A great article to further understand the growth of China – by Michael Elliott, International Editor for CNN
(Fortune Magazine) — What economic crisis? After a blip last winter, China is growing at more than 8% a year, and the scale and speed at which the country is building a modern infrastructure are mind-boggling.
But once you’ve absorbed the metrics — the size of its trade surplus, the thousands of miles of high-speed railways, the new ports and highways — a nagging question comes into focus: Sure, China can grow, but can …

Yahoo and Chinese Yahoo

Sex is definitely the universal theme for Chinese websites, from the major portals to small sites. It is very interesting to compare a US portal with a Chinese portal site to see the difference on this topic. It happens Yahoo is a good example for this since Yahoo has a Chinese Yahoo (Yahoo China) and it is comparable to other major Chinese portals, such as Sina.com.
There is no sex on the front page of Yahoo at all. You basically don’t see any ads or words related to …

Baidu.com:
Baidu (百度) is the Chinese Google. It dominates Chinese language search with about an 80% market share and is one of the biggest sites worldwide. As a local Chinese site it censors it’s search results. Like Google, Baidu offers a number of services apart from search, including Maps, documents, MP3 search, Baidu Space (a social network with over 100 million users) Baidu Encyclopedia, (China’s largest encyclopedia by users) and is launching a new video site called QiYi.com in March.
QQ.com
QQ is a portal that runs a number of services, most notably …

Overall Decline In 2009 In January 2010, the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) released its full-year report on the country’s tourist industry for 2009. It shows that tourist arrivals fell by 3.0% year-on-year (y-o-y) in 2009, to total 126.6mn. This was a decline from the 143mn arrivals registered in 2008. This decline comes as little surprise, given the adverse economic environment. In particular, the global economic downturn weighed heavily on foreign tourism arrivals, while the outbreak of the H1N1 virus (swine flu) in China in April 2009 further deterred tourism. …

China’s Internet has seen rapid progress in both technology and expansion of users since it officially gained connection to the international network 16 years ago. Following are the key facts about China’s Internet development:
In April 1994, China achieved its full-functional connection to the Internet by opening a 64 kbps international dedicated line to the Internet, and was then officially recognized as a country with full functional Internet accessibility.
In May of the same year, China’s first web server and the first set of web pages were launched by a research institute under Chinese …

Despite controls, Web plays key role in connecting, organizing Chinese citizens
The Internet plays an increasingly vital role as a forum of public opinion in China as other forms of media remain under tight Communist Party control, though government restrictions on the Web will likely intensify, experts said at a recent INTERNET IN CHINA SYMPOSIUM held in Tokyo.
The recent threat by the U.S. search engine giant Google to pull out of the world’s most populous market over alleged cyber attacks and censorship has once again highlighted China’s policy of controlling content …

A marketer’s guide to the world of Chinese networking.
Over the past few years, brand presence on Chinese SNS has largely been limited to passive and static advertising and the occasional branded widget. But recently, brands have been pursuing more creative and interactive ways to engage SNS users by upping the level of brand-consumer interactivity. These efforts range from curated BBS discussion forums to interactive contests within the confines of a particular SNS. Compared to other online markets, branded efforts on local Chinese SNS are still in an embryonic stage, however. …

China added 86 million users in 2009 to reach a total of 384 million Internet users by December 30, up 28.9% from late 2008, according to a report released January 15 by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). China added 120 million mobile Internet users in the year to reach a total of 233 million, representing 60.8% of all Internet users, CNNIC said.

Domestic broadband users reached 346 million by the end of 2009, 76 million more than that of 2008. Rural Internet users accounted for 28.7% of the users, …

Are you scared of the Made in China label? So am I. So are most Chinese. One of the top concerns Chinese consumers have is product safety, according to the findings from 5,000 interviews in 15 cities that my firm, the China Market Research Group, recently conducted. Chinese fear safety problems that wouldn’t cross Americans’ minds when shopping–clothing doused in toxic dye, condoms lubricated with vegetable oil, watermelons injected with dirty water to make them heavier.
Quality control is a serious problem in China. You’ve heard the horror stories about Chinese …

The Ongoing Luxury Makeover In Sanya And Elsewhere Draws Tourists, Buyers Turned Off By Exorbitant Real Estate Prices In Shanghai And Beijing
The recently opened Mandarin Oriental in Sanya is one of Hainan island’s most luxurious resorts. Image courtesy Mandarin Oriental
Hainan, China’s southernmost province, is often referred to as the “Hawaii of China.” With its palm trees, five-star resorts, beaches and hordes of tourists swathed in garish tropical attire, this nickname isn’t much of an exaggeration. Over the past decade or so, however, Hainan officials have looked to boost the island’s visibility …

The Shanghai World Expo, which will kick off in May, is expected to draw upwards of 70 million visitors. To further promote the expo, Shao Qiwei, Director of China National Tourism Administration, announced a new promotional drive that will target 100 domestic and 100 international cities. In an interview, Shao said, “For the inbound tourism sector, we need recovery. For the domestic travel market, we need expansion. So we need to seize the opportunity, and work with other tourism markets around the globe.”

