicom Picks Up Another 3.2 Million 3G Users In November

China Unicom’s has gained 3.25 million new 3G subscribers in November, bringing the company’s total 3G subscriber number up to more than 73 million. The company also picked up 78,000 new 2G clients, bringing that total up to 162 million. The company also picked up 44,000 new broadband accounts and, unsurprisingly, lost more than 170,000 wired phone accounts over the course of the month.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

Yahoo China To Shut Its Music Website

Yahoo China announced today that it will bid farewell to its Chinese music service on January 20. A statement posted on the website in Chinese “Thank you for your continued support of Yahoo services. Due to an adjustment in our product strategy, we have decided to take Yahoo Music offline on January 20, 2013, when the service will no longer be available.” Last week, Google announced the closure of its shopping service in that country, two months after closing its Music Search in China after losing its battle with Baidu.

Source: Tech In Asia  Tech Crunch

China Digital

Chinese Spend 884 million Hours On Microblogs During Q3 2012

Analyst from iResearch believes that as the major trend globally, social networking is growing fast in China, leading the mainstream internet service. Microblog is still leading the trend of social networks, in Q3, the total online time is 884 million hours, which is significantly higher than the time spent on any other social networks, and is also higher than the time spent in Q2. 

Source: Resonance China IResearch

China Digital

Baidu Losing Dell As Smartphone Partner?

Dell recently announced that they are quitting Android – but that leaves China’s Baidu facing the prospect of losing its most high-profile smartphone partner for its own mobile OS. The Dell Streak Pro D43 Baidu’s cloud-oriented, Android-based mobile OS launched almost exactly a year ago as Baidu’s first-ever smartphone vehicle. However it seems that its rivals Changhong and TCL, are actually generating better sales, proving that a global brand-name is not such a crucial factor in smartphone sales in the country.

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

Sina Weibo To Tax Third-party Marketing Accounts

Sina Weibo have asked accounts, who are carrying out Weibo marketing activities without verification, to hand over 20% of their revenues. Their activities have helped advertisers get more Weibo fans, reposts and comments, post impressions, or even more return customers. The accounts in question began accepting advertising deals from the end of 2011 and have in excess of 500 thousand followers.

Source: TechNode

China E-Commerce

Wal-Mart’s Chinese Ecommerce Initiative Takes Further Shape

Yihaodian.com, Wal-Mart’s Chinese B2C ecommerce subsidiary, attracted over 400 supplier partners since the launch of its open supply chain platform, ‘Service by Yihaodian’. The project is targeted towards traditional enterprises who want to tap into the ecommerce sector, but lack the operating ability to do so. This open supply chain project should also allow Yihaodian to increase supply chain operating efficiency and lower its costs.

Source: China Tech News

China Digital

Shenzhen Has The Highest Weibo Penetration Rate In China

Shenzhen has the highest Weibo penetration rate is the highest in China (58.6%) with 35.3% of users spending over 2 hours per day using it. An internet penetration rate of 76.8% also gives Shenzhen a leading position in China’s online world. The tier one city has surpassed Hong Kong’s internet penetration rate of 68.7% and is close to matching Singapore’s rate of 77.2% as well as Japan’s, which is the highest in the world.

Source: China Internet Watch

China Digital

The power of social recommendation

The power of social media is clearly evident when an inexistent product can be communicated on Sina Weibo, very effectively. Kaifu Lee, founder of Chinese incubator ‘Innovation Works’, tried a branded frozen dessert maker in the United States. Kaifu ‘tweeted’ his experience on Sina Weibo, once he returned to China. His tweet was retweeted over 100,000 times and within a few hours, sellers on Taobao were offering to buy the machine from the US. Thousands of the machines were sold within a day.

Source: Tech Node

China Digital

Amazon Brings Kindle E-Bookstore and Apps to China

Amazon has just launched its e-bookstore and Kindle smartphone apps into China’s crowded e-book market. It has been a long time coming. However, the Kindle Store enters a very crowded market in China, with from the funky social network Douban who to huge e-commerce stores offering e-books. One such online store, Dangdang, even sells its own e-reader deviceSo the Amazon and Kindle names are guaranteed success in China will be tough.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

CONFIRMED: Google Shopping Search Engine For China Shuts Today

Google has just confirmed the closure of its Google Shopping China service. A Google representative tells us this morning: “We’ve decided to shut down our Google Shopping service in China. We remain committed to helping Chinese businesses export their goods around the world, and Chinese merchants will still be able to use Google Shopping to reach consumers in other markets…”

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

Jiepang and Starbucks Tie-Up For More Christmas Fun

Coffee chain Starbucks is keeping its relationship with Jiepang, China’s top Foursquare-esque check-in service, brewing for yet another year. This year’s Starbucks-Jiepang social marketing campaign for the holiday season is now good to go, offering four virtual Christmas badges for coffee drinkers who also make social check-ins within Jiepang’s cross-platform mobile apps.

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

Sogou Invests Big In Voice Assistant Software Research

Recently, Sogou mobile GM Ru Liyun revealed that the company plans to invest heavily in the voice recognition field, and established a research center last March. Sogou also recently released a smartphone app called Sogou Voice Assistant, which is quite similar in functionality to Siri. But did they act so late upon this? Siri was released in the fall of 2011 and similar apps had been around quite a while before then; why did Sogou wait until March 2012 to begin working on this?

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

Alipay Beta-testing New Mobile Financial Service

Alipay begins beta-testing the rumored Passbook-like service, called Ka Bao, today. Similar to Apple’s Passbook, local coupons, digital tickets or membership cards can be added to Ka Bao. What’s more, it integrates personal financial features and will enable personal financial analysis service, according to Xu Ji, general manager of mobile payment businesses at Alipay (article in Chinese). The service will be officially launched in January 2013. Possibly another official name will be revealed then.

Source: Tech Node

China E-Commerce

Two-thirds of China Social Media Users Follow Brands

Research agency InSites Consulting‘s survey in Q2 found that two-thirds of China internet users following brands on social media—the highest percentage among all surveyed countries. Survey respondents followed an average 6.7 brands each in China, comparing to 15.1 brands followed on average in the US.

Source: China Internet Watch

China E-Commerce

4399.com Third Most-searched Query On Baidu On 2012

Not surprising the top two most-searched queries on Baidu are Taobao and Q-zone, but that 4399 is in third position on Baidu’s 2012 top ten search list, it may be unexpected but 4399.com, or 4399 Small Games, is one of the most popular small game portals in China, especially among kids. 4399.com, under a company named Xiamen Youjia, was launched in 2004 by Li Xingping, a legendary figure in China’s internet history. In the first half of this year, the company’s revenues increased 129.81% to 487mn yuan ($78.5mn), with 186mn yuan ($30mn) in profit, according to China Press and Publishing Journal (article in Chinese).

