China's emerging LGBT consumers - Jeffrey Towson

Jeffrey Towson

Disney's movie Beauty and the Beast has not been released in Malaysia for a overtly gay scene. In China it was not problem, triggering off much attention also from state-owned media. Other countries have already discovered the LGBT community as an attractive group of consumers, and Beida business professor Jeffrey Towson discusses at his weblog this emerging community in China.

Jeffrey Towson:

China has a huge gay and lesbian population and a growing LGBT (ie., pink) economy. Both of which have been emerging in the recent years. Estimates put China’s LGBT population at likely 40-100M. Not only is this the largest LGBT population in the world, it is actually larger than the entire population of Malaysia (approx 31M). 

China is the world’s most populous nation so it stands to reason it has, or will have, the largest gay, lesbian and transgender population. Definitely larger than the population of Malaysia and probably larger than the populations of the UK and Germany. And in the last 2-3 years, this population has been increasingly visible. For example, in May 2016, China’s second annual LGBT job fair was held. It attracted 34 companies and over 500 job seekers. 

Companies participating included Morgan Stanley, Starbucks, Citi, 3M and Didi Chuxing. Also in 2016, Taobao and Blued, the largest Chinese gay dating app, held an online content to choose 6 same-sex couples to fly to West Hollywood to get married. Over 2,000 couples sent in videos for the contest. 

There is also increasing discussion about the emergence of China’s “pink economy”. One area within this that is getting significant attention is tourism. This demographic typically spends more time and money than heterosexual groups on lesiure (tourism, entertainment) and personal image building (gym, beauty, physical therapy). 

Another current area of interest in China’s LGBT economy is dating apps. Market leader Blued now has over 15M members in China alone, making it the largest gay dating service in the world. And it was only founded in 2012. And while Grindr is probably the world’s most famous gay dating app, this is actually also Chinese, having been purchased by Beijing Kunlun for $93M. Note: Grindr has 10M registered users compared to Blued’s 15M.

More of Jeffrey Towson's weblog.

Jeffrey Towson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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The depth and breadth of Zhang Lijia's Lotus - review

Zhang Lijia

The Asian Review of Books puts author and journalist Zhang Lijia's book Lotus: A Novel in perspective in their review by Glyn Ford of the widely acclaimed work. "In the end the women are stronger than the men," Ford concludes.

The Asian Review of Books:

Zhang Lijia has moved from fact to fiction. After her 2008 "Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New Chinamapping her late blooming from monolingual willful factory worker to bilingual provocateur, we have in Lotus a first novel detailing the life and loves, trials and tribulations of a group of young migrant women sucked into South China’s sex industry. 

The distance traveled between the two books is less than might appear. “Socialism is Great!” —the exclamation mark is crucial—was an autobiographical account of the author’s “coming of age” yet Lotus retains strong biographical threads. A deathbed admission revealed a grandmother sold to a brothel as a young prostitute in the 1930s served as the germ for the novel. 

Zhang’s foundation was the academic work of two US feminists on the new China sex trade, built on by meeting Lanlan, a former prostitute and then NGO worker. Zhang volunteered herself for the same NGO, Tianjin Xingai House, distributing condoms to working girls in the City’s massage parlors and hair saloons. Lanolin is part of Lotus. But the whole novel is peopled with spirits from the author’s past. Hu Binbing, the failed and divorced businessman of the book, who has turned to photojournalism, is the alter ego of the late Zhao Tielin, a photographer who embedded himself amongst the prostitutes of the Hainan slums. The transformation of autodidact village boy to urban intellectual recapitulates the metamorphosis of Zhang’s rocket factory mentor almost two generations earlier. These characters provide a depth to the novel. 

For breadth, there is the gamut of China’s social concerns, internal immigration and corruption, materialism and the collapse of community. Lotus—and her friend Little Red—are enticed away from the their rural fastness by Hua, one of the first village girls to flea country for Shenzhen’s urban maw. The two young girls succumb to a seductive vision far from the realities of the mind-numbing robotic work they find in Workshop’s 7 and 6 of their shoe factory. Little Red’s dream is extinguished after she and her fellow workers in Workshop 6 are burnt to death behind its padlocked doors. Company cash arrests justice.

More in the Asian Review of Books.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Ian Johnson wins Shorenstein Journalism Award

Ian Johnson

Veteran China foreign correspondent and Pulitzer Price winner Ian Johnson has won the prestigious Shorenstein Journalism Award for 2016, the organization announced. Ian Johnson is currently working for the New York Times and the New York Review of Books. In a few weeks time his book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao will be available.

