The COVID-19 epidemic is deeply affecting companies across the globe. However, China is already way past the peak of the outbreak. What can Western brands learn from the experience of Chinese companies over the past few months? Three phases to the epidemic: Peak, Recovery and Bounce Back The peak of the epidemic in China was reached between the middle of …

Amid the Covid-19 epidemic, Tencent released its Q4 2019 results. The performance is overall good, with a large uptake of Mini-program transactions and revenues from FinTech sector. A service ecosystem moving toward Fintech Tencent seems determined to stand out among Tech giants. It definitely doesn’t want to be an advertising company and is even diversifying away from gaming revenues. Instead, …

The covid-19 epidemic has shed concern over the world’s health and economy. The impact of the epidemic on e-commerce remains however unclear. How did the covid-19 impact the Chinese e-commerce sector, and what trend can we expect in the coming weeks? Fashion sales slump, cosmetics, and F&B remain strong As most of the population in China went into voluntary quarantine, …

Back a couple of years ago, WeChat seemed like an unstoppable force. It was completely dominating the Chinese social media landscape, was beating Alibaba in payments and was making forays into e-commerce. Fast-forward to 2020, and users are already spending more time on Douyin than they are on WeChat, swiping for hours between short videos. What went wrong? Too disruptive …

Where did the last hour go? You notice you are scrolling through a feed again, with no memory of opening the app. A cute puppy on Douyin grabbed your attention, bringing a burst of happiness so brief it’s addictive. Conveniently you swiped up to a bottomless feed of 15-second videos, from people (often attractive young females) eating/making food, doing passionate …

Further data about the impact of the coronavirus on the digital economy was released in a recent report by QuestMobile. Highlights are: 40% drop in traffic for online travel platforms 36% decrease of daily users for short-distance transportation (ride-hailing Apps, mobile map software) Fresh food delivery Apps are booming Strong growth for social media and news 150M new daily active …

Fear over the spread of a new coronavirus has led millions of Chinese people to remain at home, shortly after the end of Chinese lunar new year. The situation is putting a strain on most retail, restaurants, services, tourism industry, and other offline businesses. But is everyone negatively impacted by the virus outbreak? A blessing for the gaming industry As …

The movie “囧妈” (Lost in Russia) is, in many ways, tailor-made for the Chinese New Year festival. It features superstar actor Xu Kun. The protagonist gets stuck on a 6-days train ride to Moscow with his mother, during which he will have to tackle the unspoken issues of their relationship. It is a family-centric show targeting people visiting their loved …

Digital marketing in China used to be all about WeChat. Therefore, Tencent could rest on its laurels for a while. WeChat got lazy about making WeChat Official Accounts a good way to access content, it missed the boat on the explosion of online videos and provided a sloppy search engine. But Tencent is now paying for staying too idle for …