Source: Tech Node

China Digital

Baidu And Lenovo Announce New LePhone Handset

Chinese search giant Baidu has teamed up with Lenovo to announce the new LePhone A586. The handset has been custom designed by Lenovo and features a high-performance Qualcomm chip and also running on an Android 4.0 based operating system. Priced at 999 RMB ($158) Sales of the phone will begin on December 12.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

China’s WineNice Raises Over $15M in Funding

China-based wine e-commerce site WineNice are to have a series B funding thought to be worth over RMB 100 million (US$15.8 million). The site started in 2008, one of the pioneers of premium wine e-tailing in China. WineNice’s funding will be used to build up both its online B2C infrastructure and its offline “experience stores” that now number just over a 100 across China

Source: Tech In Asia  Tech Node

China E-Commerce

Allen Edmonds Lands In China

After a year announcing plans to expand into China, Wisconsin-based shoemaker Allen Edmonds has finally opened its inaugural store in China, President and CEO Paul Grangaard expressed his excitement about Allen Edmonds’ China expansion, which coincides with its 90th anniversary, Grangaard also said that, in China, he plans to open “at least six to 12 flagship stores and over time, 40 or 50 stores in China in the next five years.” Grangaard said Allen Edmonds will also branch into China’s growing e-commerce market after its launch, and has already added Chinese-language functionality to its official website

Source: Jing Daily

China Digital

Evernote: Netease’s Cloud Notes App Hits 8 Million Users

Chinese web portal Netease is making good progress with its Evernote-like cloud notes service, Youdao YunBiJi, which has just surpassed eight million users. According to the Youdao, it has 450,000 active daily users. Netease is best known for its social gaming and email services, and also has a search engine (China’s seventh-largest) under the same Youdao brand.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

Yahoo’s Jacqueline Reses Takes Seat on Alibaba Board

China’s biggest e-commerce company, Alibaba, has just announced that Yahoo’s Jacqueline Reses has joined Alibaba Group’s board of directors. After this summer’s partial stake buy-back by the Chinese firm, Yahoo still owns approximately 23 percent of Alibaba. Founder, Jack Ma said in today’s announcement: “This underscores Alibaba’s strong relationship with Yahoo. We are pleased to welcome such an experienced and respected executive like Jackie, who brings a wealth of strategic insight and operating experience to the Alibaba board.”

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

China’s Professional Social Networking Users to Reach 100 Million

According to Sootoo.com, there are more than 70 million users on China’s professional social networking sites by the end of Nov 2012. The number of users has increased by 250% compared with 20 million last year. Professional SNS like Dajie, Tianji, Ruoling, who started early, have more than 10 million users registered while those late comers – Ushi, Binzhi, Renhe – gained 1,000,000 users and are targeting 5 million.

Source: China Internet Watch

China Digital

China Unicom Receives Orders For More Than 100,000 iPhone 5 Units

China Unicom announced that it received orders for more than 100,000 iPhone 5 units on its first day of pre-sales. Apple announced last week that the iPhone 5 will be available in China on December 14. During Apple’s Q4 earnings call, Tim Cook said revenue for the full fiscal year was $23.8 billion for China, an increase of $10 billion year-on-year, sales of the iPhone in Greater China (meaning China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) had climbed 38%.

Source: Tech Crunch

China E-Commerce

Are There Really Layoffs At Renren?

With newer social services like Weibo and WeChat, China’s once-popular social network Renren popularity is decreasing, rumours have already swirling about layoffs at Renren. The company has denied these rumours, but unless Renren can come up with a new change, it’s certainly possible that layoffs are in Renren’s near future.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

Tencent Cooperates With American Express For Internet Payments

Chinese Internet company Tencent’s online payment service Tenpay and American Express have reach cross-border payment cooperation and the two parties have jointly launched a new virtual payment product. Commenting on the cooperation, Kula Kulendran, president for American Express's global networking business in Asia Pacific, said that the cooperation between American Express and Tenpay will provide Chinese consumers with an innovative cross-border online payment service and it will promote the development of innovative products in China. This partnership is expected to bring more business opportunities to both parties.

Source: China Internet News

China E-Commerce

Tmall and Taobao Transactions Exceeded Trillion Yuan

This afternoon, Shao Xiaofeng, chief risk officer of Alibaba Group announced at 21:50:18 on November 30th, Taobao and Tmall this year's total transactions exceeded 1 trillion yuan. E-commerce has become an emerging industry which is also the fastest growing and the increasing scale of an industry. Chairman of the Board of Alibaba Group Jack Ma said: "We are very fortunate to falls on this era of the Internet, to witness and participate in the Internet and e-commerce has brought to our society, a second surprise and change. 1 trillion is just the beginnig..."

Source: IT Feed Huxiu

China E-Commerce

Qihoo’s Search Engine Taps Autonavi For New Maps

Qihoo’s busy schedule continues, with previous feature added to 360 Search – like last weeks’s music portal, Qihoo has now added a new maps service with the help of Autonavi as its partner. Autonavi makes China’s top mobile mapping app and also Apple’s partner for China-area maps. With 25.9 percent market share, this is ahead of Baidu by a good margin.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

Qihoo’s Search Engine Adds Music

Chinese search engine Qihoo’s 360, has added Music search feature at music.so.com. In addition to the music section, Qihoo’s 360 Search also now has a streaming video section that aggregates movies and TV series from the likes of Youku, Tudou, and LeTV. Qihoo 360 faces a tough challenge against Chinese popular Baidu’s Music service.

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

NetEase To Build Up Media Brand On Mobile

NetEase’s mobile news reader app, amassed more than 40.7 million installs since last year. With the launch of the latest 3.0 version of the app. NetEase aims to increase more users. The company realized that one distinctive feature of mobile reading is that people do not have much patience to finish up long pieces on the tiny screen of their handset, so they shortened titles, added sum-up, altered contents and illustrations to make stories on the app fit into the mobile reading scenario.

Source: Tech Node

China E-Commerce

Xiu.Com Caught Up In Counterfeiting Scandal

Chinese E-Commerce site Xiu.com recent partnership with eBay and Salvatore Ferragamo, has found itself in the midst of a scandal, by expressing their feelings on Sina Weibo and on multiple online publications customers have accused the e-tailer of selling counterfeit luxury goods. According to a report by Xinhua, in the wake of multiple accusations that the e-tailer knowingly stocked luxury fakes by brands like Gucci and Newbark.

Source: Jing Daily

China E-Commerce

How Chinese Use The Internet: 2012 Usage Statistics

According to the latest date from the China Internet Network Information Center, instant messaging remains the most popular online activity in China with 445 million users (82.8% penetration of total Chinese netizen) popular instant message tools including Tencent-owned QQ and Taobao-owned Ali Wang Wang. Search engine usage comes in second place. Baidu is the most popular search engine accounting for 79% of the market share.

Source: The China Observer

China E-Commerce

Sina Weibo To Challenge Linkedin

China’s Twitter Clone, Sina Weibo has challenged Linkedin in China with its own version Wei Renmai (Weibo Connections). The Sina Wei Renmai launch will be bad news for LinkedIn in China, as well as for other professional networks such as Tianji, Ushi, and the startup Guanxi.me. Sina Weibo recently passed 400 million users, so all those are potential converts to Wei Renmai with just a few steps worth of additional information. Sina’s latest effort looks really promising.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

Rumour: Alibaba-Sina Weibo Deal Stalled

Rumour has it today, that Alibaba’s (Chinese e-commerce giant) plan to buy a 15 to 20 percent stake of Sina Weibo (China's biggest microblogging service) has come to a standstill. With rumours spreading around, it is said the reason of this standstill is because the Weibo team wants more money than what Alibaba had to offer.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

China's 360buy.com Unveils Digital Music Services

Chinese B2C e-commerce website 360buy.com announced the launch of its new digital music zone, which is the company’s latest digital business following areas covering e-books, e-magazine, and multimedia books. 360buy.com had also said it will launch a subdomain Music.360buy.com for this new music business.

Source: China Tech News

China E-Commerce

Tencent to Ditch “QQ” Brand?

Tencent’s QQ brand might have been the first household name that emerged from the web, but its slowly poor result in e-commerce market, and may see itself being ditched by Tencent but remains to keep 51Buy as according to Chinese business site 21CBH, 51Buy is doing well in this tough industry, generating daily sales revenue of RMB 20million (US$3,2 million).

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

TMall to Lure More International Brands

Taobao/Tmall generated incredible RMB 19.1 billion revenue on November 11 (single’s day), alone is enough to lure traditional brands to its web premise. Tmall went to raid other B2C platforms in China by providing dedicated B2C system for international brands with independent domain name and sophisticated ecommerce solutions catered for their needs.

Source: Tech Node

China E-Commerce

Huge Consolidation of Market Share in China

China’s hotly-contested daily deals new data for 2012 Q3 shows huge consolidation of power (ie: market share) in the whole sector. In the most recent quarter, China’s top three deals sites – Juhuasuan, Meituan, andDianping – account for 62 percent of all sales.

