While there was plenty not to like about China’s web and tech realms in 2014, it was undoubtedly another year of major milestones and notable achievements. You could say it was the year that China’s tech industry took its rightful place alongside Silicon Valley, especially with Alibaba’s record-breaking IPO.
Here are 17 high points in China in the past year:
1. China’s Tesla
One of the country’s first tech highlights of the year happened when China’s Wanxiang Group bought up US-based electric/hybrid car-maker Fisker in a bankruptcy auction.
This gives China a credible luxury automaker – and a particularly hi-tech one at that.
The new owners want to revive and relaunch the sleek Fisker Karma sedan (pictured above), but it will be a tough task. The model met with poor reviews in 2012, so there’s a lot to be done to make the car ready to take on Tesla.
2. Xiaomi ventures overseas
After a tentative roll-out to neighboring Hong Kong and Taiwan in 2013, this year Xiaomi finally ventured into markets further afield, starting with Singapore in February.
By the end of 2014, Xiaomi had added in four other South and Southeast nations, including the potentially massive Indian and Indonesian markets.
There have been setbacks. Xiaomi is banned from sales in India as of December 11 due to an injunction related to patents. And its global rollout hasn’t got as far as anticipated in 2014, with markets like Brazil and Turkey postponed until next year.
Nonetheless, Xiaomi is set to reach its goal of selling 60 million phones this year.
3. Xiaomi gets people excited for a Chinese brand
Xiaomi isn’t the first Chinese brand to go overseas, of course. Lenovo, Huawei, and ZTE are already selling tens of millions of smartphones outside of China, but Xiaomi’s progress is still notable for a company that only made its first phone in 2011. Even more remarkable is that the company is, perhaps for the first time ever, getting people excited about a Chinese brand.
There are people in countries like the US, Mexico, and Australia begging Xiaomi on Twitter or Facebook to launch in their country. Xiaomi’s secret seems to be a blend of low prices and a strong community, allied with an accessible company that genuinely listens to its fans and customers.
Our Xiaomi Mi4 review is here.
4. OnePlus leaps in
Partly inspired by Xiaomi, a new Chinese startup emerged this year with a similar approach to making smartphones. That new brand, OnePlus, is a bit different from Xiaomi in that it’s going global from day one, and prefers to use a version of Android that’s very close to stock.
But Xiaomi’s other hallmarks are there in OnePlus – surprisingly low prices for strong hardware, online sales, and a sense of community.
Our OnePlus One review is here.
5. Weibo IPO
April brought with it the US IPO of Weibo, China’s top Twitter-esque service. The social network raised US$286 million – but not the US$400 million-plus that many expected.
However, 2014 was the year that people shifted their time and attention to WeChat…
6. WeChat surpasses Weibo, pushes into ecommerce
WeChat grew from 396 million to 468 million monthly active users from Q1 to Q3 this year. But aside from the raw numbers, WeChat became the social app that most people in China turned to to read news, share photos, follow celebrities, and more. In 2014, buying stuff in WeChat became an option as well, and WeChat’s mobile commerce chops grew as the year progressed.
It started in January when WeChat added in taxi bookings using Didi Dache, a popular Chinese cab app. That gave many people a first taste of the mobile commerce that WeChat had touted in 2013, and also lured in people to pay for the cab ride using the app’s own WeChat Payments service.
Then in March, selected brand accounts inside WeChat added the option to buy stuff (pictured above). By May, Tencent rolled out a way for small companies as well as major brands to roll out fully-fledged stores within the messaging app.
With these moves, Tencent escalated its ongoing war with Alibaba, China’s ecommerce king.
7. JD IPO gives a taster of Alibaba’s listing
In May, China’s JD listed on the US markets, raising US$1.78 billion. The world was really waiting for Alibaba’s blockbuster IPO, which at the time still didn’t have a set date.
8. Baidu salsas into Brazil
Baidu, China’s top search company, launched its search engine in Brazil in July. It’s the biggest market yet for the company outside of China.
It’s likely that Baidu will soon challenge Google in more emerging markets where it’s already quite familiar, such as Egypt and Thailand. Look out for those in 2015.
9. Half a billion glued to the box
China’s tech and web market may be very mature, but it still has some room for growth. That was evident in August when China’s top video streaming site, Youku, reached 500 million monthly unique visitors for the first time.
10. Xiaomi sticks it to Samsung
Getting back to Xiaomi… Figures in August from research firm Canalys showed that Xiaomi has leap-frogged Samsung to become China biggest smartphone brand in terms of shipments.
11. People’s Republic of Uber
Also in August, Uber tried something new in China when it rolled out a carpooling program especially for Beijing that’s called “People’s Uber”. It later rolled out in a couple of other Chinese cities.
The service is run as a not-for-profit, meaning that Uber takes no commission from the rideshare drivers.
Compared to Uber’s serious roadblocks in India and Thailand, the notoriously aggressive US startup had a surprisingly easy ride in China in 2014. That could change at any moment, of course.
12. E-shopaholics
In an important milestone for China’s ecommerce industry, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) revealed new figures in August showing that 52.5 percent of Chinese internet users now shop online – about 332 million people in total.
13. Alibaba blockbuster IPO
All that eshopping helped make Alibaba what is it today. Its size and firepower was evident in September when the company hit the New York Stock Exchange in a huge, record-breaking IPO.
Alibaba raised more than Facebook did in its IPO in 2012. While Facebook netted US$16 billion, Alibaba walked away with about US$21.8 billion
14. Moneybags Ma
Alibaba’s IPO pushed founder and former CEO Jack Ma to the top of the Forbes China rich list for the first time.
Ma’s personal wealth is estimated at US$19.5 billion – nearly three times greater than his stash last year of US$7.1 billion, when he ranked eighth.
15. China goes mobile-first?
In October, Baidu revealed that it now gets more traffic on mobile than it does on desktop computers. It’s a major milestone that shows China is increasingly going smartphone-first.
16. No more copycatting?
Was 2014 the year that China’s entrepreneurs stopped copycatting? Peng Bo, the VP of China’s State Internet Information Office, said recently that the country is “moving towards saying goodbye to shanzhai and becoming a fast-lane innovative nation.” Rather than scoffing at that, my colleague Charlie Custer actually agreed.
17. New record for world’s biggest shopping day as Alibaba’s shoppers spend US$9.3 billion in 24 hours
After 24 hours of frantic clicking across China during the nation’s annual online sales day bonanza, Alibaba’s customers spent a grand total of US$9.3 billion (RMB 57.1 billion) on the company’s two estores. That’s up significantly from last year’s full-day tally of US$5.8 billion.
A few weeks later, once America’s Cyber Monday had occurred, it became clear that China’s latest online shopping spree was way more mobile than its American analog.
See: 15 new Asian smartphone makers hoping to crush Samsung and Apple
This post 17 highlights and milestones in China tech in 2014 appeared first on Tech in Asia.
17 highlights and milestones in China tech in 2014
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