Tech Buzz China by Pandaily

In episode 34 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about the latest version of WeChat, which first came out on iOS the third week of December 2018, and on Android a few days later. It has been over four years since WeChat released an update this large, and since then, it’s added on over half a billion monthly active users. The latest updates included several widely expected features, namely, enhanced sharing of both video and content, which overlap with Bytedance’s core strengths — definitely not a coincidence. What’s the latest behind what is still arguably the most influential internet product of the past decade? And what has been the impact of WeChat's founder on its product development? Rui and Ying-Ying share that WeChat was created by Zhang Xiaolong, or Allen Zhang, who joined Tencent via the internet giant’s acquisition of Foxmail. He was originally tasked with heading up the Tencent R&D center and leading the QQ Mail team. As the now legendary — and publicly confirmed — story goes, Allen had a flash of insight, inspired by the traction the Canadian Kik Messenger had amassed in just 15 days. He sent a late-night email to Tencent CEO Pony Ma about the opportunity and the potential threat to existing Tencent products from this kind of mobile-based instant messaging. Pony agreed, and entrusted Allen to execute the release of Tencent’s own version. Just a few months later, Allen’s team released the WeChat version 1.0. Our co-hosts explain that, though hard to imagine today, WeChat had an extremely rocky start and experienced several shaky periods during its growth. Looking back, it was by no means a sure-bet product from the beginning. Rui and Ying-Ying take listeners on a journey through the app’s turbulent history, through its various version iterations, and up to the present day. Throughout, they explain the impact of Allen Zhang’s ethos: Our co-hosts argue that he is an artist and a philosopher at heart who cares more about the user experience than about business metrics. How have these values shaped WeChat’s most recently stated primary missions: to be a great tool for the users it serves, and to constantly evolve and change in order to do so? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Do let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, liking our Facebook page, and tweeting at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! Thanks also to our listeners over at our partner, dealstreetasia.com. Finally, TechBuzz listeners in the Bay Area may sign up for Silicon Dragon’s Silicon Valley event, taking place soon on January 24. You can find more information and sign up here: https://silicondragonvalley2019.eventbrite.com. Please use code SDValley2019Buzz for 50 percent off! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In episode 33 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about Tencent Music (TME), which finally completed its $1.2 billion IPO after a two-month delay due to market volatility. The company rose 9 percent on its first day, but has traded below the initial offering price ever since. This episode covers the business model of TME, its market potential, and our co-hosts’ thoughts on its future outlook. Though often compared with Spotify, to what extent are these two companies truly similar? Rui and Ying-Ying begin today’s story by reviewing Tencent Music’s corporate history. The entity comprises four apps: QQ Music, Kugou Music, Kuwo Music, and WeSing, which today account for a combined 70 percent of China’s music market. However, once upon a time, these were disparate products that sometimes competed; in fact, they only came together through an entity known as China Music Corporation (CMC), which was formed in 2012 by Xie Guomin. CMC acquired Kuwo in 2013 and Kugou a few months later; Tencent turned its minority stake in the entity into a majority position when it injected the QQ Music and WeSing assets for over 60 percent ownership at a valuation of $2.7 billion. At this point, the company was renamed Tencent Music Entertainment. From here, Rui and Ying-Ying contrast the strategies of China- and U.S.-based music player apps. They delve into the reasons for these divergent paths, including China’s unique business environment, its domestic user behavior and cash-giving habits, the impact of new categories such as mobile live streaming, and even Chinese people’s deep love for karaoke. Notably, the legally trained and opportunistic Xie Guomin was first spurred to found CMC to capitalize on the government’s changing policies around copyright and intellectual property. Listen to find out: How has this “race to own copyrights” affected the industry and its major players? How do Alibaba and Baidu fit into the picture — or not? Why is it that paying for music is a behavior TME still needs to cultivate in its users? What does all of this mean in today’s competitive landscape, and what does betting for or against TME really entail? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, liking our Facebook page, and tweeting at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! Finally, we would like to welcome our new listeners over at our partner, dealstreetasia.com. Our co-hosts will be on a two-week break for the holidays, but we look forward to releasing a new episode in the second week of January. Happy Holidays!! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In episode 32 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about Luckin Coffee, the hybrid online-offline coffee chain unicorn startup that’s turning heads in China with its rapid expansion and innovative business model. In fact, immediately after we completed recording this episode, news broke that the year-old company has raised another $200 million in fresh funding, upping its valuation to $2.2 billion. Throughout Luckin’s existence, Western media has had a habit of comparing Luckin to Starbucks, and describing Luckin as the “Starbucks challenger.” But just how accurate is this juxtaposition? Additionally, how has now-celebrity CEO Qian Zhiya, or Jenny, been able to attract tremendous amounts of venture capital and instill strong investor confidence as a first-time founder? Rui and Ying-Ying begin today’s story with Jenny’s background. Now 43 years old, she was previously best known as one of the hidden weapons of China’s leading transportation companies, the operations-heavy Ucar, where she rose from an administrative role to become COO and EVP of the rental division in 2014. At Ucar, Jenny oversaw the rapid growth in mobile-enabled on-demand services for the ride-sharing business — valuable expertise for envisioning and executing Luckin’s marriage of offline storefront expansion and on-demand experience on the smartphone. The companies’ ties do not end there: Jenny started Luckin with a loan from Ucar CEO Lu Zhengyao, and many of Luckin’s investors had also invested in Ucar. Rui and Ying-Ying continue by comparing Luckin with Starbucks, and then explaining why that comparison doesn’t make much sense. Complete with vivid stories and analysis, our co-hosts’ thesis is that Luckin’s rise is a prime example of how brands are increasingly using offline presence to acquire online customers, and that the company’s technology and digital-first F&B business model innovations can be exported and applied to other businesses and in other locales. Listen to find out: Which startups, both in China and here in the U.S., can we more accurately consider to be the chain’s “cousins”? What role does data play in optimizing aspects such as delivery, inventory management, personalized deals, and expansion? It’s too early to tell if Luckin will succeed, but what factors may tip the odds in one direction or another? How is this Chinese company using technology to successfully reimagine F&B — faster than Starbucks ever has — beginning with one of the oldest and seemingly simplest markets, grabbing a cup of coffee? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, liking our Facebook page, and tweeting at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! Finally, we would like to give a shoutout to our new listeners over at our partner, dealstreetasia.com. SupChina’s profile on Luckin CEO Jenny: https://supchina.com/2018/07/11/a-billion-dollar-coffee-company-and-the-woman-behind-it/ Ed Sander’s piece on Luckin: http://www.chinatalk.nl/luckin-de-chinese-startup-die-concurrent-starbucks-leerde-bezorgen/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In episode 31 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about Xiaohongshu, also known as RED, which had received a $300 million investment from Alibaba. Though the money was injected in June, the two companies have recently announced an additional cooperation that links them at the product level — an integration with Alibaba’s Taobao. What is the significance of these developments, and what is the story of Xiaohongshu? Listeners also hear from Elijah Whaley, the CMO of the Chinese influencer marketing platform PARKLU, which counts RED as a client. Rui and Ying-Ying share that Xiaohongshu’s tagline is “The world’s best lifestyle at your fingertips,” and people often refer to the site as “Instagram and Pinterest sprinkled with a dose of Taobao.” The site’s founders, Charlwin Mao and Miranda Qu, are only 33 this year. They first met a decade ago in a U.S. mall, though Xiaohongshu did not exist until Charlwin attended a Tencent-sponsored entrepreneurship camp in his first summer of business school. From the beginning, the co-founders set their sights on the cross-border market, with Xiaohongshu positioned as a community, complete with useful guides and reviews as well as real posts. The initial slogan was “Find good things abroad.” It then became “Discover good things in the world,” and later, “Good life in the world,” before today’s inclusive “Taking notes on my life.” Rui and Ying-Ying delve into the product features and positioning that distinguish Xiaohongshu. Even though it is a content platform, the app makes money not from ads, but via traditional ecommerce; as of 2017, it sold 50 percent third-party goods and was 50 percent self-operated. Though counterintuitive, their strategy has worked: The company is now at 120 million users and 30 million MAU, with a rumored close to $1 billion in revenue last year and double that this year. How has the platform evolved? What differentiates Xiaohongshu’s users from the rest of China ecommerce? What about distinctions in the type of content its users publish? Why is this a smart alliance for Alibaba, and how does the app reflect consumption trends in China? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, liking our Facebook page, and tweeting at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! And — a huge shoutout to our listeners over at partner dealstreetasia.com. Finally, listeners in the San Francisco Bay Area who would like free tickets to view Hao Wu’s film on live streaming and its impact in China, People’s Republic of Desire, should email [email protected] by Friday, December 7. Here is the event link: https://www.roxie.com/ai1ec_event/peoples-republic-of-desire-2/. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In episode 30 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about Renren Inc., the closest Chinese analogue to Facebook. The company — which once had a near-monopoly on the Chinese social networking space, and had raised $800 million in its 2011 IPO — recently announced that it would sell all of its Renren.com social networking assets to Beijing Infinities Technology, a holding company, for a mere $20 million in cash and $40 million worth of stock. This episode explores the question: What happened? Rui and Ying-Ying follow the winding history of Renren, starting with the background of its founder and CEO, Joe Chen, through its acquisition of Wang Xing’s Xiaonei social network and then to its NYSE listing — which, by the way, Rui’s investment banking firm at the time played a small role in. Though the public offering was successful, even hailed as a “prelude to Facebook’s IPO,” things started going downhill from there. By 2016, total revenues had dropped by half to $63 million, and the company was consistently reporting losses of active users. This decline has been so stark, in fact, that when Chen announced in a post on Renren.com that the company had been sold, the post only had about 800 views after 12 hours. What are the reasons for this outcome? What roles have poor strategic decisions, the founder’s ethics and vision (or lack of vision), and Renren’s insistence on continually bandwagoning onto the latest hot trend played? How is it that by 2017, 75 percent of Renren Group’s revenues were coming from used-car sales and financing, and that in contrast, Renren.com’s business made up just 9 percent of the company’s revenues in Q2 of this year? Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and join Rui and Ying-Ying in analyzing the rise and fall of one of China’s most iconic internet brands. Throughout, our co-hosts also lean into an unspoken question that is perhaps on many of our listeners’ minds as well: What lessons can Facebook and other U.S.-based social platforms learn from this incredible story? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, liking our Facebook page, and tweeting at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! Finally, a huge shout-out to our new listeners over at dealstreetasia.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In episode 29 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about China’s version of “Black Friday,” the biggest ecommerce shopping festival of the year which Alibaba invented out of thin air in 2008 and now falls yearly on November 11. Rui and Ying-Ying delve into the history behind the “Double 11 Shopping Festival,” as Chinese media title it. How did it get started? Why does it have such mindshare in the world of China’s internet? How did it go this year? After reviewing the evidence, our co-hosts conclude that despite the large sales figures floating around, this single holiday is not an accurate reflection of the state of the ecommerce sector in China. Rui and Ying-Ying share that the original iteration of Singles Day was launched in 2008 by Daniel Zhang of Alibaba, who has since been promoted to CEO. His intent was to promote Tmall, Alibaba’s business to consumer (B2C) platform that was then known as Taobao Merchants. Since the selected date, November 11, was already known to some Chinese millennials as Singles Day, the tagline: “Have nothing to do on Singles Day? Why not buy something to gift away?” stuck easily. In that first year, with only 27 brands participating, sales reached $7 million. In the 10 years since, the shopping holiday’s single day gross merchandise volume (GMV) has grown over 4,000 times. On 11/11 this past week, the holiday generated $25 billion for Alibaba alone; in comparison, Amazon’s Prime Day 2018 was estimated to bring in a mere $4 billion. Additionally, though most headlines focus exclusively on Alibaba, most other major ecommerce platforms — including JD, Pinduoduo, VIPShop, NetEase, and more — now participate as well, boosting numbers even more. Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and join Rui and Ying-Ying in exploring: What is the real story behind the numbers? Is GMV a reliable indicator of actual revenue, and why or why not? What types of practices does Alibaba engage in that contribute to inflating — or even engineering — these figures? Is there a strong case to be made that the bigger headline should be the massive marketing campaigns, logistics, and infrastructure that had to go into this event to make it all happen? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, liking our Facebook page, and tweeting at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! Finally, a huge shoutout to our new listeners over at dealstreetasia.