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. Pinduoduo Heats Up Online Price War During China’s 618 Shopping Festival

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pinduoduo-heats-price-war-during-093000617.html

Pinduoduo, the mainland budget-shopping platform of PDD Holdings, has introduced an “automated price-tracking system” for merchants to swiftly adjust prices online, as China’s e-commerce giants gear up for this year’s 618 shopping festival.

The novel system provides merchants on the platform a fast and intelligent way to keep pace with [the pricing strategy of] competitors. The system, for example, will automatically adjust the online prices of its user as soon as it finds a rival merchant offering lower prices, the report said. According to screenshots of the system posted by Pinduoduo merchants on Chinese social media, subscribers can set up a specific range that the system would follow when adjusting the price of goods. The system will be in operation until June 21, which is the end of Pinduoduo’s 618 sales campaign.

2. Alibaba Sells Stake In Ecommerce Branding Services Firm Baozun For $US21.8 Million

https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/alibaba-sells-144-stake-in-gaps-china-operator-baozun-to-optimize

Alibaba Group Holding is selling its entire stake in e-commerce branding solutions provider Baozun, as the Chinese technology giant continues its corporate restructuring amid increased industry competition.

Hangzhou-based Alibaba signed a deal to sell 26.5 million Baozun shares to Champion Kerry for US$21.8 million, according to Baozun’s latest regulatory filing. Those shares represent about 14.4 percent of the total outstanding shares of Baozun as of March 31 this year. That transaction followed Alibaba’s disposal of nearly US$360 million worth of Bilibili shares in March at a significant discount, according to stock exchange filings. In the same month, the e-commerce giant also raised about US$314 million from its sale of 33 million US-traded shares of electric vehicle maker Xpeng.

3. Products Sold By China’s Shein Have High Toxic Chemical Levels: Seoul Government

The government of South Korea’s capital Seoul has said that children’s products sold by the Chinese-founded online shopping giant Shein contained toxic substances in amounts hundreds of times above acceptable levels.

Seoul authorities have been conducting weekly inspections of items sold by platforms including Shein, Temu and AliExpress. In the latest round, they selected eight products sold by Shein, including children’s shoes, leather bags, and a belt, and found several to contain high amounts of phthalates – chemicals used to soften plastics. One pair of shoes contained 428 times the permitted levels of phthalates – the highest observed so far during the Seoul inspections – and three bags had amounts as high as 153 times the limit, the city government said.

4. JD.Com Billionaire Founder Blasts Underperforming Employees

https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/jd-com-billionaire-founder-richard-liu-blasts-underperforming-employees-as-e-commerce-giant-faces-mounting-competition/ar-BB1nbn8G

Richard Liu Qiangdong, the billionaire founder of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, said the company is no place for unproductive staff and threatened to lay them off, as competition heats up in the country’s online shopping sector.

The remarks, some of his harshest in recent years, mark an escalation in tone by the company chairman, who last year warned his employees not to “lie flat”, or tang ping – a Chinese term that means doing the minimum to get by. They also stand in contrast with past comments by Liu, who has repeatedly highlighted comradeship in the company culture by calling staff “my brothers”.

The strong words come after the Beijing-based firm made a series of adjustments to its work schedule and timekeeping policies, including shortening the lunch break from two hours to one hour, as well as additional efforts to prevent “buddy punching” – a term describing workers clocking in for colleagues who are late or absent, according to people familiar with the matter.

5. JD.Com Releases 12 Major Ai Hardware Categories Ahead Of 618 Shopping Festival

https://daoinsights.com/news/jd-com-releases-12-major-ai-hardware-categories-ahead-of-618-shopping-festival/

JD.com has officially announced the release of 12 AI hardware categories, including AI computers, mobile phones, headphones, cameras, learning machines, keypads, watches, routers, glasses, door locks, cameras, and speakers.