Source: Tech In Asia

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

Weixin to Launch Mobile Gaming platform soon?

It seems Weixin is now making faster and longer strides towards monetisation. Rumour has it that the most popular text and voice messaging communication service in China would be launching a gaming platform in the wake of its public platform, new O2O initiative as well as mobile loyalty program. Weixin has crossed around 200 million users, with its huge user base, it may be the right time to monetise that user pool.

Source: Tech Node

China E-Commerce

What Should Baidu Acquire With $1.5 Billion?

With $1.5 billion now on its side, the question is what will Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, go and invest in to expand their business over the next couple of years? There are strong speculations Baidu will concentrate in Southeast Asia in enable to compete with its rival Google. Having already active in Japan, Brazil, and Egypt. It most certainly will be interesting where Baidu’s next step will lead towards.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

Mogujie Launches Daily Deals Channels

Mogujie, China’s top Pinterest-esque social commerce site, releases its daily deals sector. Launching into two new channels for deals on clothes and household items. All the clothing products on Mogujie.com/tuan are aimed at women. The other deals channel is the similarly-named Mogujia for discounts on household items. Although the two deals portals are so specialist, they’re still up against the nation’s top group buy sites, such as Meithuan and Juhuasuan.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

The Slowdown of Online Shopping Market

According to iResearch’s latest quarterly statistics of China online shopping market, total transactions in Q3 2012 totalled 284.42 billion yuan (USD45.62 billion), with QoQ growth of 5.9% and YoY growth of 43.9%. Among all the transactions, the total B2C section approached 101.1 billion yuan (USD16.22 billion), with the QoQ growth of 13.2% and YoY growth of 23.5%.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

Toys ‘R’ Us Launches New E-Commerce Site In China

US retailer Toys ‘R’ Us has launched its own online shopping site in China (at toysrus.com.cn) in a bid to tap into the country’s fast-expanding middle-income consumers. The retailer outlines its expectations for the Chinese site: “E-commerce sales will account for nearly 10 percent of retail sales in China by or shortly after 2015. The launch of e-commerce capabilities to better serve Chinese consumers is an integral part of the company’s continued strategy for growth over the long term.”

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

China Total Mobile Internet Users Reaching 420 Million

Looking at a data from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), it’s clear to see that China is set to pass 400 million mobile internet users next month. With 390 million in June of this year, and factoring in an average growth rate of just under eight percent, we project there will be 420 million mobile web users in China by the end of this year.

Source: China Internet Watch Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

Chubao Announces new Dialer App

CooTek, the startup behind mobile input tool Chubao Input and enhanced smart dialler Chubao Dial, announced their latest version of Chubao Dial. The new version (4.5) featured a string of innovations based on a mind-set of “intelligentizing smartphone dialling experience and make the most of caller ID.” When receiving a call with an unknown number, whether it is from a cold call or your bank, you’re able to visibly see and respond to the call in an instant. Chubao Dial has over 10 million users and plans to open up branch offices in U.S next year.

Source: Tech Node

China E-Commerce

Alibaba Reportedly Buys Stake in Sina Weibo

Alibaba is investing in Sina Weibo, taking a 15%-20% stake at a valuation of USD 2-3 billion. Both companies declined to comment on it when reached out by media. The company sees more challenges from the mobile end. 72% of users ever accessed Sina Weibo through mobile, while 15%-20% of Weibo advertising revenue was from there. It is said that 50% of the traffic on its news portal came from mobile.

Source: Tech Node Source: Huxiu

China Digital

Sina Reveals Q3 Financials, Announces Weibo has Passed 400 Million Registered Users

Chinese web portal Sina has released its third quarter financials and revealed that its top social hit. The Twitter clone Sina Weibo, has now surpassed 400 million registered users. Chairman and CEO Charles Chao credited the summer’s biggest sporting event for the boost: “The London 2012 Olympic Games could very well be termed in China as the ‘social’ Olympics, pushing Weibo.com’s daily active users to a new record.”

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

Sina Reveals Q3 Financials, Announces Weibo has Passed 400 Million Registered Users

Chinese web portal Sina has released its third quarter financials and revealed that its top social hit. The Twitter clone Sina Weibo, has now surpassed 400 million registered users. Chairman and CEO Charles Chao credited the summer’s biggest sporting event for the boost: “The London 2012 Olympic Games could very well be termed in China as the ‘social’ Olympics, pushing Weibo.com’s daily active users to a new record.”

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

eBay Returns to China in ‘Style’

On Monday, US auctions site eBay it launched a joint venture e-commerce store at ebay.xiu.com, dubbed “eBay Style” – that focuses on mid-range to high-end clothing, handbags, and accessories. It features brands like Banana Republic and Clinique, right up to couture labels such as Guess and Coach. To ensure that this is all available on mobile, eBay Style has launched its own iPad app.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

Taobao Exceeded USD 3 Billion

Bachelor’s Day now has less to do with one’s relationship but more about online shopping. Total transactions on Taobao and B2C shopping mall Tmall.com reached 19.1 billion yuan (or about USD 3.07 billion). Here, Tmall shares its statistics during Bachelor’s Day.

Source: China Internet Watch

China Digital

Stuck In Traffic? China Mobile Opens Voice Mapping In 15 Cities

China Mobile has launched a new 12585 voice service hotline, which can provide real-time traffic updates and mapping for 15 cities in China. According to a representative from China Mobile's LBS base in Liaoning, when users do not know where they are or how to get to their destinations, they only need to dial 12585 and provide their destinations and the vehicle they use. The system will automatically find out their current locations.

Source: China Tech News

China E-Commerce

China Online Retail Exceeded $53 Billion in Q3

China Online Retail Exceeded $53 Billion in Q3 According to Quarterly Market Monitor Report from Enfodesk, China online retailing transaction scaled 331.6 billion Yuan in Q3 2012, with QoQ growth of 18.7% and YoY growth of 60%. It is estimated by iResearch, the online shopping market will keep its QoQ growth ranging from 30% to 40% and whole transaction scale may reach 370 billion Yuan (USD59.24 billion). There is another optimistic estimation that the market scale may break 400 billion Yuan (USD64.04 billion) for the very first time.

Source: China Internet Watch

China E-Commerce

Tmall and Taobao Sees $3 Billion In Sales On “Double Eleven”

During yesterday’s “Double Eleven” online shopfest, two of China’s biggest sites, Tmall and Taobao (both owned by Alibaba Group), beat out all US e-tailers by themselves, seeing sales transactions worth RMB 19.1 billion (US$3.043 billion) during the 24-hour promotional period. That makes Tmall and Taobao’s Double Eleven sales worth more than double America’s entire Cyber Monday shopping spree, which brought in $1.25 billion in 2011. With Cyber Monday in the US growing at only about 22 percent per year, it’s unlikely that the next one, on November 26th, will see American consumers outspend their Chinese counterparts.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

Qihoo Launches New Travel Site

Chinese search engine Qihoo 360, plans to move into another realm of web business: travel. The company has just launched a new travel platform site at go.360.cn called 360 Travel that ostensibly collects information about travel destinations, helps users find trips and hotels, and more. Qihoo isn’t selling any trips of its own yet, but company hopes the service will be useful to Qihoo fans looking to get away with the help of likes Mafengwo and Tuniu.