From the announcement:

Ian Johnson, a veteran journalist with a focus on Chinese society, religion and history, is the 2016 recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award. The award, given annually by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, is conferred to a journalist who produces outstanding reporting on Asia and has contributed to greater understanding of the complexities of Asia. He will deliver a keynote speech and participate in a panel discussion on May 1, 2017, at Stanford. 

“Ian Johnson is one of those rare writers who has not only watched China’s evolution over the long haul, but who is also deeply steeped in the culture and politic of both Europe and the United States as well,” said Orville Schell, the Arthur Ross Director at the Asia Society of New York’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and jury member for the award. “This cross-cultural grounding has imbued his work on China with a humanistic core that, because it is always implicit rather than explicit, is all the more persuasive.” 

Ian Buruma, the Paul W. Williams Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College and jury member for the award, added further praise, “Ian Johnson is one of the finest journalists in the English language. He writes about China with extraordinary insight, deep historical knowledge and a critical spirit tempered by rare human sympathy. His work on China is further enriched by wider interests, such as the problems of Islamist extremism in the West, specifically Germany, where he lives when he is not writing from China.”

More from the annnoucement.

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E-publishers better than print for authors - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

Online reading is developing fast into a major industry in China and China Reading of Tencent is heading for a huge IPO in Hong Kong later this year. For authors, e-publishing has major advantages compared to print publishing, says bestseller author Shaun Rein to Knowledge CKGSB.

Knowledge CKGSB

Social network owners also see readers as a prime investment opportunity. For instance, the owner of China Reading, Tencent media group, recently announced plans to launch a $600-800 million IPO for China Reading in Hong Kong later this year, according to media reports. 

Shaun Rein, managing director of the China Market Research Group in Shanghai, is bullish on the prospects of that platform largely because of the advantages that online publication gives writers. 

“There are fewer restrictions for online authors than in the print world,” Rein explains. “It’s also more difficult and slower to publish in a physical format because you have to work with publishers… They’re often state-owned, not market-oriented, and slow and lumbering. It can also get very costly to work with a publisher, so many authors prefer to publish their work quickly online where there’s fewer restrictions so they can get their content to their loyal readers faster.”

More at Knowledge CKGSB.

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How hype and greed destroy the bike-renting business - Jeffrey Towson

Jeffrey Towson

As long as funds are flooding the bike-renting business, the dance will go on. But, warns Beida business professor Jeffrey Towson at his website, when the music stops, the dancing will be over. Consumers might be the winners, as long as the music plays.

Jeffrey Towson:

Across the board, what we are seeing is non-economic behavior and a race for scale that is fueled by hype and enabled by easy access to money. This is warping and distorting what is an ultimately very nice and popular consumer bicycle rental service. But the ‘music is playing’ and all the companies ‘have to dance’ – or leave the market. This is likely to end badly for everyone, except for the consumers and bike thieves. 

The biggest part of this problem is the drive for scale. The leading companies are all trying to get big and capture market share, with Mobike reportedly having over 70 percent of the China market, measured both by the number of bikes and number of rides taken. 

However, the problem with this is there doesn’t appear to be any big advantages to scale. It doesn’t create a superior service like in taxi ride-sharing (more drivers means shorter waiting times). It doesn’t get a network effect. It doesn’t create a much lower cost structure per unit. And it ultimately doesn’t stop any small company from spending RMB 200,000 and deploying 1,000 bikes in a particular neighborhood. 

The business model followed by so many bicycle-sharing companies just doesn’t appear (yet) to have any competitive advantage. The market may well consolidate, but there is no reason yet to think the business itself will generate any type of exceptional profitability. The race for scale looks more like a race for a big sale or IPO.

More at Jeffrey Towson's website.

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Where Xi Jinping has been failing - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

China annual political meetings passed without any great upheaval, but not all is well for president Xi Jinping, writes veteran journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao in the New York Review of Book. No legal reforms, no successor, and then there is the economy.

Ian Johnson:

Equally pressing is the need for significant economic reforms. State enterprises suck in valuable capital from the banking system, which continues to be state-run, to the detriment of more dynamic private enterprises. Urbanization has taken off, but is based on expropriating land at below-market prices. 

Farmers still don’t own their land or have meaningful land transfer rights. Rural residents still have a hard time getting full rights in urban areas. And of course censorship has become so overwhelming that even constructive criticism is increasingly marginalized, causing many moderates to lose hope that their voices can be heard. 

