China Digital Digest Weekly: Exploring the Chinese Digital Landscape

Hi folks, we are back with our weekly edition of China’s Digital Digest, wherein we bring you weekly updates on China’s digital space. The report takes a quick glance at China’s complex and rapidly evolving social media landscape by providing updates on the latest happenings across the social media industry. Here are the major highlights of the report.

1. TikTok’s Revenue Surges 75% Outside US and Asia, Hitting $4.6 Billion in 2023

https://www.riotimesonline.com/tiktoks-revenue-surges-75-outside-us-and-asia-hitting-4-6-billion-in-2023/

ByteDance-owned international short video-platform TikTok has reported total revenue of US$4.6 billion in 2023, an increase of nearly 75 percent from a year earlier, in markets excluding the United States, Asia and Oceania.

TikTok, which has more than 1 billion users worldwide, attributed that rise to “the continued growth of [its] user base”, “enhanced monetisation tools to improve advertisers’ experience and ad performance”, and significantly greater “live-streaming revenue”, according to a filing last week by TikTok Information Technologies UK to the Companies House, the British government agency that maintains the register of companies. The platform’s operating loss, however, widened 167 percent to US$1.4 billion. The firm’s UK unit and its subsidiaries operate the popular app across countries in Europe, South and Central America, and Africa.

2. TikTok Slashes Hundreds of Jobs In Shift Towards AI Content Moderation

https://www.reuters.com/technology/bytedance-cuts-over-700-jobs-malaysia-shift-towards-ai-moderation-sources-say-2024-10-11/

ByteDance-owned social-media platform TikTok is laying off hundreds of employees from its global workforce, including a large number of staff in Malaysia, the company said, as it shifts focus towards a greater use of artificial intelligence in content moderation.

Two sources familiar with the matter earlier told Reuters that more than 700 jobs were slashed in Malaysia. TikTok later clarified that less than 500 employees in the country were affected. The employees, most of whom were involved in the firm’s content-moderation operations, were informed of their dismissal by email, according to the sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

In response to queries, TikTok confirmed the lay-offs and said that several hundred employees were expected to be affected globally, as part of a wider plan to improve its moderation operations.

3. TikTok Launches New In-Stream Shopping Push

https://www.pulse-advertising.com/news/tiktok-new-shopping-push/

TikTok has launched a new “Fall Deals For You” promotion to encourage more buying activity.

Throughout October, TikTok will be offering discounts across thousands of trending products from a range of big name brands. Top brands like Phillips, Dyson, Keurig, e.l.f. Cosmetics, NYX cosmetics, Tarte Cosmetics, Anastasia Beverly Hills, and Pacsun will be offering huge savings on TikTok Shop. TikTok is also hosting several live shopping events, including Glamlite launching its exclusive Michael Myers Collection, and DJ-turned-hobby-influencer Steve Aoki sharing trading card deals.

The hope is that this will once again help to build more momentum behind TikTok’s in-app shopping push, which remains a key focus for the platform in building on its revenue opportunities.

4. TikTok Offers Free Access to Mental Health Support for Creators

https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/prioritizing-the-mental-health-of-our-community-with-headspace-and-enhanced-resources

TikTok has announced some new initiatives for World Mental Health Day, including an important push to help creators both get help, and advocate for the same in the app.

First off, TikTok is partnering with Headspace on a new initiative that will provide up to 20,000 creators with six months of free access to the Headspace app. The program aims to help creators avoid burnout, and the pressures that come with audience expectation, while also empowering them to speak about their personal experiences, and how they got the help and assistance they need.

TikTok has also developed a new Creator Academy Playbook to help guide creators on how to make content for World Mental Health Day and beyond. Moroever, TikTok is running a webinar in the U.S. focused on creator well-being.

5. Alibaba’s Lazada Courts Armani, D&G to Fend Off Shopee, TikTok

https://www.benzinga.com/news/24/10/41314820/alibabas-lazada-courts-armani-and-other-luxury-brands-seeks-edge-over-rivals-in-southeast-asia

Alibaba Group Holding’s Lazada is courting top European fashion and design brands to help fend off Asian rivals and eventually reach its goal of US$100 billion in e-commerce volume by 2030.

Executives met recently in Milan with founders and managers of more than a hundred Italian brands interested in tapping Southeast Asia through LazMall Luxury, a recently launched platform. Those included Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Ferragamo and Tod’s. That courtship is one aspect of a campaign to try and fend off Sea’s Shopee, ByteDance’s TikTok and PDD Holdings in a Southeast Asian online commerce arena expected to reach US$186 billion by 2025. TikTok and Shopee in particular have vied fiercely for merchants and shoppers in key markets from Indonesia to Singapore.

6. Alibaba, JD.Com, and Pinduoduo Kick-Start Singles’ Day Promotions on Same Day

https://chinaeconomicreview.com/china-e-commerce-platforms-kick-off-singles-day-festival/

Major Chinese e-commerce platform operators Alibaba Group Holding, JD.com and Pinduoduo kicked off their respective campaigns for Singles’ Day on 14th October, the world’s largest annual shopping festival, just weeks after Beijing unveiled wide-ranging economic-stimulus measures.

Taobao and Tmall Group, Alibaba’s domestic e-commerce business unit, launched at 8pm on 14th October the presale stage of its promotion for Singles’ Day – also known as 11.11 or Double 11, referring to the shopping extravaganza originally observed on November 11 – as the company anticipates a record-high volume of users taking part in this year’s festival.