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

Xiaomi to Launch TV Set-Top Box

Lei Jun, Founder and CEO of the upstart phone-make Xiaomi, has confirmed the Apple TV-esque gadget, which will be launching on November 14th. Together with Android powered set-top box and video app (which was added to Xiaomi’s MIUI software in gradual updates), it’ll allow streaming video to be sent across a home network to you TV. Your Xiaomi phone will thereby serve as a remote control. It’ll support all of China’s top video sites, such as Youku and iQiyi.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

Baidu CEO’s Robin Li: “Be Willing to Disrupt Ourselves”

Robin Li, CEO and founder of China’s top search engine Baidu, has expressed his feelings to his employees via an internal email that was sent out today. In the email, Robin Li calls on Baidu employees to think like wolves, to increase investment in innovation, and new businesses, and to be “willing to disrupt ourselves” Outlining the dangers of facing by any large company. It’s clearly a wake-up call in the face of competition from Qihoo’s new search engine, which caused a serious drop in Baidu shares since the new rival came online in mid-August this year.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

China’s Big Online Shopping Event: Bachelor’s Day

What is the hottest word among Chinese netizens these days? It’s the “Bachelor’s Day Promotion”. November 11th has become a special festival during recent years. With four characters of “1”, this date was named as Bachelor’s Day. In 2009, Alibaba held the first Double Eleven Shopping Festival on Taobao.com, storming the online shopping for the very first time. Three years later, with coming 2012’s Bachelor’s Day, more than 10,000 businesses, cooperating with e-commerce sites, are poised to rock the shopping festival again.

Source: China Internet Watch

China SEO/SEM

Qihoo’s New Search Engine Surges to 10% Share in China

Chinese traffic stats company CNZZ, calculated Qihoo’s impact in the China market. CNZZ thinks that Qihoo has grabbed second spot with nearly 10 percent market share. This puts Qihoo’s So.com search engine way behind market leader Baidu, but ahead of Sogou and fourth placed Google.

China’s Search Engine Traffic Market Share, Oct 2012:

Search engine            Market Share (PVs)

Baidu                               72.97%

Qihoo’s So.com                  9.64%

Sogou                                7.83%

Google                               4.72%

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

DangDang Opens Store In Tmall

E-commerce platform DangDang, hailed as the Chinese Amazon and has its own open platform for 3rd party online merchants, announced to operate stores on Tmall, the B2C platform of Taobao, which was inspired by eBay. DangDang offered customers with over 800,000 kinds of books and more than 300,000 types of household items via these stores.

Source: Tech Node

China Digital

Tencent’s WeChat App to Offer Coupons and Local Deals?

Tencent’s WeChat messaging app is about to get even more useful and become equipped with local deals and discount coupons. This will happen via the acquisition of a company called TongCard by Tencent. TongCard, founded in 2006, is a platform for retailers to reach out to consumers via promotions and coupons, and is one of China’s top O2O companies. It’d also see Tencent make a huge leap in its O2O service strength, growing to beat major web companies and startups such as DDMap or Baidu

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

360 Expands Mobile with VIVA Investment

VIVA, one of the largest digital magazine publishers in China, recently completed Series B round of financing. The funding would go towards “ramping up VIVA mobile magazine” to turn it into the most influential wireless new media. Han Yin, founder of the company, believes VIVA is on track to become a new media platform for quality and social reading, and with Qihoo360’s huge user and channel resources, is the reason why Han Yin has selected them among others.

Source: Tech Node

China E-Commerce

QQ online shopping promotion over

The three-day QQ online shopping finished on the 26th October (see Daily Digital Pulse Of China 22nd October). The data shows QQ online shopping festival accumulated around RMB 6.5 billion in the promotion of the three days in October 24 -26, 2012. The festival attracted a total of over two million people shopping.

Source: Link Shop

China Digital

Baidu Buys up Shares of iQiyi.com

Baidu’s CEO Robin Li announced that his company has purchased shares of its online video site iQiyi.com from Providence Equity Partners for an undisclosed sum, giving Baidu a ‘substantial majority stake’. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

WeChat Excels Abroad Without the China Brand

The New York Times discusses the recent success of Tencent’s WeChat outside of China’s borders, quoting BDA China chairman Duncan Clark as saying: “Many people are afraid of Chinese products.... But with the App Store, it’s hard to even know that WeChat is Chinese — it really levels the playing field.” Does a Chinese internet company need to hide the ‘made-in-China’ label in this way in order to succeed abroad?

Source: Tech In Asia

China SEO/SEM

Qihoo's 360 Search Aims for 15-20% Market Share

Back in August, Chinese company Qihoo, which is famous for it's anti-virus software, has launched their search engine 360 Search. As Tech in Asia writes, the search engine already has a market share of 10%. In an interview with Snowball Finance, founder Hongyi Zhou told reporters that they're aiming for 15-20%. Zhou said: "(...) if we can get to this market share, then the monopoly will have been destroyed".

Sources: Tech in Asia, Sina Tech

China E-Commerce

360Buy Teams Up With LeTV For Video E-Commerce

Chinese E-Commerce Platform 360Buy announced that they've got together with Chinese online video site LeTV, for trying out a new approach to video shopping. On shipingou.360buy.com people can watch TV episodes and films in which they'll find coupons which they can use to get discounts on 360Buy's products.

Source: Marbridge Consulting

China Digital

Mogujie Confirms Series C Funding

China’s top Pinterest clone social commerce site, Mogujie, has secured a major series C funding round. But the startup was tight-lipped about the exact investment amount. Mogujie is up against a large number of similar sites that are aimed at young Chinese female shoppers, including ones from major web companies, like Taobao’s Wantu, or Renren’s Plaza site.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

eBay Set to Tie-Up with Xiu This Month

eBay, looks set to push into the Chinese market, as they plan to tie-up with the Chinese e-commerce site Xiu.com. Xiu is a long-standing competitor in China’s fierce B2C online shopping sector, where they specialise on luxury brand names. Xiu’s PR Director, has confirmed the cooperation between two companies to various Chinese tech blogs, who told the media to wait until the 12th of November for a full announcement.

Source: Huxiu

China E-Commerce

Online Security Startup Anquanbao Secures Series B Funding

Anquanbao, a Chinese online security outsourcing company, has secured series B investment, for an unknown sum, led by Northern Light Ventures. Anquanbao's team said to foresee a trend towards security outsourcing for business sites in China, to safeguard them against hacker and DDoS attacks. The startup said it aims to serve two million company sites in China, and 60,000+ government-run websites. Currently the service is growing, and has just over 6,000 clients.

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

Weibo's Top User Accounts

Based on the latest research from the Chinese Data Center (DCCI), Weibo users account for 88.% of total Chinese netizens. Chinese microblog users’ proportion on different Weibo platforms are below:

• 87.67% of weibo users have accounts on Sina
• 84.69% are Tencent weibo users
• 56.12% are Netease weibo users
• 35.63% are Sohu weibo users
• 13.61% are iFeng weibo users
• 18.37% weibo users have accounts on other weibo platforms 

Source: China Internet Watch

China Digital

WePin App Hopes To Overcome China’s Reluctance To Carpool

Carpooling is a way of saving commute expenses by sharing rides in a private vehicle. Although carpooling might be relatively foreign in China, WePin aims to address unfamiliarity between carpoolers so that sharing cars will become a common practice in China. So far, its app has already racked up 50,000 app download within just one week of its launch. WePin adds a “WePinYou”, a platform where users can post and share their places of interests in China.

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

Groupons Gaopeng Now Has $40M To Buy Its Way Into Top Rank

Having a flurry of troubles, Gaopeng seems to be turning over a new leaf, after completing a new round of financing worth US$40million and also considering buying out the troubled 24Quan. Gaopeng is stepping up quickly, with its sales in September, surpassing RMB 250 million. Although they still lag behind its major rivals DianPing and Meithuan, CEO Lin Ning said “Gaopeng wants to continue its service with a good brand image and let consumers see our significant changes.”