The complete failure to reform the economy means that the government’s argument about low growth—that China’s economy has slowed only temporarily while the economy restructures—appears less and less plausible. Instead, what could be happening is that the country’s inability to reform further is sending it into the feared middle-income trap—a country that cannot take the next step to become a truly prosperous society. 

Will any of this matter to Xi? His popularity could fall if the economy continues to stagnate, while property prices continue to remain far beyond the reach of ordinary people. But leaders like Putin have remained popular despite far worse economic situations thanks to overseas adventures and blaming foreigners for the country’s woes. 

But what is clear is that Xi’s image as a strong and capable leader seems less and less believable. As the country enters its political season and Xi’s reappointment approaches, he begins to look different. Instead of being the transformer China needed, he might yet prove to be little more than a vigorous custodian of the status quo.

More at the New York Review of Books.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more political experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

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Life of a prostitute - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia's book Lotus: A Novel got already much praise from reviewers. For the South China Morning Post she describes the life of Yong Gan, the main female character in her book, and how she ended, like 10 million other women, in prostitution in China.

Zhang Lijia:

Yong Gan went to the factory all the same, and life there turned out much as the woman had predicted. She quit the production line after just three months and headed to Tianjin to join the massage parlour, a middle-range establishment on the outskirts of the city. 

After a brief training period, she started working as a masseuse, usually for male clients. For a one-hour session, she would be paid 60 yuan (HK$68). Her colleagues, however, were making a lot more. Going slightly beyond her brief, so to say, would yield more than twice as much; offering full-fledged sexual services would earn 600 yuan – her monthly salary at the factory. 

Prostitution is illegal in China but is rampant in venues such as massage parlours, nightclubs, hair salons and karaoke bars. Some researchers believe there may be more than 10 million prostitutes in the country. The government has brought in more than a dozen laws to check prostitution in the past couple of decades, in the course of which it has shifted its emphasis from eradicating prostitution to containing it. As a result, shady parlours manage to operate without hindrance for the most part, even though raids are reported from time to time – last month in Beijing, three exclusive “nightclubs” were busted. 

Yong Gan’s slide down the slippery path to prostitution was as rapid as it was painful. At every step, she rationalised it was all for her daughter. The hours were long, starting at noon and dragging into the small hours. In between, she would usually fit in a couple of “small jobs” and a couple of “big jobs”. 

She would have to pretend to be cheerful in front of the clients, no matter how exhausted she was. Yet the worst part was the constant anxiety. When a client turned up, the girls would gather in the reception area, striking alluring poses and smiling invitingly. “If I failed to be picked, I would be disappointed and anxious. If I got picked, I felt anxious, worrying he might be difficult to please, or even violent.”

More in the South China Morning Post.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Religion: flourishing in China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

When you believe Western media, religion is suffering severely from repression in China. But author Ian Johnson explored for his book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao the different religions in the country and discovered they are flourishing like they did not do for a long time, he tells to Christianity Today.

Christianity Today:

What are the major religious movements you explored? 

First, I look at groups in Beijing that practice Buddhism and other Chinese folk religions, which have been suppressed in the past but are making a big comeback with a bit of government support. These are primarily working-class people, the kind you don’t meet very often or read about too much. 

Then I spent time with a group of folk Taoist priests living in Tseng Chi province, in the countryside. Even though China has urbanized, about half the population lives in rural areas. Taoism is China’s indigenous religion. I got a feel for religion in the countryside, and a sense of the adaptations people make when they move to the cities. I visited a family where the father stayed in the village and the son moved to the town, which caused some tensions. 

The other major group is the Chengdu Protestants, named after the province where they are concentrated. Protestantism is China’s fastest growing religion. I wanted to look at an unregistered church, because they are growing the fastest, and because they’re so dynamic and interesting. In some ways, they’re the future of one big segment of religious life in China. I also wanted to avoid spending too much time in Beijing. If you spend all your time there, you would think the Communist Party is all powerful. But in Chengdu you see this unregistered church that’s running its own seminary and kindergarten. It bought a floor in an office building. And all of this is happening even though it’s technically illegal. You get a feel for the diversity of China and how things outside of Beijing can be a bit more freewheeling. 

How would you categorize the folk Buddhist “tea associations” around Beijing? 