JD.com and PDD Holdings-owned Pinduoduo also rolled out their respective Singles’ Day promotions on the same day, marking a departure from 11.11 campaigns over the past few years. The three e-commerce rivals used to launch promotions on different days partly to avoid direct, side-by-side comparison of their respective sales numbers ahead of November 11.

7. Discount Shopping Giant Temu Enters Vietnam And Brunei Amid Indonesia Ban

https://e.vnexpress.net/news/business/companies/budget-e-commerce-platform-temu-enters-vietnam-brunei-after-indonesia-ban-4803951.html

International discount-shopping platform Temu, operated by Pinduoduo owner PDD Holdings, is expanding into Vietnam and Brunei to boost its Southeast Asia operations, following Indonesia’s recent move to ban the popular e-commerce app.

Temu’s website in Vietnam, however, showed that the company’s foray into one of the fastest-growing economies in the region was apparently rushed. It currently supports only English as well as transactions made via credit card and Google Pay, while excluding leading Vietnamese mobile payment service Momo. In affluent Brunei, Temu is available in both English and the official Malay language. The tiny nation, with a population of more than 450,000, has one of the world’s highest standards of living, based on its bountiful oil and gas reserves.

8. Temu Sells US$4 Remotes Compatible With Rival Amazon’s Fire TV Stick

https://fortune.com/2024/10/08/temu-amazon-fire-stick-sales-4/

Temu, locked in a fierce rivalry with Amazon.com, is targeting one of the e-commerce giant’s most popular product lines: the Fire TV streaming device.

Temu is selling Alexa-activated remote controls that are compatible with Amazon’s Fire TV Stick for as little as US$4. Similar generic versions cost about US$10 on Amazon.com, while the official Fire TV replacement is about US$25. Since emerging in 2022, Temu has challenged Amazon’s speedy delivery guarantees by offering steep discounts to shoppers willing to wait about a week to receive their orders.

9. Alibaba’s Tmall Sees Surge in Foreign Brands in September

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/alibabas-tmall-sees-surge-brands-093000404.html

Alibaba Group Holding’s Tmall shopping platform saw the number of new brands surge by 239 percent from August to September, as foreign merchants rushed to gain a foothold on China’s largest online marketplace before the upcoming Singles’ Day shopping festival.

In the third quarter, the number of brands that opened official stores on Tmall surged by 70 percent from the previous quarter, with September the best-performing month, according to data from Taobao and Tmall Group, the domestic e-commerce unit of Alibaba. Tmall is Alibaba’s premium online shopping platform that mainly hosts established brands. All Tmall stores are directly accessible from both Taobao and Tmall apps. The two platforms have a combined market share of over 50 percent in China’s e-commerce landscape, according to third-party research data.

10. Moonshot AI Releases Kimi Explorer Edition

https://www.ctol.digital/news/moonshot-ai-launches-kimi-explorer-edition-to-rival-openai-o1/

In a bold move, Chinese AI powerhouse Moonshot AI has introduced the Kimi Explorer Edition, a cutting-edge large language model (LLM) designed to compete directly with OpenAI's highly-regarded O1 model.

According to official introduction, this function will simulate human reasoning process and conduct deep searches, helping users complete analysis and research more efficiently. Through autonomous strategic planning, automated large-scale information retrieval, reflection and supplementation of search results, users can obtain more accurate and comprehensive answers. The official statement indicates that tests have shown that Kimi Explorer Edition outperforms mainstream AI assistants and search products both domestically and internationally, with a comprehensive performance improvement of at least 30%.

11. vivo Releases a New AI Strategy, “PhoneGPT” Debuts

https://inf.news/en/digital/f2839f42a0fee1e0910c6c4b311f86e8.html

On October 10th, at the 2024 vivo Developer Conference, vivo officially launched a new AI strategy called “Blue Intelligence”, and also introduced a comprehensive upgrade of its self-developed BlueLM matrix, OriginOS 5 operating system, BlueOS2 operating system, as well as vivo’s latest achievements in security, humanity, and ecological cooperation.

At last year’s developer conference, vivo released a BlueLM matrix consisting of five language models. It was the first in the industry to successfully run 1B, 7B, and 13B edge-side large models. Additionally, based on the Blue Intelligence large model matrix, vivo launched the ‘Blue XiaoV’ and ‘Blue Thousand Inquiry’ apps. vivo revealed at the conference that in November last year, the large-scale model of BlueLM ranked first in various major model rankings such as SuperCLUE, CMMLU, and C-EVAL. As of today, vivo’s AI capabilities have covered more than 60 countries and regions worldwide, serving over 500 million mobile phone users, with a total output of large model tokens exceeding 30 trillion.

12. ByteDance Releases GR-2 Robot AI Large Model

https://aidisruptionpub.com/p/bytedance-unveils-robot-model-with

The research team of ByteDance has recently launched the second-generation large-scale model GR-2 (Generative Robot 2.0).

The model’s highlight lies in innovatively constructing the “robot infancy” learning stage, imitating human growth and learning complex tasks, possessing outstanding generalization ability and multitask versatility. Like many other AI models, the GR-2 model undergoes two processes: pre-training and fine-tuning. In addition, GR-2 demonstrates excellent generalization ability in novel and previously unseen scenarios, including new backgrounds, environments, objects, and tasks.

Wrapping Up

The vast and diverse nature of the Chinese Social Media space makes it incredibly challenging to keep a tab on the rapid developments taking place. However, China’s Digital Digest brings you all the latest updates from there to keep you abreast of all the evolving trends.

To delve deeper into the findings of our latest report, click here.