Li Jiaqi, the "Lipstick King" who made $250 million last year, is being boycotted by consumers for saying on a weekend livestream, “Sometimes you have to reflect on yourself and ask why you haven’t received a raise after so many years. Have you been working hard enough?”
The return of a popular livestreamer was greeted with an expression that evokes the romance of Chinese literary bandits.
One of China's unluckiest entrepreneurs is making a miraculous comeback after a pivot into live-stream ecommerce. He’s brought his business back from the dead.
China’s ecommerce livestreaming industry is now a mainstay in Chinese consumers’ lives. But the government’s latest scourge against celebrity influencers has thrown the booming ecosystem into uncharted territory.
New Oriental Education ($EDU), the largest Chinese tutor on the block, recently posted a year-end summary: Revenues in 2021 decreased by 80%; 60,000 employees were dismissed; and the company lost 20 billion yuan ($3 billion) through such expenses as tuition refunds and severance pay.
Chinese short-video giant Kuaishou made a splashy IPO in Hong Kong, reaching a valuation close to its larger competitor, Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. Will Douyin’s parent company, ByteDance, follow and also list its short-video product in Hong Kong?
The livestream industry is flourishing in China, with the top hosts gaining celebrity status and earning thousands per day off commissions. But becoming the next livestream star is not as easy as it seems.
TikTok may be in choppy waters in the U.S., but its Chinese version and two major competitors are thriving and hungry for cash to expand.
Chinese state media are urging people to reject food waste, and singling out a binge-eating internet phenomenon, known internationally as mukbang, for criticism. The campaign comes after food prices in China rose 13.2% year-on-year in July.
Chinese Lives is a weekly series that looks at notable figures from all eras of Chinese history. This week: Viya, the face of China's “ecommerce livestreaming” boom.