This launch, in collaboration with 3C digital brands such as Lenovo China, Xiaomi, Qualcomm, and Intel, introduces a series of preferential policies and a comprehensive upgrade to the service experience. Initiatives include trade-in subsidies and free trials for certain AI products, aiming to encourage over 3 million users to upgrade to new AI products during the 618 period. By introducing these 12 categories, JD.com aims to help consumers clearly identify AI hardware classifications, facilitating more informed purchasing decisions. This strategy also provides guidance for brands and markets to expand and enhance their AI-oriented hardware offerings.

6. WeChat Refutes Reports of Being Asked to Reduce Its Market Share

https://www.mobileworldlive.com/greater-china/wechat-pay-insists-call-for-market-share-cut-is-rumour/

Tencent has denied foreign media reports China’s government is pushing it to reduce the market share of the payment app WeChat Pay, declaring in a statement on Weixin that the claim is a rumor and not true.

Alibaba’s Alipay and WeChat dominate China’s online payment market, with 55 percent and 37 percent shares at end-2023, respectively, figures from Statista showed. Analysts believe regulators are unlikely to take action only against WeChat Pay and not market leader Alipay. Mobile payment transactions in the country totaled $12 trillion as of March 2024, Beijing-based Analysys reported.

7. WeChat Channels Live E-Commerce Team Merges Into the WeChat Open Platform Team

http://www.aastocks.com/en/stocks/analysis/stock-aafn-con/00700/AAFN/NOW.1352707/hk-stock-news

WeChat has issued an internal announcement that the WeChat Channels live e-commerce team has been reorganized.

It is reported that the WeChat Channels live e-commerce team will be integrated into the WeChat Open Platform (Mini Programs, Official Accounts, etc.) team, and the original WeChat Channels live e-commerce team will be led by the head of the WeChat Open Platform. Informed sources said that this adjustment would help integrate the business of video channel live e-commerce into the WeChat ecosystem more effectively and provide better development opportunities for video channel live e-commerce.

At the end of last year, there was news that WeChat Channels increased its investment in live-streaming e-commerce resources. To this end, it has adjusted the organizational structure of both the WeChat Pay and WeChat Channels teams, aiming to integrate WeChat Pay and WeChat Channels and allocate more resources to “live streaming e-commerce”.

8. ByteDance Continues Development of AI Wearable Devices

https://www.chinamoneynetwork.com/2024/05/30/bytedance-eyes-ai-hardware-exploring-wearable-earphones-and-handheld-ai-devices-inspired-by-microsofts-ecosystem-strategy

According to Chinese media 36Kr, ByteDance is investing heavily in the field of AI. In addition to focusing on large model applications and other software aspects, its exploration of AI+hardware has never ceased.

Several insiders revealed that ByteDance’s exploration in the direction of AI hardware is internally divided into two product lines: one product line is codenamed “D line”, headed by Li Haoqian, the founder of the OWS (Open Wearable Stereo, open wearable stereo headphones) headphone brand Oladance. ByteDance had recently acquired this brand. The other product line is the “O line”, headed by the founder of a company previously acquired by ByteDance, who reports to Hong Dingkun, the Vice President of Technology at ByteDance.

The focus of the D line will be on wearable devices with AI capabilities, continuing the previous experience of the Oladance team with headphones – Li Haoqian was a senior executive at headphone manufacturer BOSE before starting his own business.

9. TikTok Is Testing DM Streaks to Prompt More Engagement

https://socialbarrel.com/tiktok-is-building-new-dm-streaks-to-encourage-engagements/145206/

TikTok is looking to build more even compulsion into the app, this time via DM streaks, which are activated when users maintain daily messaging interaction.

TikTok is now alerting some users that they’ve activated a DM streak in the app, which also sees a fire emoji and a streak count placed next to your chat. TikTok is essentially copying Snap’s popular streaks feature, which will also likely see it add unique emoji for longer streaks and potentially other rewards in the future.

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.