I do think this is religious practice, even if the government is more comfortable calling it “culture.” They don’t really know what to make of it. This is not really any one religion. It’s more the way most Chinese religion was practiced in the past, a hodgepodge of Taoism, Buddhism, and various other things. For most people, there wasn’t a sharp theological boundary between Taoism and Buddhism. 

These things used to be viewed as mere superstition—praying to gods for children, good health, or things like that. And the government, in the hard Communist era under Mao, made it illegal. But increasingly, the government doesn’t see it as harmful because it can provide a kind of stability. It gives people something to believe in and it’s not overtly political, so the government is willing to encourage it. 

It’s all self-organized, and people are really quite pious. The government might call it culture, but they’re worshiping at these temples. Almost all of them have little shrines in their homes, like a statue of a god or Guan Yin, the Buddhist goddess of mercy. They light incense and say prayers. You wouldn’t know it just from walking around Beijing, because it’s not so visible. But there are about 80 or 90 of these groups in Beijing, with more forming all the time. 

Why do Protestantism and Chinese folk religions seem to appeal to different classes of people? 

Protestantism is more likely to appeal to Chinese with higher levels of education. That’s not to say that people who believe in Buddhism and Taoism all have less education. But Protestantism is a more modern religion in the sense that you have a more unmediated relationship with God. You can pray directly to God, the pastor addresses you directly in his or her sermons, and there’s more participation by the congregation. 

In a traditional Chinese ceremony, you tend to have a religious experience through an intermediary. The priest figure does ceremonies and says prayers on your behalf, and you’re more passively watching this happen. Many urban, educated people want a more active religious experience. Wang Yi, the pastor of Early Rain Reformed Church in Chengdu, is a very good speaker. His sermons address real-life issues that people face. Traditionally in Buddhism or Taoism you don’t have that kind of interaction with the priest. They are doing something for you, but they’re not really talking to you.

More in Christianity Today.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Ian Johnson discusses his forthcoming book on the return of religion

 

What makes China tick? - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Journalist Ian Johnson discusses his forthcoming book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao on the return of religion in China. Chinese want now to do more than only make money, he says. They are looking what brings us together. What makes China tick?

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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PBOC promises for fintech and startups - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

Business analyst Andy Mok has nine take-away's from this months central bank's press conference. Fintech and startups got priority from the government, he writes in CGTN, and they prepare for global expansion. But domesticallly virtual currencies and digital payment systems are kept under control to avoid capital flight.

Andy Mok:

Moreover, virtual currencies, third party payment systems and wealth management products all have important potential and actual linkages with each other that impact on existing policies and regulations.

With the scale of China’s market and financial assets and the speed with which business is undertaken online, both market participants and policy makers should examine these intersections for opportunities and risks. 

For example, there are now a number of crowdfunding and online lending apps that allow middle-class Chinese investors to pool their money to buy property overseas. While the ceiling of 50,000 US dollars per year on how much an individual Chinese person can take out of the country may appear to be a meaningful constraint, 10 million Chinese investors equals 500 billion US dollars in outbound investment. Given the middle class in China now exceeds 400 million, small changes in their financial behavior can have real consequences. 

Their actions can have a meaningful macro-level impact and the speed at which their behavior changes, such as taking up online transactions, means that more PBOC attention and resources will be devoted to areas such as this.

Finally, “inclusive finance” will target not only the poor and people who don’t have bank accounts (or hardly use the banking system) in China but will also impact on the poor across the world. As initiatives such as the Belt and Road gain further momentum, China will take a much larger role in bringing the rest of the world's unbanked into the digital era. Startups ready and able to develop “multi-local” inclusive finance products and services will have a powerful PBOC wind behind them.

More at CGTN.

Andy Mok is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Conflicting messages hurt business confidence - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

On one hand China tries to embark with "One Belt, One Road" on a massive global expansion. But financial limitations on the outflow of capital go against that. Those conflicting messages makes business people worried about what road to take, says business analyst Shaun Rein to the South China Morning Post.

The South China Morning Post:

To swap yuan into foreign currency and fund outbound investment, Chinese companies need the approval of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). 

But Beijing has adopted tougher rules on overseas investment applications since late last year, as the sharp depreciation of the yuan accelerated capital outflows, draining the country’s foreign reserves. 

As of early March, Chinese companies have announced US$19 billion of acquisitions abroad, a 74 per cent drop on a year ago, according to Bloomberg data. 

“The Chinese government is sending conflicting signals to businessmen,” said Shaun Rein, the managing director of China Market Research Group. 