Source: Tech Node

China Digital

iCard English: Daily Micro Lessons to Perfect Your Spoken English

iCard English founder Yuang Peng, an English learning expert – expresses how he wants to help his Sina Weibo followers on how to improve their English. A month in from its official launch – iCard English has already gathered 70,000 users. iCard English lessons requires users a spare few minutes of their day to practice their spoken English. With its sleek and futuristic-looking interface, users are able to receive daily mini lessons across different categories such as 'Phrase of the Day' or 'Modern Slang'. The app aims to hit a million users within a year, and as it’s free to download – it will certainly be a popular app for Chinese users!

Source: Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

Online Retailers Tap Into Convenience Stores For Pick-ups

Two of China's leading online shopping brands, Alibaba's Tmall and Tencent's QQ Buy, are tapping some convenience store chains to allow package pick-ups 24 hours a day. Tmall launches today, spreading across five cities: Shanghai, Beijing, Jiaxing, Hangzhou and Wuhan. They also plan to expand to Guangdong, located in the south of China, so there'll be a total of 1,300 supporting stores by next month. QQ Buy, started last month – but only in Hong Kong, but has a range of retail partnerships in Hong Kong, meaning that 1,200 stores are covered in just that one city.

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

Chinese Hootsuite Branding Coming Soon

Hoosuite's community VP Dave Olson, explains how Hootsuite plans to take China very seriously. We already know the company has recently added traditional characters and Sina Weibo support (blog post October 8th). Dave Olson reveals their plans to Tech in Asia: They hope to release their Simplified Chinese translation by the end of the year. This being said they would also like to increase Sina Weibo integration features, and explore integrations with other Chinese social networks like Renren and other Tencent properties.

Source: Tech In Asia

China Digital

China Exceed 200 Million 3G Subscribers

According to Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China has broken the 100 million subscriber barrier in September of 2011, meaning that China has picked up 100 million new 3G subscribers in the past year. 3G networks first became commercially available in 2009, so the second hundred millions users came more quickly than the first. Although there are no signs of 4G in the commercial market, and not to mention their billion mobile users, it is unlikely 3G users growth will slow down any time soon.

Source: Huxiu It Feed Tech In Asia

China E-Commerce

China's Online Shopping Market Reached RMB 268 Billion

In the second quarter of 2012, China's online transaction reached RMB 268 billion, a 17.6% increase compared to Q1. C2C online shopping sites contributed to 67% of total market share. However, B2C transactions increased dramatically – up by 44% (RMB 89.4 billion) compared with Q1 and by 143% compared with Q2 2011 Western brands and companies should keep an eye on China's e-commerce – where there are now 210 million online shoppers!

Source: The China Observer

China E-Commerce

97% China's Netizens Using Micro-blogs Vs Other Social Media

Consumer research company Nielsen, reveals 97% of China's netizens prefer micro-blogs compared to other social media, while around 70% prefer SNS and 10% go for LBS. 66% of connected consumers are both Micro-blog and SNS users.

Source: Resonance China

China E-Commerce

DianDao Made Available For Android And Windows Phone Users

After launching in January this year on iOS, Chinese startup DianDao has now made apps available for Android and Windows phone, allowing people to easily navigate their way around malls and department stores. The indoor map app now covers shopping venues in 24 cities across China. 36kr reports that DianDao has now mapped out the multiple floors of over 600 malls, which is great news for keen shoppers.

Source: Tech in Asia

China E-Commerce

China To Replace U.S. As Worlds Largest Business Travel Market By 2014

According to a report by GBTA (Global Business Travel Association), Chinese business travel spending is one of the highest in the world, second only to the US. The report claims that China's business travel market will continue to grow over the next 18 months, figures show total business travel spending forecast to grow by 12.5% in 2012 to $195 billion, followed by another 14.7% in 2013. GBTA believes with the current growth rates, China will pass the US by 2014 to become the country with the highest level of business travel spend.

Source: Tech Node

China E-Commerce

QQ Buy Is Getting Ready For Huge China E-Commerce Promotion

From 24th to 26th of October this week, there will be a major E-Commerce event for QQ Buy. Until the 23rd, they are giving away coupons that amount to a total of 3 billion RMB. 50 retailers on the Chinese E-Commerce platform aim to make respectively 10 million RMB in sales within two days. Tencent, the owner of QQ Buy, anticipates around 20 million people who will buy products on the event.

Source: Tech.QQ

China E-Commerce

Xipin, China's Fab.com In Series A Funding

Xipin, like Fab.com, focuses on stylish and handcrafted unique home decoration items –Like most flash sales e-commerce sites, a lot of products are sold in limited items for a period of only 72 hours. Xipin has managed to secure itself to US$1.59 million in series A funding (nearly RMB 10 million) The Investors has not been disclosed.

Source: Tech in Asia

China E-Commerce

Yihaodian's Crazy Online Marketing Idea

China E-Commerce grocer Yihaodian is trying out a really interesting new online marketing idea: They've openend 1000 virtual stores in China. The "stores" are located directly in front of competitor shops, as well as at China's most iconic landmarks in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. These stores offer special discounts and coupons for users who are visiting them, by physically going to the store location and having the Yihaodian Virtual Store App turned on.

Source: Campaign China

China Digital

Microsoft Launches Online Store in China

Today Microsoft launched its official online store for China. They also put an official local price on the upcoming Surface tablet, starting at 3688RMB (US$586) which can be booked from now on. The Microsoft Store also offers various Microsoft Office packages but not Windows 8. With the one in China, the number fo Microsoft's e-commerce sites accounts for 230 shops around the world.

Source: Tech in Asia

China E-Commerce

360Buy goes international - English website will launch soon

In an interview with China Daily 360Buy's vice president Shi Tao reported the launch of the English version of the 360Buy website. The "coming soon" placeholder is already published at en.360Buy.com and several social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are now active. Their goal is to deliver products in over 36 countries with focus on North America and Europe.

Source: Tech in Asia

China E-Commerce

Luxury Retailers Taking Advantage Of Special Online Event

Since last year, the major Chinese e-commerce companies have agreed on doing a special annual sales event on the 11th of November. For the first time, this year some big luxury brands like Hermes, Gucci, TAG Heuer, Chanel & others are cooperating with Alibaba's Tmall, China's leading B2B e-commerce platform on that day. As more details are revealed, we will report on how those luxury brands are going to advertise on that special day.

Source: Sohu Roll

China Digital

Top 20 Downloaded Android Social Apps in China

EnfoDesk published a list with the top 20 downloaded Android Social Apps in China for September 2012. Weixin is on the first place, followed by Sina Weibo and Mobile QQ2012. Their market share accounted for 58.2% among these 20 apps. The listed apps had been downloaded 445.459.260 times in total. The downloads of social apps increased steadily in September.

Source: China Internet Watch

China Digital

Baidu Focusing On LBS

As it was rumored, China's biggest search engine provider Baidu announced the establishment of a location-based services division of their company, which will be in charge of the companies local listing & map services. Shen Li, head of the LBS division stated, that Baidu has 100 million users across all its LBS, such as Shenbian for reviews of nearby listings.

Source: Techweb

China Digital

China's Top 20 Internet Companies by Users

iResearch recently published a report of China's Top 20 internet companies by user scale for the first half of this year. Unsurprisingly Tencent still takes the first place. Followed by Microsoft and Qihoo 360 ahead of Sohu, Baidu, Sina and Alibaba. The report also shows that there are 8 out of the 20 companies whose major products are online videos.

Source: TechNode

China Digital

Chinese Gaming Platform Is Going Public In The US

YY.com, which is a Chinese downloads and gaming platform, is heading towards an US IPO. They plan to offer up to $100 million American depositary shares (ADS). Their total net revenue for the first half of 2012 amounts to 324.5 million RMB (US$ 51.1 million), which is an increase of 173.2% year-on-year.

Source: Tech in Asia

China Digital

Meet Web2Asia at TFM&A in Shanghai

Today and tomorrow the Technology for Marketing & Advertising Expo is taking place in Shanghai. Among famous speakers from Alibaba (China's E-Commerce giant), Renren (China's Facebook equivalent), Tencent (China's biggest web company) & more, also Web2Asia will be represented by CEO George Godula. He will speak tomorrow about how to develop a strategy to maximise the digital value proposition. Make sure to drop in and meet us!