Source: Jing Daily (January 4, 2009)

I was tinkering with some statistics last night, considering that strange idea of the Insularity of the Chinese Internet that we’ve been discussing lately. The expression itself is odd, because “internet” and “insularity” form an oxymoron, but you hardly notice these things when you live here. They are normal routine in the land of  socialist market economy.
Whatever we make of the phrase, the fact is that it comes up every time, whether we are speaking of language, media or politics,  all seems to point in that direction.  The pictures below …

Here is a great article from SinoTech founder Matt McDougall.
There has been a lot written about the online travel sector in China but there is not many putting out a view for the future for Chinese online travel ecommerce. In this article, I will take out my crystal ball and make some predictions about what the possibilities hold for the future of the online travel market. This is simply my view of the travel ecommerce space and although history may prove me wrong; that’s just the risk of being …

Fast food chain Burger King is planning to open six more restaurants in Beijing by June next year, as part of a major expansion in China.
The company, which has 25 outlets in the country, officially opened its first restaurant in downtown Beijing this week in Joy City in the Xidan area.
John Chidsey, chairman and chief executive of Burger King Holdings (BKC), who was in Beijing for the opening of what was the company’s 12,000th restaurant worldwide, said the group was aiming for fast growth.
“We intend to be on a similar …

Lots of activity in China’s burgeoning online travel industry. Travel search engine Qunar has raised $15 million in funding in a round led by GGV Capital. Mayfield Fund, GSR Ventures, and Tenaya Capital also participated in the round, according to investment research firm JLM Pacific Epoch, which cites local media reports.
The big funding round comes only two weeks after Expedia-subsidiary TripAdvisor bought up rival travel site Kuxun.cn for more than $12 million. Both Expedia and Qunar’s backers are betting that the Chinese travel industry will continue to boom, along with …

Relatively Young Age Of China’s Core Luxury Consumer Class Presents New Opportunities, Complexities For Luxury Brands
China’s luxury consumers are, on average, younger than their counterparts in developed economies. But geographical, age, gender, and cultural differences color their individual tastes and consumption habits
China’s luxury market is clearly an important and exciting place to be right now, but beyond the sales figures — which are, obviously, impressive, showing that China leapfrogged past the US over the last year to become the world’s second-largest luxury market — it becomes clear that quantitative and …

Some employers are blocking social networking sites over fears that employees are spending more time socializing online than they are on their jobs.
The revelation came as a new report from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) revealed that around one-third of Chinese people regularly met up with online friends in the virtual world.
The CNNIC report said 124 million Internet users in China were using sites including Kaixin001.com and Renren.com. The document said more than half (52.4 percent) of the users were aged between 20 and 29.
Xiao Yu, 28, an …

TripAdvisor’s acquisition of Kuxun, China’s No.2 travel search engine, kicked off its ambitious investment plan of US$50 million in China’s burgeoning tourism market over the next two years.
Kuxun will join many other Expedia-owned online travel companies in challenging China’s number one online travel company, Ctrip, whose market share is five times bigger than that of its nearest rival.
These include eLong (China’s number two online travel agency, acquired by Expedia in 2004), Daodao (the recently launched Chinese travel-review website, owned by TripAdvisor), and Egencia China (the travel management unit).
Kuxun means “cool …

Source: China Solved (Aug-Nov 2009)
Chinas Fractured Web, Part 1 – Opportunities and Challenge
With the effective blocking of You Tube, Facebook and Twitter, Beijing is succeeding in splitting the Chinese internet away from the global system. A few years ago China’s “Great Firewall” was considered anachronistic and laughably outdated. But instead of crumbling into cyberdust, the digital version of the Great Wall of China has become broader, higher – and more comprehensive.
What are the implications of a fractured internet that excludes not only individual sites but entire communication platforms? It is …

This graphic by Mozy.com does a great job in illustrating the size of the Internet in China.

Source: Mozy (October 27, 2009)