“On the one hand, it wants Chinese companies to become global players and help build the belt and road initiative, yet at the same time the government is stopping companies from converting yuan into foreign currency. The conflicting policies are hurting business confidence,” Rein said. 

“China needs to decide whether it wants to lead and be part of the international economic system and fill the power gap left by a protectionist America under Trump or if it will let short-term fears of capital outflows destroy what should be a multi-decade initiative to create power and economic well being for China,” he said.

More in the South China Morning Post.

Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on the "One Belt, One Road' initiative? Do check out this list. 

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Breaking the stranglehold of Google and Facebook on mobile apps - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

Making money on mobile apps is - despite their popularity - almost impossible. Taiwan-based MOX and Shanghai-based Chinaccelator try to break the stranglehold of Google and Facebook on this industry, says William Bao Bean, managing director of both, to Tech in Asia.

Tech in Asia:

MOX works with startups that make mobile apps and services, and focuses on Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America. 

As it targets mobile app makers, the accelerator has found it has to throw down with Google and Facebook, the two main forces that determine what content floats to the top. “In the US you have the 99 percent and the 1 percent, on the internet you have the 99.9 percent and the 0.1 percent,” says William Bao Bean, MOX managing director and SOSV partner. The latter are the people who make any money on mobile, he adds. 

“We don’t even see venture capital backing apps so much anymore because it’s just a money transfer from the VC to the startup and from the startup to Google and Facebook,” William laments. 

To break this distribution stranglehold on mobile, MOX is trying to put together a consortium of companies that are feeling the same pressures. This includes companies like mobile phone brands, TV networks, and independent app stores. William isn’t ready to provide more details or name any participating companies at this point. 

The accelerator was originally meant to have one more startup batch during summer 2016 but chose to take a break and iron out some kinks. 

One key lesson it learned during that process? “When we say low-end phones, they’re really low-end phones,” he laughs. For its first batch, the accelerator wanted to find apps and services that worked on cheaper smartphones – ones more likely to be found in emerging markets, where MOX claims to offer startups access to a user pool of 130 million. 

Turns out, they overestimated even those devices. So now, participating startups need to make their apps under 10MB in size, able to work in unstable networks, and more data-friendly.

More in Tech in Asia.
William last week at MOX in Taiwan

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Supreme court does not declare VIE's illegal - Paul Gillis

Paul Gillis

Company constructions via fiscal paradises, VIE's or variable interest entities, are regular ways to avoid corporate government restrictions in China, and under official attack just for that. The Supreme Court fielded a verdict on transactions by one of those VIE's, but - says accounting professor Paul Gillis on his weblog, it did not clarify whether VIE's might lose their validity.

Paul Gillis:

The court upheld the transaction, saying that the VIE was a Chinese corporation and there was no basis to void a completed contract between two Chinese corporations. The court did ask the Ministry of Education about the nature of the arrangement, and while the Ministry of Education acknowledged it was a conventional VIE arrangement, they did not express an opinion as to whether the arrangement was legal. 

What the decision appears to clarify is that the commercial transactions of a VIE are valid, and do not rest on whether the VIE is operating within the bounds of the foreign investment restrictions.  The decision does not relate to the validity of the VIE contracts between Ambow’s VIE and Ambow’s wholly foreign owned enterprise (WFOE). 

It is the enforceability of the  VIE contracts between the WFOE and the Chinese shareholders of the VIE that are of greatest concern to investors. In the Gigamedia case, these contracts were found to be unenforceable.  That concern remains.

More at the ChinaAccountingBlog by Paul Gillis.

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Mattel, do or die in China - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

Mattel has seen its earlier operations in China falter, but now closed a new deal with Alibaba to sell interactive learning toys on the fragmented Chinese toy market. For Mattel it is now do or die, says business analyst Shaun Rein to Reuters.

Reuters:

Alibaba's reach and China's preoccupation with education could give Mattel the thrust it needs to win over the country's so-called "tiger mothers", who aggressively push their children to be the best in school. 

"Chinese parents tend to buy more educational toys, science kits and learning toys than all their counterparts in America and Europe," said Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group. 

While Mattel has garnered a nearly 2 percent share of the estimated $31.5 billion toys and games market in China, it has been unable to replicate the success it has enjoyed in the United States... 

Mattel isn't the only U.S. company that has struggled to navigate the Chinese market. Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) sold its online grocery store Yihaodian in China last year in return for a stake in e-commerce firm JD.com Inc (JD.O), saying the country's e-commerce market was hyper competitive. 

