Games, video, and transport: Mary Meeker’s view of the Chinese internet – China’s latest business and technology news
A summary of the top news in Chinese business and technology for June 1, 2017. Part of the daily The China Project news roundup "China confirms commitment to Paris deal as Trump withdraws."
Mary Meeker is a veteran tech analyst and investor who produces an influential annual report on internet trends. She has released her most recent report. You can see the whole presentation on her firm’s website. Here are some key points from the China section, which she calls “Golden age of entertainment and transportation”:
- Although the growth of the number of mobile phone subscribers is slowing, individual users are spending ever greater amounts of time using the mobile internet.
- Chinese consumers spend around 55 percent of their entertainment time online, with the mobile internet accounting for the lion’s share.
- Consumers are increasingly willing to pay for content, especially games, live streaming, and video.
- China is the biggest market in the world for interactive gaming (see Bloomberg: China just became the games industry capital of the world).
- Mobile payment volume doubled to more than $5 trillion in 2016, with Alibaba’s AliPay and Tencent’s WeChat Wallet dominating the market.
- Chinese companies have 67 percent of the global market share of on-demand transportation (such as ride hailing and bike rental). Although on-demand bikes are eating into the market for ride hailing, Meeker sees bike sharing as complementary to car use.
One notable lacuna in the report: It does not address the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). To find out about the state of AI in China, you can listen to this interview with visionary investor and engineer Kai-Fu Lee on the Sinica Podcast.
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Trials of embryonic stem cells to launch in China / Scientific American
“Studies to treat vision loss and Parkinson’s disease are the first to proceed under new regulations.” - Chinese yuan strengthens to seven-month high / Caixin
- ‘Ghost collateral’ haunts loans across China’s banking system / Reuters
- U.S. slips in global competitiveness ranking as China shoots up / Bloomberg
- Online wine seller Jiuxian raises glass to big board listing / Caixin