Source: TFM&A Official Website

China Digital

Qihoo Reacting To Public Accusations

Fang Zhouzi, who is popular in China for his campaign against academic fraud, has publicly accused Qihoo's 360 Browser for being unsafe and collecting personal information about their users. Qihoo is denying these charges and has now even set up a page that should educate users about rumors concerning the company. Furthermore, the Weibo microblogging channel of Zhou Hongyi, who is the CEO of Qihoo, is filled up with posts about Fang.

Source: Tech in Asia

China Digital

Are The Chinese More Open On SNS or Microblogging Sites?

Recent investigation from consumer research company Nielsen reveals insights about user openness on Chinese social networking sites (SNS), compared to microblogs or location based services (LBS). The research for example shows, that users on microblogs are significantly more willing to accept friend requests than those on LBS. Furthermore the report states that 38% of the surveyed people are willing to use their real name on SNS, whilst only 13% use their real name with LBS.

Source: Resonance China

China Digital

Problems With Sina Weibo Registrations

It seems that China's biggest microblogging website is experiencing problems with user registrations. As C. Custer from news platform Tech in Asia was investigating, the platform shows several kinds of errors for people who want to register an overseas account. Others, however, have no problems to do this. Up to now, there is now further information on why this is happening.

Source: Tech in Asia

China E-Commerce

Amazon Stepping Into Fashion

Online retailer Amazon revealed their plans that the company is about to step into the fashion e-commerce business. They got a professional for creating the channels of Kate Spade and Rebecca Minkoff, which will be the first fashion brands supporting the new move. Hugo Boss already made a public statement that they will not cooperate with Amazon. Also the CEO of Louis Vuitton said they will no sell on Amazon's platform, since they want to use their own platform as an eShop.

Source: QQ Tech

China Digital

Baidu launches news app for Thai netizen

Baidu today launched a new version of its Windows PC app called Baidu PC Faster for Thai netizen. The apps launched in June this year in beta form. The now launched v2.0 adds some new features like full Thai language support. In the past Baidu already released an anti-virus app in Thailand. China's top search engine is expanding in the Southeast Asia region starting with Thailand with its 25 million web users.

Source: Tech in Asia

China Digital

Free Weibo offers uncensored Sina Weibo Search

Free Weibo is a new homepage that allows users to search for terms that are blocked on Sina Weibo. The site uses Sina Weibo's own data and the data of collected blocked and deleted weibo posts provided by Weiboscope. The site is blocked in China but it is just an IP block that should be remedied soon. The site's interface is only in English at the moment but it should also be available in Chinese in future.

Source: Tech in Asia

China Digital

Chinese Web Browser Qihoo 360 Publicly Accused

Qihoo 360 browser was publicly accused by anti-fraud and anti-counterfeit crusader Fang Zhouzi, who wrote on Sina Weibo that the browser is unsafe and collects personal data from its users. Qihoo responded that Fang is paid by Baidu to publish such critical statements. Fang has denied this and claims that he will be suing Qihoo because of reputation damage.

Source: Tech in Asia

China E-Commerce

Suning's Own China E-Commerce Payment Service

Electrical goods supplying company Suning has just bought the domain yifubao.com, to release their own payment system. The payment system will probably be similar to Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba's Alipay, or Tencent's Tenpay.

Source: Tech.QQ

China Digital

Lenovo will buy additional medion stake

Lenovo Germany, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lenovo Group plans to buy all option shares of Medion AG. There are 8.874 shares available for EUR13 ($16.73) each. Lenovo Group's stake in Medion AG will increase from 61.49% to 79.81% after this deal.

Source: China Tech News

China E-Commerce

Government Uses Chinese E-Commerce Platform to Help Local Brands

The government of Chinese province Guangdong have planned a special event in cooperation with Chinese e-commerce company Tencent. On Tencent's QQ Buy, people can now get coupons for local clothes, food, luxury & furniture brands of Guangdong, which then can be redeemed during a special event lasting from 24th - 26th of October. The coupons are only availble until the 23rd of October, so that people need to buy them prior to the event. Tencent gives coupons worth 3 billion RMB to the people, which could lead to a total of 10 billion RMB in sales, if all of them are redeemed.

Source: Tech.QQ

China Digital

Sina Weibo Stereotypes

Recent research from the Data Center of Chinese Internet (DCCI) reveals the user stereotypes of China's Twitter clone, Sina Weibo. According to their data, the average user is male (57,4%), higher educated (54% with bachelors degree) and married (62,41%). Moreover, 59% are from first and second tier cities.

Source: Resonance China

China Digital

Qihoo's quad-core phone launches tomorrow

Xiaomi's mobile Phone Mi2 was supposed to be the cheapest quad-core smartphone. But tomorrow Chinese software company Qihoo 360 will launch its own one which is even cheaper. The yet unnamed Qihoo quad-core phone is made by the quite unknown manufactorer "Deovo" and will be available for 1,499 RMB. It will run with a customized version of Android 4.0 and it is expected that it is only compatible with China Mobile.

Source: Tech in Asia

China E-Commerce

Tencent Acquires Struggling E-Commerce Rival

The struggling gadget e-commerce retailer 500City has been acquired by China's biggest web company Tencent. The acquisition has been confirmed by 500City executives but detailed terms of the deal haven't been published yet. It is expected that the acquisition should boost Tencent's 51Buy which sells only gadgets by merging the two sites into one.

Source: Tech in Asia

China E-Commerce

Haier Group offers to acquire Fisher & Paykel

The Chinese multinational consumer electronics company Haier Group offered to acquire Fisher & Paykel, a major appliance manufacturing company based in New Zealand. The offer includes a purchase price per share of $ 0.99. The offer ends on November 6th. Fisher & Paykel's Chairman of the Board said this purchase price is not according to the actual value of the company. The price should be between $ 1.05 and $ 1.29. The independent directors of Fisher & Paykel recommended to the sharesholders to accept the offer of Haier.

Source: Linkshop

China E-Commerce

360Buy launches mobile open service

In early May this year 360Buy officially released the Jingdong Open Service (JOS) platform. Currently it has more than 100 independent software vendor applications on the platform and the daily call volume has broken through the 100 million mark. Recently 360Buy launched the JOS-ME (Mobile Edition). Android SDK 1.0 is at the test stage and iOS SDK toolkit will also be officially released in near future.

Source: Ebrun

China E-Commerce

Elderly E-Commerce Shoppers On Taobao

Taobao, China's biggest C2C e-commerce platform, has revealed some interesting figures about the past festive week in China. In this week, 1.3 million elderly online shoppers have been seen on Alibaba's Taobao, with 174,000 from Shanghai and 114,000 from Beijing. Since this week was a public holiday, most of the senior citizens were shopping for tourist packages, followed by 78,000 users buying wedding accessoiries. 43,000 elderly users even bought food on the Taobao e-commerce store.

Source: Sina Tech

China Digital

Chinese web users watched 4.1 billion hours of web videos in August

According to ComScore, this August Chinese web users watched web videos for 4.1 billion hours. They watched 29.75 billion videos in total. Youku comes first with 698 million hours, followed by Baidu's iQiyi with 569 million hours and Tencent's V.QQ with 474 million hours. The total viewing time for nearly all sites grew compared to the beginning of this year. Web video advertising is a great opportunity to cath the attention of young, mobile, middle-class consumers.

Source: Tech in Asia

China Digital

Hootsuite Now Supports Sina Weibo

Social media dashboard & tracking tool Hootsuite, has just added support for China's biggest microblogging service Sina Weibo. Furthermore, the service is planning to add Chinese language support and by doing so, making it a fully usable social media tool for China social media marketing.