Several others including Home Depot Inc (HD.N), Hershey Co (HSY.N) and Costco Wholesale Corp (COST.O) have also struggled in China. 

For now, nearly everything is riding on Mattel's partnership with Alibaba. "It is just one of a hundred initiatives for (Alibaba)," said Rein. "But for Mattel, it is really do or die."

More at Reuters.

Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Fewer people have more wealth - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf

More wealth is concentrated in less hands, and the pace is accelerating, says Rupert Hoogewerf, chief research of the China rich list Hurun after publishing his Hurun Global Rich List, according to the CNBC. And most billionaires are living in China.

CNBC:

The world's billionaires are now worth $8 trillion, greater than the GDPs of Germany and France combined. 

According to the latest Hurun Global Rich List, published by the China-based Hurun Report research unit, there are now 2,257 billionaires in the world — up 3 percent from last year. 

Their combined fortunes jumped 16 percent over 2016, to the equivalent of 11 percent of the world's annual GDP. Their wealth was also larger than every country's individual GDP, other than the U.S. and China. 

"Billionaires are concentrating wealth at a supercharged rate," Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun Report's chairman and chief researcher, said in a statement. 

Indeed, the number of billionaires has exploded over the past five years, rocketing 55 percent higher. Because much of the world's wealth is hidden or difficult to find, the actual number of billionaires may be closer to 5,000, Hoogewerf said. 

"While some billionaires go to extraordinary lengths to conceal their wealth, for the most part it is that they are discreet and prefer operating under the radar," he said.

More at CNBC.

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How Alibaba Pictures gets an advantage with big data - Jeffrey Towson

Jeffrey Towson

Alibaba is pushing into the entertainment industry. The internet giant has one huge advantage, traditional filmmakers can only dream of, says business professor Jeffrey Towson in the Nikkei Asia Review. "Alibaba is attempting to create a new type of smart production that replaces "big bets" with "big data"."

Jeffrey Towson:

Alibaba Pictures' cinemas naturally show a mix of the company's own films and ones from other domestic and foreign studios. Cofinancing and equity partnerships can play a role in this, as seen in the company's investment in Paramount Pictures' last "Mission Impossible" movie. Such partnerships are important because getting to international levels of quality has proved to be more difficult for Chinese studios than expected. 

Yet Alibaba Pictures is also making unconventional moves in distribution. With its Tao Piaopiao movie ticketing app, the company is subsidizing pre-release purchases. This gives it a two-week advance window to gauge interest in specific films and insight into what Chinese consumers actually want to see. The ticketing app in turn is linked to Alibaba Pictures' theater operations software, which is in use at some 70% of local cinemas for ticket sales, screen booking and other functions, further expanding the company's data gathering. 

Add to this distribution channels controlled by Alibaba Group, such as the Youku Tudou video streaming sites, the growing Alibaba Cloud computing service and UCWeb, a popular internet browser for mobile phones. In this way, Alibaba can see what hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers are buying and watching in real time. Compare that to to a typical film studio, which spends 1-2 years making a movie based mostly on a gut feeling and then hopes it will do well if there is a large marketing budget behind it. Alibaba is attempting to create a new type of smart production that replaces "big bets" with "big data".

More in the Nikkei Asia Review.

Jeffrey Towson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Chinese investors shun Trump estates - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf

Trump properties might have gotten some extra glamour after their name-giver became president of the United States. But China's rich have historically shown very little interest in the Trump assets, says Rupert Hoogewerf, chief researcher of the Hurun China Rich List, and it is unlikely it's going to change, he tells the New York Post.

The New York Post:

Like much of the luxury market right now, (New York real estate brokers) Maitland and Karadus’ listing struggled even before Trump stepped into the Oval Office. The unit originally went to market with Town Residential in December 2014 for $10 million. After a price cut to $8.95 million it was delisted in October 2015, then went on and off the market at that price with BHS. It just reappeared for $7.5 million. 

While buyers from China are not out of the question — Maitland says a recent Chinese investor said “no” to other neighborhoods and insisted on “Central Park, Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, Trump” — they’re less likely. Rupert Hoogewerf, publisher of Shanghai-based luxury magazine the Hurun Report, which tracks the spending habits of Chinese one-percenters, says the Trump name has historically held little appeal for that market. 

“I’ve talked to a lot of [wealthy Chinese] in the past about property in New York and other cities, and nobody has ever come forward and suggested Trump Tower,” he says. Instead, he notes, “it was always talk about new developments.”

More in the New York Post.

Rupert Hoogewerf is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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