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In episode 28 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about the Chinese AI company that recently toppled Uber to become the highest-valued startup in the world: Bytedance. Having just closed on a $3 billion funding round led by SoftBank, the company is currently valued at $75 billion. Though our co-hosts have mentioned Bytedance across several previous episodes, including a focus on the company’s war with Tencent in episode 9, today’s episode is the first to delve into its founding story, and to give a snapshot of its key strengths and weaknesses. Bytedance’s parent company was founded in 2012 with the buzzy mandate to “combine the power of AI with the growth of mobile internet to revolutionize the way people consume and receive information.” Six years later, the company’s two main apps, news-oriented Toutiao and video-based TikTok, have over 260 million and over 500 million monthly active users, respectively. In fact, TikTok, which is just a bit over two years old, was the most downloaded app in the world in the first quarter of 2018. Bytedance’s success has affected the key metrics of other leading Chinese internet companies. Notably, Tencent has seen its percentage of total internet user usage time drop between June 2017 and June 2018 — with nearly all of the 7 percent decline seemingly directed into Bytedance’s family of apps. Indeed, Bytedance’s lack of affiliation with either Tencent or Alibaba stands out. This lack of affiliation is due at least in part to Bytedance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming, a 35-year-old, even-keeled, through-and-through geek who has always been fiercely independent and ambitious. It’s a well-known anecdote that in 2016, when asked by one of his executives about rumors that Tencent was going to acquire Bytedance, Zhang Yiming replied, “I didn’t found Bytedance to become a Tencent executive.” Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and join Rui and Ying-Ying in exploring the following: What about the hiring process, company culture, and work style of Toutiao makes it unique, especially as compared with other Chinese companies? How does the fact that Toutiao is at least partly a content business affect how it does business in China? What are its ultimate existential risks? Is deeming Bytedance China’s “Buzzfeed with Brains” an accurate description? As the company has already made plays for markets in Japan, India, Brazil, North America, and Southeast Asia, what’s next in its efforts to internationalize? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, liking our Facebook page, and tweeting at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! Finally, a huge shoutout to our new listeners over at dealstreetasia.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In Episode 27 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma discuss the latest scandal to come out of the Chinese internet — fake reviews on one of China’s leading travel websites, Mafengwo. Mafengwo had $1.5 billion in sales last year, 63k transactions, and over 100 million monthly active users. It’s already backed by some of the best investors in the business, including Temasek, Hillhouse, General Atlantic, and Capital Today, and in August, it was leaked that it was in the middle of raising $300 million at a valuation up to $2.5 billion. A controversy then blew up when analytics firm Shenzhen Hurui and a Wechat official account known for their exposés of the tech industry published a blog post that claimed 85 percent — 18 out of 21 million — of Mafengwo’s user reviews were faked or plagiarized from other sites. Outrageously, some of them were so poorly plagiarized that they still retained the original website’s URL, or in other cases, scripts indicating that the review was translated using an online translator. Mafengwo immediately denied the accusations and even filed a lawsuit claiming defamation. Our co-host this week is Eva Woo, a former business journalist at SCMP, Bloomberg, and Caixin. Together with Eva, Rui and Ying-Ying unravel the tangle of accusations leveled against Mafengwo and explain why the company has taken such a strong stance against them (hint: its very business model depends on it). We also briefly go into why the purported victims from which Mafengwo was alleged to have plagiarized from — Dianping, Ctrip, et al. — haven’t made any complaints. Another hint: the entire industry could be guilty of such behavior based on questionable incentives, and plus, there exists an entire shadow paid-poster economy that is thriving, with the growing reliance on user-generated content as key building blocks for driving traffic. Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and join Rui, Ying-Ying, and Eva in exploring: How did this exposé come about, and why are users so outraged? What can we learn from the Mafengwo incident and should we be more wary of the numbers coming out of other Chinese companies? What are the responsibilities of investors in such instances, or do they have reasons to be complicit in accommodating such bad behavior? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, liking our Facebook page, and tweeting at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! Finally, a huge shoutout to our new listeners over at dealstreetasia.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In episode 26 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma discuss Koubei, rounding out a two-part deep-dive into the local services space in China. An Alibaba subsidiary, Koubei recently merged with ele.me, another Alibaba-owned (via acquisition) entity which was covered in episode 25 last week. Listeners will also hear from Ed Sander of ChinaTalk, a China trip leader and prolific writer on the topic of ecommerce and China. Rui and Ying-Ying tell the story of Koubei. Though the brand was started in 2004 by an early Alibaba employee, it was left for dead in 2011 before being revived in 2015 — for the explicit purpose of going after the local services market. The O2O market had reached only 4.4 percent penetration at the time, but already presented massive opportunity. When reborn, Koubei began with the F&B (food and beverage) restaurant business, but it always had grander ambitions — in fact, its very first press release said that it was eventually going to go into healthcare, supermarkets, and vending machines. Here, the story begins to overlap with Meituan’s F&B ambitions: both aspire to digitize every aspect of the restaurant dine-in experience, including using AI to shake up the entire spectrum of operations and customer experience, and introducing “smart restaurants.” However, the crux of the battle between Alibaba and Meituan extends beyond F&B. For both internet giants, the emergence of local services and new retail as a key business unit has been obvious. Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and join our co-hosts and guest commentator in exploring: What can we predict following Meituan’s assertions that it expects to be “the most aggressive investor in the offline retail space”? How do concepts such as robots, consumer privacy, and cashierless stores fit into the picture? In what ways is China arguably leading the world in innovations in this market? How are Alibaba and rival Tencent’s divergent approaches to staking out ownership leading to different results in China’s latest tech battlefront? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, liking our Facebook page, and tweeting at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! Finally, a huge shoutout to our new listeners over at dealstreetasia.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In episode 25 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about Alibaba’s recent moves to firm up its strategy around local services, putting pressure on Meituan-Dianping to defend itself. This war of “O2O,” or online-to-offline, is shaping up to be intense, with the latest battle round seeing the merger between food delivery rival ele.me (which Alibaba acquired for $9.5 billion in April) and Alibaba’s new retail subsidiary, Koubei. This episode of TechBuzz is the first in a series of deep dives into the local services space in China. Rui and Ying-Ying begin with some background on Meituan’s “unstoppable roll” on its way to becoming the “Amazon of services” for China: the gargantuan super app is currently dominating several verticals including food delivery, movie ticket sales, bike sharing, and travel. However, its dominance is being challenged by Alibaba, and in the food delivery space this shows up in the form of the ecommerce giant’s support for and acquisition of ele.me. Rui and Ying-Ying tell the origin story of ele.me. The startup’s founder, former CEO, and now-Chairman Zhang Xuhao was a first year graduate student at Shanghai Jiaotong University when he started the company with five friends in 2008, back when entrepreneurship was considered rebellious and unconventional. The venture was self-funded for a few years before landing angel investment from GSR’s Allen Zhu, one of the best investors in China. Though ele.me grew quickly, it was still fairly small when it got its first big break — Dianping’s investment of $80 million, which allowed the startup to embark on an accelerated expansion plan. It went from 300 employees at the end of 2013 to 5000 at the end of 2014. By August 2015, with traffic from shareholder Dianping and additional investment from Tencent, ele.me was feeling like it was on top of the world. The story, however, doesn’t end there. Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and join our co-hosts in exploring the rise of ele.me, its sale to Alibaba, and what’s happened since. What is in store for the company — and more importantly, for the future of local services in China? What is new retail, and why is it bleeding into local services? How do they reinforce each other, or do they? Why is there always a war on the Chinese internet, and who is going to win this one? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, liking our Facebook page, and tweeting at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! Finally, a huge shoutout to our new listeners over at dealstreetasia.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In Episode 24 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about China Renaissance Group, a tech-focused investment bank founded and led by one of the country’s most famed rainmakers, Bao Fan. While the episode covers the firm’s recent Hong Kong IPO, as well as some of its top deals, its culture, and several of its business lines, the episode really focuses more on Bao Fan himself — after all, his career in many ways is the China tech industry. It is often said that everyone who's anyone in China tech is connected to Bao Fan or has done business with him. How has this man, who describes himself as a “bald Shanghainese dude who loves F1 and MMA,” applied massive amounts of ambition and aggression to succeed? Rui and Ying-Ying share that Bao, who is probably not the tallest man in China tech, was born into a diplomatic family in Shanghai and sent off to boarding school early. He attended high school in the U.S., college in China, and graduate school in Norway, and worked in banking in London, New York, and Hong Kong. Globally minded but deeply Chinese at heart, Bao started China Renaissance in 2004 and named it after the nationalistic idea that China was on the cusp of a rebirth, and the vision that it was going to produce its own great investment bank. Fourteen years later, that conviction has turned Bao into a billionaire banker. Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and join our co-hosts in exploring the man and the firm behind the series of stunning mergers between China’s top internet companies starting a few years back: Didi and Kuaidi; 58 and Ganji; Meituan and Dianping, to name a few. As of today, the newly listed China Renaissance has advised 700 transactions worth over $100 billion and has over 600 employees. What’s next? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, like our Facebook page, and don't forget to tweet at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! Finally, a huge shout-out to our new listeners over at dealstreetasia.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Happy Holidays, TechBuzz listeners! That’s right, it’s Mid-Autumn Festival, followed closely by Golden Week for the Pandaily team back in Beijing. In honor of the holidays — and to commemorate *almost* six months since we released our first episode of TechBuzz back in April of this year — co-hosts Rui and Ying-Ying are taking off as well! We will be back with a new original episode on October 9. In order to not leave you hanging, and in recognition of Meituan-Dianping’s recent IPO in which it raised a healthy $4.2 billion from investors, we share our first ever replay. If you haven’t already, have a listen to Episode 10, which we produced back in back in June when Meituan-Dianping was first rumored to be preparing to go public. We talked about its founder, Wang Xing 王兴, and heard from guest James Hong, an angel investor who has known Wang for decades. Thank you for being a loyal listener, and enjoy! As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, like our Facebook page, and don't forget to tweet at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In episode 22 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about electric carmaker NIO, which went public on September 12 on the NYSE. This episode covers how NIO got started, its purported business model, and how it differs from its competition. Listeners will also hear from Elliott Zaagman, a writer covering Chinese tech as well as an organizational development consultant for Chinese tech firms. Rui and Ying-Ying start their story with Li Bin, or William Bin Li, who is NIO’s celebrity Founder, Chairman, and CEO. Li Bin, only 43 years old this year, is known as the “godfather of the transport sector” in China: not only did he have his first IPO in 2010 for a car-related internet company named BitAuto, but he has also invested in at least 32 companies in the transportation sector, including 5 unicorns. Indeed, Li Bin is widely recognized for being a master at both making and raising money. However, Li Bin and NIO’s path in the electric vehicle (EV) industry has not been without its challenges, particularly because of the domestic sector’s past experience with unreliable players such as Jia Yueting, the founder of LeEco and Faraday Future. In fact, one recent Chinese article cheekily called NIO and its fellow EVs “the cars that came out of PowerPoints” — a partial reference to the fact that NIO raised about $2.5B in four rounds before going public, but is still losing money rapidly, to the tune of half a billion dollars in the first half of this year. Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and join our co-hosts in an exploration that seeks to answer the key question: is Li Bin going to be able to deliver on the hardware he promises? Just how comparable is NIO to Tesla? What about to Xpeng Motors, founded by celebrity entrepreneur He Xiaopeng, the other high-flying EV unicorn in China with an internet DNA? What is NIO’s actual business model, when it does not actually make its own cars, or even its own batteries (yes, you read that right)? Is it accurate to consider NIO a luxury brand, and if so, is that the right strategy in China? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, like our Facebook page, and don't forget to tweet at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In Ep. 21 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about the new messaging app, Bullet Messenger, which took the Chinese internet by storm and reached five million registered users in just eleven days. The key question: is this a true challenger to WeChat? Or is it more of a short-lived, false alarm without real long-term potential? Listeners will also hear expert analysis from Matthew Brennan, a speaker and writer focused on Chinese mobile internet who can be found at @mbrennanchina and on the podcast China Tech Talk. Rui and Ying-Ying start by delving into a crucial quality about Bullet which has been overlooked in English language coverage: the incredible power and reach of its angel investor and best spokesperson, Luo Yonghao. Luo is a former English teacher who gained a cult following thanks to his entertaining sayings and charisma in the classroom. He took his cultural capital and went into smartphones, creating the brand Smartisan, which released its first phone in May 2014. Smartisan formerly employed a senior product manager named Hao Xijie, founder of the company that created Bullet Messenger. Though Hao has made clear that his intention is to disrupt business messaging, the media has not been deterred from dubbing him a “WeChat challenger.” Rui and Ying-Ying dig into some of Bullet’s features, including its quick voice-to-text function, its easier management of group chats, and the ability to reply in threads. However, even with these interesting functions, the big challenge of the app is its lack of contacts-- how is the app going to overcome the network effects dominance of WeChat? It also has challenges with privacy and with inappropriate content. Even so, the company has already taken on $22 million in funding at a nearly $90 million valuation from Banyan Capital and Chengwei Capital, even before going through the full list of interested investors, which included Tencent. Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and join our co-hosts in debating: does Bullet have a real chance at disrupting WeChat, or at least take away some of the current use cases of WeChat, the biggest success of Chinese internet in the past decade? Or… is WeChat completely and utterly Bullet-proof? If you’re in the Bay Area, come hang out with Rui, Ying-Ying, and Pandaily CEO Kevin at GeekPark’s Fire of Innovation event! It’s this Tuesday, September 18 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Click here to claim your free ticket: https://www.facebook.com/events/536785786741878/ As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, like our Facebook page, and don't forget to tweet at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In episode 20 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma look into the alleged causes behind the recent 22 percent year-on-year increase in rent prices in Beijing, a rise which has sparked outrage in citizens. In addition to blaming real estate startups, some headlines have also proclaimed that the influx of venture capital and private equity into the tech sector is at the root of the problem. In the episode, Rui and Ying-Ying take an analytical approach to break down the factors affecting the rental market — or rather, largely the middle range of the rental market — in Beijing. They start by giving an overview of the market, including citing average rental and purchase prices as a percentage of take-home pay — and the numbers aren’t pretty. Unaffordable housing is a destabilizing factor for cities everywhere, but especially in China, where overpopulation is still a nationwide challenge and home ownership is particularly prized. Our co-hosts then focus on the impact of government policies on creating opportunities that were promptly capitalized on by real estate brokerages, which spun out consumer-focused products that fit the millennial and digital native lifestyle. Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and join our co-hosts in delving into the business model of long-term rental platforms such as Ziroom and Danke, which cover about 120,000 apartments in Beijing, or about 2 percent of the market. What has been their impact on both the tech sector and the residential rental market in Beijing? Decide for yourself: are these startups really the culprits behind the spike in rents? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, like our Facebook page, and don't forget to tweet at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So far in 2018, Tencent’s stock price has continued to tumble from analysts’ price targets. Today, it sits at $430 billion, a far cry from its $570 billion market cap in January. Some commentators blame the decline on Tencent’s Q2 results, which showed a 2 percent drop in earnings and was the company’s first fall in profit in nearly 13 years. What is really going on here? What is the real cause? And what does it all mean for what is arguably still China’s leading internet company? In this episode of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma take a close look at Tencent. TechBuzz first covered Tencent in episode 5, and again in episode 9. Fittingly, those episodes focused on public perception of Tencent’s ability to innovate, as well as the robustness of Tencent’s overall strategy — including against the likes of rising behemoth Toutiao. This week’s episode takes a more holistic view of the internal and external factors that may have contributed to Tencent’s poor results. Listeners will also hear expert commentary by Lee Gao, a portfolio manager at GCA, who helps run the firm’s Emerging Markets Sustainable Growth Fund. Rui and Ying-Ying delve into many facets of the Tencent story, including: What was the significance of COO Mark Ren taking over the company’s stalwart gaming sector, which accounts for over 50 percent of Tencent’s revenues? What has been the greater impact of Tencent’s protocol of having multiple internal teams work on the same product, with the best one declared the winner? How has this type of strategy — and its accompanying lack of deep data integration — affected Tencent’s domestic market share on metrics such as total mobile usage time, as well as its ability to collaborate deeply with partners such as Starbucks? Is Tencent’s mantra of “Connect everything,” its official vision since 2014, being realized to the extent that it can be, in our increasingly AI- and algorithm-driven world? What about the impact of other problems such as unfavorable government policies, as well as Tencent’s challenges in getting games approved to be distributed in China? Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and join our co-hosts on a journey down the rabbit hole as they hunt for the real cause of Tencent’s recent price decline. While they synthesize the rampant recent speculation by Chinese media into a mere 20-minute episode, listeners are left to ask themselves: Can Tencent do it? Can they bring the lost $140 billion back? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, like our Facebook page, and don't forget to tweet at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On August 1, The Intercept broke a story that Google was planning to enter China with a censored search engine. Within hours, the same news was all over Chinese tech media. In this episode of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma tell the story of Google in China — or rather, its 2010 departure and oft-rumored return. Though Chinese tech media love speculating, how likely is this to actually happen? What role does the U.S. government play? What factors need to be in place for Google’s return to occur, and is this even what the company’s leadership really wants? The story of search in China is not complete without also discussing Baidu, which dominates over 70 percent of the domestic online search market in the country. In fact, on the day Google left China in 2014, Baidu’s stock went up 12 percent on the news. However, has Baidu truly maximized its opportunities? Is there truth to the complaint that Baidu’s search results are heavily skewed towards commercial results, versus user needs? What has been the impact of scams, such as the May 2016 case of an unscrupulous hospital that was promoted on Baidu and resulted in the death of a college student? How do these industry-wide challenges within the China search industry impact attitudes towards Google, and contribute to the excitement around its potential return? Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and delve into the nuances behind Google’s real status in China at the level of public opinion. What can we learn from reactions such as that of Baidu’s CEO Robin Li, whose viral post on WeChat stated “the entire world is practicing Copy from China. These are realities that every global company that wants to enter China must face and ponder deeply.” When it comes down to it, will Google find success in the China internet market of 2018? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, like our Facebook page, and don't forget to tweet at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma tell the story of ecommerce company Pinduoduo, the fastest-growing app in the history of the Chinese internet, from its founding in 2015 to its recent listing on the Nasdaq. What does the company’s IPO prospectus reveal about the intentions and vision of its founder, Colin Huang? In what ways is the app a combination of “Costco and Disneyland” — or not? The episode concludes by revisiting the insights of Mark Pols, currently Corporate Development at Facebook and previously an investor with GGV Capital, whose comments were originally played in Episode 2, in which Pinduoduo was briefly covered. Few in the West realize that Pinduoduo started as two parallel entities: Pinduoduo, which was a marketplace, and Pinhaohuo, which sold fruit and other perishable items via direct sales. The former was intended to be a side project, with the purpose of testing which items would be best for group-buying, but ended up generating 99.8 percent of the company’s revenues by 2017. Indeed, in the last twelve months, Pinduoduo has sold $41.8 billion worth of goods across 7.5 billion orders, with 344 million active buyers — more users than JD’s 302 million, but behind Alibaba’s 552 million. However, how valuable are these juxtapositions, given that Pinduoduo is comparatively just a “3-year-old child”? Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and learn about what Pinduoduo actually does, how it works, and how it’s gained success. Decide for yourself: how will the backlash and lawsuits around counterfeit goods affect Pinduoduo’s long-term success? Just how sticky and sustainable are the app’s viral user acquisition efforts? And more importantly, what can the rest of the world learn from this incredible domestic growth story? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, like our Facebook page, and don't forget to tweet at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode of TechBuzz China is our second of two focused on bike-sharing in China. In it, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma tell the story of the rest of China’s bike-sharing industry beyond Ofo, focusing on major players Mobike and Hellobike. They cover Mobike’s founders, fundraisings, current reach, and distinctive approach to its bike-sharing business, as well as fast-growing latecomer Hellobike’s entrance to the scene. Guest speaker Karl Ulrich, the Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Wharton School, weighs in for the second week in a row, giving macro-level predictions about the global impact of new solutions for personal transportation. With 29 percent of all internet users in China now making use of bike-sharing services, what is the real impact of these services on metrics such as number of trips taken via subway, bus, and car? How have investors Alibaba and Tencent-backed Meituan taken strategic positions in this race, and how do their positions affect the battle outcomes? Who is Mobike founder Hu Weiwei, and which of the two contrasting versions of Mobike’s origin story is real? How has Hellobike’s focus on second and third tier cities, as well as its dogged pursuit of expense management, affected its growth and staying power? Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and delve into one of the biggest trends on the China internet in recent years. Decide for yourself: to what extent has bike-sharing has affected China tech, the everyday lives of Chinese citizens, and the future of personal transportation worldwide? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, like our Facebook Page, and don't forget to tweet at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The internet age has brought with it what China's state media calls the country's “New Four Great Inventions”: high speed trains, scan-and-pay mobile payments, bike sharing, and ecommerce. This week’s episode is the first in a two-part story on bike sharing — told against a backdrop of Ofo, one of the two major Chinese players, pulling out of international markets. What happened? And most importantly, what is happening now? Listen to this week’s episode of TechBuzz China by co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, for a history lesson on Ofo! Guest speaker Karl Ulrich, the Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Wharton School, weighs in as well. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast focused on giving you a peek into what’s buzzing within the tech community in China. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China watchers with years of experience working in the technology space in China. They uncover and contextualize unique insights, perspectives, and takeaways on headline tech news that don’t always make it into English language coverage. Our co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma break down the origin story of Ofo. Started by five Peking University graduates in the bubbly tech world of 2014, the team was getting 4000 orders per day on the PKU campus alone just two months after launch. After being spotted by GSR Ventures investor Robin Luo, the rest is history. Today, Ofo is at 32 million rides a day in over 200 cities. However, challenges continue to abound: repair costs, oversupply, and figuring out a viable business model in a heavy capex business. Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China and decide for yourself: should bike-sharing, which has fundamentally changed how hundreds of millions of people move, remain as one of the four New Great Inventions? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, like our Facebook page, and don't forget to tweet at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Xiaomi’s recent IPO in Hong Kong was the world’s biggest tech IPO since Alibaba’s in 2014, but will it soar in the stock market and become the Apple of China? Listen to the first ever debate on TechBuzz China and take your position as a bear or a bull on the new stock. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast focused on giving you a peek into what’s buzzing within the tech community in China. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China watchers with years of experience working in the technology space in China. They uncover and contextualize unique insights, perspectives, and takeaways on headline tech news that don’t always make it into English language coverage. Our co-hosts Ying-Ying and Rui take opposite positions on the future of Xiaomi, an eight-year old company founded by billionaire entrepreneur Lei Jun. They battle it out on whether Xiaomi is an internet company with hundreds of companies within its ecosystem and lots of potential, or simply a smartphone maker whose limitations are set by Lei’s promise of making no more than 5 percent profit on all hardwares. Interested in investing in the company led by the Steve Jobs of China? Listen to the newest episode of TechBuzz China to find out what really goes on inside the “Apple of China”. As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, like our Facebook page, and don’t forget to tweet at us at @techbuzzchina to win some swag! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On June 18, JD.com concluded its annual shopping festival with a transaction volume of roughly $24.5 billion. On the same day, the ecommerce platform also announced an investment from Google of $550 million. What does this new alliance mean? Listen to the latest episode from TechBuzz China to find out! TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast focused on giving you a peek into what’s buzzing within the tech community in China. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China-watchers with years of experience working in the technology space in China. They uncover and contextualize unique insights, perspectives, and takeaways on headline tech news that don’t always make it into English-language coverage. This week on TechBuzz China, Ying-Ying and Rui give a thorough breakdown of China’s second-largest ecommerce platform, from its history and recent ventures abroad, to the power couple behind the behemoth who have celebrity statuses akin to Amal and George Clooney. Why did Google choose to work with JD.com, which is in Team Tencent instead of with Alibaba? What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two ecommerce platforms? As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes review, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter at @techbuzzchina and to like our Facebook page! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As a TechBuzz China listener, you must be at least a little bit crypto-curious. This week on TechBuzz China, we talk in-depth about Bitmain, the most valuable company in the cryptocurrency space, which happens to be from China. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast focused on giving you a peek into what’s buzzing within the tech community in China. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China-watchers with years of experience working in the technology space in China. They uncover and contextualize unique insights, perspectives, and takeaways on headline tech news that don’t always make it into English-language coverage. This week, TechBuzz China's very own Lu and Ma, along with guest co-host Joyce Yang, talk all about cryptocurrency - more specifically, the biggest crypto company in the world, Bitmain. With profits of $3 billion to $4 billion last year, how did Bitmain manage to hold 70-80 percent of the market share of bitcoin mining hardware? What is its future challenges and how will the Chinese government play a role? Our special guest co-host this week is Joyce Yang, the creator of Global Coin Research, a content platform that bridges the East and the West in this new global crypto world. In this episode, we also hear from Tim Swanson, the founder of Post Oak Labs, who has heard over 500 blockchain-related pitches, and Jimmy Song, longtime bitcoin developer turned venture partner at Blockchain Capital. As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show, and don't forget to follow us on Twitter at @techbuzzchina and to like our Facebook page! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What do you call a unicorn worth more than $100 billion? A centacorn, of course! This week on TechBuzz China by Pandaily, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma discuss a newly minted centacorn — Ant Financial. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast focused on giving you a peek into what’s buzzing within the tech community in China. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China watchers with years of experience working in the technology space in China. They uncover and contextualize unique insights, perspectives, and takeaways on headline tech news that doesn’t always make it into English language coverage.Alibaba Group, the owner-turned-affiliate-turned-shareholder of Ant Financial, was valued at $140 billion when it went public in 2014. Now, Alibaba's spinoff payment platform Ant Financial was valued at more than $150 billion in their pre-IPO round in June 2018. What does Ant Financial do that makes it such a highly valued company? What is the convoluted relationship between Ant Financial, Alibaba, and Jack Ma? Is the valuation a sign that Ant Financial will become a bigger company than its parent, Alibaba Group? To answer these questions and more, Rui and Ying-Ying also invited Wayne Shiong, a notable fintech VC in China, to share his thoughts. Don't miss out on their valuable insights and listen to this week's episode! As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show, and don't forget to follow us on Twitter at @techbuzzchina and to like our Facebook page! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on TechBuzz China by Pandaily, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma tell you how Wang Xing, the legendary Chinese serial entrepreneur who started out with “copy to China,” is now standing behind one of the largest unicorns in the world, Meituan-Dianping. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast focused on giving you a peek into what’s buzzing within the tech community in China. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China watchers with years of experience working in the technology space in China. They uncover and contextualize unique insights, perspectives, and takeaways on headline tech news that don’t always make it into English language coverage. Meituan-Dianping has dipped its toes in almost EVERY aspect of any Chinese person’s life — including food delivery, payments, ride hailing, movie tickets sales, and travel booking. The unicorn is the result of a $15 billion merger between the Groupon-clone Meituan and the Yelp-predecessor Dianping, and was last valued at $30 billion, possibly soon to double in valuation if the rumored upcoming IPO comes true. How did Wang Xing create one great venture after another, from the Facebook copycat Xiaonei (now RenRen) to the Twitter clone Fanfo, yet Meituan was his only real success? Why did the the review app Dianping, created a whole year before Yelp, merge with Meituan? And why is Wang Xing now leading Meituan to compete in all these industries? Listen to this week's episode to find out! As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show, and don't forget to follow us on Twitter at @techbuzzchina and to like our Facebook page! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Earlier this month, Tencent sued Bytedance, better known as Toutiao, for 1 yuan and Toutiao fought back by suing Tencent for 90 million yuan. What sparked the feud between the David and Goliath of the Chinese tech world? Listen to this week's episode of TechBuzz China by Pandaily to find out! TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast focused on giving you a peek into what’s buzzing within the tech community in China. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China-watchers with years of experience working in the technology space in China. They uncover and contextualize unique insights, perspectives, and takeaways on headline tech news that doesn’t always make it into English-language coverage. This week on TechBuzz China by Pandaily, Ying-Ying and Rui explain the fight between Bytedance and Tencent as sparked by the war in short-video apps. They trace it back to the humble beginnings of short-video apps and talk about the major players such as Xiaokaxiu, Musical.ly, and Kuaishou, which had their 15 minutes of fame along the way. Currently, the space is dominated by Tencent-backed Kuaishou and Bytedance's Douyin, while the other two members of BAT, Alibaba and Baidu, both announced that they will be releasing their own short-video apps as well. Who will come out on top in the competition for Chinese netizens’ attention? Listen to hear what Ying-Ying and Rui have to say! As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show, and don't forget to follow Pandaily on Twitter at @thepandaily, as well as TechBuzz at @TechBuzzChina! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on TechBuzz China by Pandaily, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma look at the resignation of Baidu's COO and tech genius Lu Qi and how the move sparked wave after wave of speculation, commentary, and reaction in the Chinese tech world. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast that is all about China’s innovations. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China-watchers with years of experience working in the technology space in China. They share and discuss the most important tech news from China every week with commentaries from investors, industry experts, and entrepreneurs. What is Lu Qi's story and where is he going next? What did Lu Qi do to have Baidu stocks rise by 58 percent during his tenure? Why did his departure strike a strong chord, while previous departures of top Silicon Valley execs such as Huge Barra from Xiaomi and Andrew Ng from Baidu resonated less with the Chinese tech world? Rui and Ying-Ying answer these questions and more on this week's episode! As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show, and don't forget to follow us on Twitter at @thepandaily and to like our Facebook page! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Dale Carnegie wrote his magnum opus almost a century ago, he was most certainly not prepared to address social phenomenons such as live streaming in our ever-evolving digital era. This week on TechBuzz China by Pandaily, our hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma look at the Chinese live-streaming industry, the true darling of the Chinese internet age unbeknownst to the West. They trace back the origins of this industry, whose market cap grew by almost 250 times in half a decade, explain the psychology of the ordinary Chinese involved, and break down companies such as HUYA, Inke, and M17, which are the forerunners in this arena. How did it all start? Why are people so hooked? What's the business model, and is it sustainable? Find out these answers and more by tuning in to the latest episode of your favorite weekly China tech podcast. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast that is all about China’s innovations. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China-watchers with years of experience working in the technology space in China. They share and discuss the most important tech news from China every week with commentaries from investors, industry experts, and entrepreneurs. As always, you can find these stories and more at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show, and don't forget to follow us on Twitter at @thepandaily and to like our Facebook page! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on TechBuzz China by Pandaily, our hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk all about the happenings in the auto industry in China. There is bad news, and then there is good news. The bad news that made waves all across China was the alleged rape and murder of a female passenger by a Didi Hitch driver. Rui and Ying-Ying talk about how the design of the Hitch product is partially responsible for the tragedy and the steps Didi Chuxing has taken to address this issue. The good news is that China has loosened policies toward foreign new-energy vehicle carmakers. Tesla was the first to take advantage and has set up a wholly owned venture in Shanghai. Ying-Ying and Rui share their take on China’s established and upstart new-energy vehicle brands, and even make predictions on how things might play out in the world’s largest EV market. As always, you can find these stories, including the latest developments of the Didi story, at pandaily.com. Let us know what you think of the show, and don't forget to follow us on Twitter at @thepandaily and to like our Facebook page! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on TechBuzz China by Pandaily, our hosts, Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, talk in-depth about a story that sparked great controversy across China’s technosphere — the debate on whether Tencent has still got its mojo. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast that is all about China's innovations. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China-watchers with years of experience working in the technology space in China. They share and discuss the most important tech news from China every week with commentaries from investors, industry experts, and entrepreneurs. The subject of today's story is Tencent, the T of the Chinese technology trio “BAT,” and whether or not Tencent has a dream. Why? Well, when a veteran tech journalist writes a 13,000-word piece titled “Tencent Has No Dream,” leading to thousands of responses and a #fakenews scandal involving Tencent CEO Pony Ma, the topic is definitely worthy of discussion. Rui and Ying-Ying take you back to 2011 — when Tencent had a market cap of less than one-tenth of what they're worth today — to see what they've done, how they've evolved, and what their future holds. Also in the show, Hans Tung, managing director at GGV, an early investor in Xiaomi, and the co-host of the 996 Podcast with GGV Capital (co-produced with the Sinica Podcast), shares his own insights and thoughts on the internet giant’s future. As always, let us know what you think of the show, and you can find these and other stories at pandaily.com. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter at @thepandaily and like our Facebook page! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on TechBuzz China, our hosts Rui Ma and Ying-Ying Lu discuss two major stories in China tech. Rui talks about the upcoming initial public offering of Xiaomi, which will be the world's largest since Alibaba's debut in 2014, and Ying-Ying shares the news of Baidu's new financial services spinoff, called Du Xiaoman Financial, which is already valued at $4 billion. Rui and Ying-Ying take you back through the history of Xiaomi, and in for a close-up look at its legendary founder and CEO, Lei Jun. Why should Lei Jun be compared to Elon Musk instead of Steve Jobs, and why is Xiaomi going public just eight years after its founding? Ying-Ying then gives you the inside dish on the new Du Xiaoman Financial that's raising $1.9 billion at a $4 billion valuation. Rui shares how Alibaba and JD.com have done the same in the past, and explains that these moves skew the capital raising data from China. What does the decision really mean for Baidu, and how does it echo the disaster of LeEco? Tune in to find out! As always, you can find these and other stories at pandaily.com and don't forget to follow us on twitter at @thepandaily and like our Facebook page! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on TechBuzz China, our hosts tackle two ambitious stories. First, Rui talks about the seven-year ban the U.S. government announced on sales of American components to Chinese telecom equipment and systems company ZTE, and the overwhelming response from Chinese tech media, which has called the ban a "very rude awakening." China has earmarked billions of dollars for semiconductor R&D and investment, but what impact do these funds have? What is going wrong, and what does this all mean for China's place on the global tech stage? Ying-Ying covers responses to the report released by Human Rights Watch about sexist hiring practices in China's tech sector. The Western media response lies in stark contrast to reactions from within China, and our hosts speculate as to why that is. Given that hiring is only one aspect of gender equality, what does this story say about the current state of gender norms in China's tech industry and how easily things will change? Why is this significant for the future of China tech, and important for our listeners outside of China? Like what you’ve heard? Follow us on Twitter @thepandaily and tweet at us! You can also like TechBuzz China on Facebook for the latest updates and give us a good review! If you would like to provide commentaries for the show, you can contact Rui or Ying-Ying at @ruima or @ginyginy on Twitter. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pinduoduo is the fastest growing ecommerce platform that you have never heard of. It is behind only Taobao and JD.com in the number of users, exceeding JD.com in their monthly gross merchandise volume, and even surpassing Taobao in the penetration rate of users from lower tiered cities. To understand this phenomenon, Rui not only downloaded the app to give us a sense of why it is so popular, but also shared comments by Kathy Xu of Capital Today, an early investor in JD.com, on why she chose not to invest in Pinduoduo. We also had Mark Pols, a former investor from GGV Capital and Morgan Stanley, share his thoughts on how Pinduoduo has tapped into “an enduring human need.” Another trend that is sweeping China is the real estate side of the sharing economy: coworking spaces and offices. Is it a fundamentally real estate business, or does it belong to the service sector? Is WeWork’s purchase of NakedHub a sign that foreign startups can overcome barriers and succeed in China, or is it just the start of another tragic tale? Hear what Ying-Ying and Rebeca Pan, founder and CEO of the U.S. coworking startup Covo, and a coworking industry pioneer, had to say about the future of coworking in the U.S. and China. Like what you’ve heard? Follow us on Twitter @thepandaily and tweet at us! You can also like TechBuzz China on Facebook for the latest updates and give us a good review! If you would like to provide commentaries for the show, you can contact Rui or Ying-Ying at @ruima or @ginyginy on Twitter. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

TechBuzz China is a short weekly podcast that talks all about China’s innovation, co-hosted by Rui Ma, who is an angel investor and entrepreneur, and Ying-Ying Lu, who is also an entrepreneur. The two hosts are both China experts who lived and worked in the technology space in China for many years. This week on TechBuzz China, Rui and Ying-Ying talk about the recent news involving three Chinese unicorns: Toutiao, Didi, and Meituan. Toutiao was recently under fire for posting fake ads on their flagship news app, but their punishment came in the form of a permanent ban on their jokes app, Neihan Duanzi, which you can read more about here. Rui compared the Toutiao CEO’s open apology with the Facebook CEO’s congressional hearing happening concurrently in the U.S. Ying-Ying shared news about Didi’s move into food delivery and what it means for the on-demand sector, which you can read about here. She also shared her thoughts and a personal story related to the recent acquisition of Chinese bike-sharing giant, Mobike, by the unicorn Meituan-Dianping, which you can also read more about here. If you are interested in learning more about what’s happening in China’s technology sector, you can also follow us on Twitter @thepandaily and like TechBuzz China on Facebook. If you would like to provide commentaries for the show, you can contact Rui or Ying-Ying on Twitter @ruima and @ginyginy. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.