Source: The Next Web

China E-Commerce

Taobao accounts for an estimated 80% of online transactions in China

Alibaba's Taobao ist China's biggest C2C e-commerce portal with an estimated 80% of online transactions in China and changed the way Chinese shop. In June 2012 Taobao boasts more than 800 million product listings and more than 500 million registered users. The site is listed by Google as the 14th most visited website in the world.

Source: Maosuit

China E-Commerce

China's first luxury online shopping industry report

According to the report released by Taobao the national luxury e-commerce market turnover is expected to be more than 20 billion yuan in 2012. Regarding to overseas purchases the United States, Japan and Hong Kong are the top 3. The total number of purchased goods from this 3 countries account for more than two-thirds of the total number of overseas purchasing goods. Most users of overseas purchasing groups can be found in Shanghai, Beijing and Hangzhou and the majority of such consumers are highly educated people.

Source: Linkshop

China Digital

Analysis Of Companies' Official Weibo Accounts

The 3 companies Chuangwei, Samsung and LG rank in the top 5 weibo accounts with most followers, most comments and most re-posts. The average number of fans following amount to 350, the average number of followers comes to 110.113. Most people post during 9:00am-12:00am and 2:00pm-6:00pm. In terms of gender the male users rank first with 56.2%. People between 18 and 27 years are the most active ones on weibo platform with more than 60%.

Source: China Internet Watch

China Digital

3 Chinese Companies In The Top 20 Of Most Valuable Unlisted Technology Companies

Business Insider (a U.S technology blog) recently published a list of the 100 most valuable unlisted digital technology companies. Alibaba ranks first in this list with a valuation of $ 40 billion, followed by US companies Bloomberg and Twitter. With a valuation of $ 5 billion Jingdong Mall (360buy) reached the 4th place. Chinas leading internet-based apparel retailer Vancl ranks 11th with $ 2.3 billion.

Source: Huxiu

China Digital

A New Fashion Channel To Discover People & Styles

Viss, a young startup from Hong Kong is trying the mobile photo sharing idea for clothes. After a user has taken a photo of his or her favourite dress, shirt, pants or hat, they can tag the photos with categories and also a brandname. Moreover, people can follow eachother, so they can stay up to date about the clothes a person they admire is wearing. Maybe this service will become a serious channel for fashion opinion leader marketing.

Source: Tech in Asia

China Digital

Tencent's Android Store Now Offers Incremental App Updates

Tencent App Gem, the Android app store of China's biggest online company, has recently been revamped with a new feature: From now on, if a user wants to update an app, they only have to download the bits that have changed. Up to know, users had to download the complete app, even if there were just minor updates, so from now on, the update process goes much faster and also saves data volume.

Source: 36kr

China Digital

China Mobile start providing Nano-SIM Cards for iPhone5 in Beijing

China Mobile Beijing has started an exchange service for nano-SIM cards. Users can take their former SIM cards to one of the business halls and change them for a new nano-SIM card for free. China Unicom also offers this service in Beijing but rival China Telecom has not released any information on this topic yet.

Source: China Tech News

China Digital

Get Your Responsive Website From Baidu

If you want your website to be responsive, so it adapts to mobile devices with smaller screens, but you don't have the budget to implement that functionality into your website, Baidu maybe has the solution for you: the Baidu Site App. The main featuers are auto-sync of content, improved mobile search ranking, integration with Baidu analytics and multiple templates. The service was launched on September 3rd and already has more then ten thousand registered users.

Source: China Internet Watch

China E-Commerce

360Buy Launches Gaming Platform

360Buy has launched it's gaming platform wan.360buy.com over the weekend. The website is now open for users, though it is still in beta phase. With this move, 360Buy is trying to establish new profit streams.

Source: Ebrun 1, Ebrun 2

China Digital

Tencent's Weixin is not available in China app store

Tencent's messaging app Weixin (WeChat) and some other Tencent products are not available in the Chinese and some other Asian app stores. Therefore users are not able to download the app. Tencent responded that is has something to do with the bank account which is attached to Apple and that they expect everything to be back to normal in a few hours.

Source: Tech in Asia

China E-Commerce

Fashion Crowdfunding Platform Launched

Some time ago, Ling Cai and Vicky Wu from Hong Kong decided to create a platform, were fashion designers could promote their work, to get it crowdfunded by people who love unique clothing. Finally, this week the beta version of their platform went online: ZAOZAO. As news website Tech in Asia has observed, they don't use a single currency symbol on their website. This is a strategy, that has proven itself successfully in the restaurant business to increase sales.

Source: Tech in Asia

China Digital

WeChat finally launches in Indonesia

Tencent's cross platform messaging app WeChat (Chinese: Weixin) today officially launched in Indonesia. For the moment the app has 200 million users. The main reason for the expansion was the country's huge smartphone growth. With this move they put pressure on their competitors like WhatsApp or Line.

Source: Tech in Asia

Digital

Tencent's maps app SOSO launched real-time location sharing

The Chinese online mapping app SOSO has added a real-time location tracker. The feature is very similar to Apple's "Find My Friend" app, but it is available for all smart phone users. By sending and clicking a generated link, people are able to see the realtime movements of each other. After the negative criticism of the new maps app in Apple's iOS 6, the moment of the launch is quite opportune for Tencent.

Source: Bukop

Digital

Top 10 Events in China's Digital Landscape 2012 [Infographic]

Netease Technology has conducted a survey, to find out what the major events concerning the Chinese digital landscape were in 2012. The 230 thousand participants have chosen from 47 keywords in 10 fields.

Source: China Internet Watch

Digital

360 Guardian is number 1 domestic mobile phone security software

Virus evaluation agency "PC Security Labs" released its lastes evaluation of mobile phone security software. 360 Guardian is reelected as number 1 domestic mobile phone security software for the third time. Its malware detection rate is 98.09% and during the test there were no false positive results. With the growing number of applications for mobile phones, also the number of new malware and Trojans is exploding. Compared to Q1 of 2011 the y-o-y growth of malware and Trojans increased by amazing 1785% in 2012 (according to the 360 Security Center's report).

Source: CNET

Digital

About Tudou's redesign and differentiation campaign

Although Youku and Tudou have merged, Tudou launched a differentiation campaign. The video platform has been redesigned and offers some new features and content. The Youku Tudou CEO explained that Tudou wants to appeal to a younger more independent audience and differ from the more general audience from Youku. But the searches on Tudou are still running through Youku's Soku video search platform.

Source: Tech in Asia

Digital

Apple's iOS Leads The Mobile Field in China

Chinese mobile advertising and publishing platform Tapjoy has released their 3rd report for 2012. Their data shows that in China there are still significantly more iOS users, than Android. In total, the number of mobile users has amounted to 43,9 mio by the end of July, which is an increase of 74% compared to January.

Source: Tapjoy Report

E-Commerce

Suning Egou Acquires Redbaby

E-commerce platform Suning Egou has just officially announced the acquisition of maternal and child products e-commerce supplier Redbaby this afternoon. The purchase price was $66 million. This year Red Baby had a performance decline of over 70%, so the acquisition may be the best way for them.

Source: Sina Tech

E-Commerce

360Buy About To Set Up Advertisement Platform

Representatives from 360Buy spoke about releasing their own advertisment platform. The concept has already worked well for Alibaba with their Taobao and Tmall Express and so chances are, that sellers might also be interested in 360Buy's service.

Source: Sina Tech

Digital

China has over a billion mobile phone users and 192 million 3G users

MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) reports that China has 1.07 billion mobile phone users. 192 million (about 18%) of them use 3G and this numbers are growing fast. The total revenue of the first 8 months of this year is more than $112 billion, an increase of 9% compared to the same periond last year. Mobile phones represent more than 70% of the telecom revenue.

