Sintia Radu,U.S.News & World Report Tue, Jul 23 2:51 PM PDT- Reactions
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Now, its heavy reliance on mobile technology has flipped China from copying and adapting Western business models to creating products and services that are being adapted in the West, according to a new report examining internet trends in the Asian giant.
"Global technology companies are now replicating successful concepts from their Chinese counterparts, from the Super App to social+ ecommerce to short video," say the authors of the China Internet Report 2019, a study produced by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post and Abacus, a Chinese technology platform.
The Super App is a "one-stop shop for services from shopping to ride hailing to money transfers to flight bookings," according to the report. The best-known products -- WeChat and Alipay, with more than 1 billion active users -- have been adapted by the likes of Facebook in the U.S., LINE, a messaging platform in Japan, and Go-Jek, a multi-service platform in Indonesia.
Chinese companies are increasingly integrating social media and e-commerce. Applications such as Taobao, Pinduoduo or Mogu have allowed users to live-stream videos and engage in group-buying. These concepts have been adapted by U.S. apps such as Amazon Live that allow live-streaming of videos where hosts demonstrate products that users can purchase directly. Instagram also allows users to buy products by tapping on product tags, while Google plans to add shopping features to YouTube.
The report comes amid the heated trade disputes between the U.S. and China. In June, Chinese state media announced that officials are creating a way to protect technology in a response to the U.S. restricting Chinese companies' access to American technology. On Tuesday, U.S. FBI Director Christopher Wray told a Senate committee that his agency has more than 1,000 investigations involving economic espionage and attempted intellectual property theft, nearly all leading back to China.
In February, U.S.-based Snapchat added the Chinese video service TikTok to the list of companies that it considers competitors. In 2018, Facebook launched Lasso, a short-video app that, as U.S. publisher TechCrunch noted at the time, appeared to be clone of TikTok.
[MORE: Indians Get Hooked on Chinese Video App Ahead of Election]
In the SCMP and Abacus report, the authors say the Chinese are also more advanced in the deployment of 5G technology than other countries, holding almost double the number of patents than the U.S. -- about 3,400. Three telecoms operators are piloting 5G for about 167 million people. By 2023, the combined 5G expenditure of the three should surpass $45 billion.
In contrast, the report says, 5G in the U.S. is expected to reach 100 million mobile connections by the same time.
China's internet penetration rate is still low -- 60% against 78% in the United States -- yet the country of 1.3 billion people has three times as many internet users as the U.S. and boasts internet business models that the U.S. now copies, according to the report.
The report's authors say China and the U.S. are operating in "two separate technology ecosystems." Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group remain the top Chinese internet players with, each valued at more than $400 billion. In 2018, 56 Chinese technology, media and telecommunications companies were listed on the Hong Kong and U.S. stock markets with a total combined market capitalization of $222 billion as of June 10, 2019.
Sintia Radu covers international affairs and technology for U.S. News & World Report. You can follow her on Twitter @sintiaradu and send her suggestions and ideas at sradu@usnews.com.
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