Source: Tech in Asia

Digital

Social Sharing Growing Strongly

The latest research from CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center) has shown, that media sharing is growing rapidly. Of course this is also happening, because the user base is generally growing on social networking sites. According to CNNIC, sharing activities have increased by 60%, compared to January 2012.

Source: China Internet Watch

E-Commerce

Consumers doubt the seriousness of 360Buy's coupon promotion

360Buy startet a coupon promotion and raise a lot of discussions. At a first glance the promotional activity looked very attractive for users, but the conditions of use are tasteless. Every coupon can only be used for a certain product category and above a specific amount. Furthermore they are quite short-lived with a validy of 3 weeks. Therefore consumers doubt the seriousness of 360Buy's promotional activity.

Source: Linkshop

Digital

Social QR-Codes For all Sina Weibo users

On the morning of September 24 Chinas biggest microblogging website Sina Weibo launched a QR-Code feature. This feature enables every user to have its own QR-Code. People who scan it will be brought to the owner's profile page, so it's a new way for having users connected with each other.

Source: Tech in Asia

E-Commerce

Chinese government takes actions to regulate internet retail services

China's Ministry of Commerce has drafted the "Network Retailing Management Approach" which covers more than 40 guidance items for e-commerce activities in China. The regulations aim to solve disputes in online transactions and protect Internet business data. Many government units and legal experts participated in the discussion. The approach is expected to be launched at the end of 2012.

Source: China Tech News

E-Commerce

Suning Egou will launch buy channels on September 25

Suning Egou's executive vice president announced the launch of their national buy channels. The separate product channels include food, entertainment, living, tourism etc. in total more than 30.000 kinds of goods. Suning Egou will cover more than 140 cities nationwide.

Source: Ebrun

Digital

Support For Chinese Startups From Kai-Fu Lee

Kai-Fu Lee, founding president of Google China, has reinvested $224 mio. in his Innovation Works fund. Innovation Works has invested in more than 50 entrepeneural start-ups in the last three years, with an average of $12.30 mio. per company.

Source: PEdaily

Digital

Google shuts its China music service

According to an official post from Google it has shut its China music service google.cn/music today. Users have time time until mid of October to export their music playlists but all streaming and mp3 downloads have been terminated. Google stated that the impact of the product is not great and they want to focus on other products.

Source: Tech in Asia

E-Commerce

360Buy signed a 100 billion agreement with mobile phone manufacturers

360 Buy signed a 100 billion yuan procurement agreement with more than 20 mobile phone manufacturers like Nokia, HTC, Huawai etc. The agreement is determined for 3 years. 360 Buy's phone category accounts 70% of the import and B2C e-commerce market share and continues to grow. For this year the annual sales of their phone category is expected to exceed 10 billion yuan.

Source: Ebrun

Digital

Chinese sovereign wealth fund takes $2 billion shares in Alibaba Group

Yesterday Alibaba Group announced the completion of Yahoo!'s share repurchase. Today China Investment Corp. (CIC) invested about $ 2 billion in the e-commerce giant. The Chinese sovereign wealth fund has about $ 410 billion in assets and was advised by Citigroup.

Source: IT Feed

Digital

Social Media Week Shanghai 2012

From the 24th to the 28th of September next week, the Social Media Week 2012 will take place in Shanghai. If you want to get up-to-date information about how you can make your business more successful through platforms as Sina Weibo, or Renren: this is the place to be!

Source: Social Media Week Official Website

E-Commerce

Decanter Taking The Chance With Chinas Growing Alcohol E-Commerce Market

Beijing-based Analysis International sees an estimate of 3,7 billion RMB total B2C sales for 2012, which will rise to 13 billion RMB for 2014. UK-based wine supplier Decanter, has also seen this potential, since in May, there were more Chinese visitors on their English website, than from the US or the UK. As a reaction, the company has just launched their Chinese website decanterchina.com, while their also hosting the Decanter Asia Wine Awards in Hongkong.

Source: Jing Daily

Digital

Ali completed $7.6 billion repurchase program

Alibaba Group announced the completion of Yahoo!'s $7.6 billion share repurchase program. The initial repurchase of shares represents one half of Yahoo!'s 40% stake in Alibaba Group. Under the terms of the agreement, Alibaba Group has the right to repurchase one-half of the remaining Yahoo! stake in future. Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba Group said: "The completion of this transaction begins a new chapter in our relationship with Yahoo!".

Source: Huxiu 1, Huxiu 2

E-Commerce

Alipay introduced new account balance security service

Today Alipay announced the new account balance security service. If money is stolen from user's accounts they can get a complete compensation as long as they used the real-name authentication and installed the security products like payment shield or dynamic password. With this strategy Alipay wants so encourage more customers to install and use the security products and strengthen the awareness of the protection of the account.

Source: tech.qq

Digital

How To Allocate Budget For Your Luxury Digital Strategy?

The latest survey from Martini Media shows how luxury brand marketers and agencies generally allocate their client's budget, for an effective online strategy. The study discloses, that more than 50% of the budget is used for digital display advertising.

Source: Resonance China

Digital

Cooperation between Shanda Literature and Qihoo 360

Shanda Literature announced a strategic cooperation with Qihoo 360. 360 Search will grant priority in the search results for literary genuine content. With this strategy they want to hamper online literature piracy violations. At the beginning of the year Sogou took the lead in genuine priority ranking in relevant search results. With a joint appeal they put pressure on the industry leader Baidu.

Source: Huxiu, Cnet

Digital

Chinese Advertisers And App Developers Portest Against Against Ad Blocker

A recent study from Gartner has shown, that free mobile apps amount to nearly 90% of all app downloads. Still, the developers of such apps need to make their money somehow, wherefore it's a common strategy to show ads. Now anti-virus company Kingsoft has released their Android app SafeApp, which takes care of removing all the ads from your apps. As the logical answer, an alliance of 19 ad firms and app developers from China have sent a letter to Kingsoft, to convince them to remove that function.

Source: Tech in Asia

Digital

Google Stops Launch of New Aliyun OS Phone

Acer has cancelled the presentation of their new CloudMobile A800. Unlike the rest of the world, where the phone runs with Android, it should have been released with Aliyun OS in China. According to Google, Aliyun OS is built upon Android and should therefore remain consistent with the Android Ecosystem, which the mobile operating system does not. Alibaba representatives say, that Aliyun OS is built on Linux and is just made compatible with Android apps. Therefore, they say, it isn't necessary that their OS meats the criterias of Android. Alibaba said that the launch has been delayed, but the future is unclear if and how the Acer smartphone will be launched.

Source: The Verge

SEO/SEM

Bing's Strategy For China

Due to Baidu's dominance in China, that even Google isn't able to challenge, Bing has decided on a new strategy. Microsoft senior VP Shen Xiangyang said that about 5% of the Chinese search queries happen in English and by focusing on that, they can avoid a direct competition with Baidu. Still, those 5% also include people who are using a VPN tunnel and are therefore able to use Google for English searches.

Source: Tech in Asia

Digital

Tencent's micro-channel has over 200 million users

Tencent CEO Ma announced this morning that the number of active microblogging users reached 200 million. The mircoblogging channel was launched at the beginning of last year.

Source: Huxiu

E-Commerce

China B2B Total Revenue Up 11.3% in Q2 2012

According to Enfodesk's quarterly market monitor report Chinas B2B operation revenue was 3.39 billion yuan. That is an increase of 11.3% compared with Q1 this year. Based on the data by General Administration of Customs, the total transaction reached 98.06 billion yuan.

Source: China Internet Watch

E-Commerce

Part of the Taobao shop shielded Qihoo 360 browser

Recently Taobao users can not properly complete the purchase when they use the qihoo 360 browser. Part of the Taobao shop shielded the browser to avoid shopping process safety hazards. Taobao reminds buyers to use another browser to complete the purchase and payment in a sercure environment.

Sources: tech.qq (1), tech.qq (2)