Digitally China

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei is one of China’s largest success stories in tech.

No other domestic tech firm has been able to grow its business overseas around the world and beat the competition the way the Shenzhen-based company has, despite keeping a relatively low profile.

But over the past six months, Huawei has found itself increasingly in the limelight and under public scrutiny. After the arrest of one of its top executives in December and an escalating trade war, the Chinese telecoms company has become a symbol for both China’s technological rise and ambition -- and the threat that poses to Western countries like the US.

To take a closer look at the company -- at a more human-scale -- we decided to dive into the people and unique ‘wolf’ culture of Huawei, from its dark history of employee suicides to inspiring “war” stories, where company staff brave earthquakes and civil war to serve clients.

So what makes the company tick? How does it produce both die-hard loyalists and Huawei-haters? In this episode, we explore the following topics:

- Huawei’s management system and how it works

- Founder Ren Zhengfei’s influence on Huawei

- Militaristic Huawei slogans and sayings

- Company training and “boot camp”

- The trade-offs of a “wolf” culture

Host: Tom Xiong and Eva Xiao

Producer: Jacob Lovén

Guest: Shen Rui, an ex-Huawei employee who worked there 2011-2015

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China is powered by RADII (www.radiichina.com), an independent media platform exploring China from all angles. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Together with Jonas Leijonhufvud and Sven Carlsson, the authors of a new book telling the inside story about Spotify and the fight for global dominance in music streaming we are discussing if ByteDance actually have a shot at beating the giants.

ByteDance, the company behind the huge International success TikTok, or Douyin as its called in China is really on the offense. Fueled by the position as the 3rd most downloaded app in the world 2018 and a valuation of 75 billion dollars, ByteDance have recently both announced plans to enter messaging to directly compete with Tencent and Facebook as well as launching a smartphone.

 

And now, reported first by Bloomberg ByteDance seem to have far advanced plans on getting into music streaming to compete with Spotify, Tencent Music and Apple Music. Already positioned among hundreds of millions of teens around the world with a short video and music app - this actually doesn’t seem that crazy.

 

In this episode of Digitally China we are discussing:

- TikTok’s current position on the market

- The challenges of monetizing through music streaming, learnt from Spotify and Apple Music

- How music streaming companies work with record labels and how that would impact TikTok’s ambitions

- The validity of TikTok’s presumed music streaming service and how their position among teenagers around the world could support that

 

Host: Tom Xiong

Producer: Jacob Lovén

Guests: Jonas Leijonhufvud and Sven Carlsson, reporters at Dagens Industri and authors of the book Spotify Untold

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China is powered by RADII (www.radiichina.com), an independent media platform exploring China from all angles. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Gaming is one of the most profitable industries in China’s tech sector. It’s the cash cow powering the rise of Tencent, the multi-billion dollar firm behind WeChat. It's also an industry with some of the most notorious examples of copying, but also the most stringent rules -- which Chinese game developers and gamers tirelessly find creative workarounds for.

China is the largest gaming market in the world by revenue, raking in almost $40 billion last year, despite a 9-month licensing freeze that prevented game developers from monetizing new games. But as the Chinese government rolls out more rules to increase controls on an already tightly regulated market -- banning blood, mahjong games, and more -- what will happen to China's vibrant gaming community, and how will tighter content restrictions impact the country's game developers?

Topics covered in this episode:

- Publication numbers and censorship

- Copycat products and Chinese game quality

- Creative freedom and the future of gaming in China

Guests:

- Haohai and Li Motian, two hardcore gamers based in China

- Daniel Ahmad, senior analyst at market research and consultancy firm Niko Partners

- Wang Miaoyi, a Beijing-based independent game developer

Hosts: Eva Xiao & Tom Xiong

Producer: Jacob Loven

Music rights: Licensed by Epidemic Sound For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

In this special episode of Digitally China Tom is joined by Emmy Teo, co-founder of the New Retail startup FUSE and advisor to up & coming consumer brands in fashion and furniture.

Chinese companies have for a long time had access to the best supply chain in the world, enabling scalable production of a wide range of products. But only in the recent years we have seen that unique skillset being combined with what western companies usually see as their differentiator: the ability to create attractive brands, especially in the lifestyle sector. In this Digitally China episode we are discussing domestic brands, how much they have progressed and the possibility of them overtaking established brands such as Zara or IKEA.

Topics covered in this episode:

- Up & coming Chinese fashion and furniture brands

- The future of lifestyle segment

- The current and future differences between modern domestic brands and western equivalents

Host: Tom Xiong

Guests: Emmy Teo

Producer: Jacob Lovén

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China is powered by RADII (www.radiichina.com), an independent media platform exploring China from all angles. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

With the recent news of Amazon exiting China with their e-commerce business combined with the departure of Uber a few years ago, many observers' have questioned if a foreign tech company can be successful in China.

But then we heard about OYO, an Indian startup having recent success in China hosting thousands of rooms in what is in theory a very hard market to penetrate.

In this episode we are discussing OYO with reporter Huizhong Wu, trying to understand why they can be successful in China while so many western brands fail.

Topics covered in this episode of Digitally China:

- What is OYO?

- What's the difference between an Indian startup and a Western?

- What are the usual challenges of foreign brands entering China?

Hosts: Eva Xiao and Tom Xiong

Guests: Huizhong Wu

Producer: Jacob Lovén

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China is powered by RADII (www.radiichina.com), an independent media platform exploring China from all angles. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Recently a leaked e-mail from JD.com have been widely spread, being probably the most concrete example of the 996 culture from certain tech companies in China. Among many things, the leaked e-mail indicates that people working less overtime should be fired.

 

In this episode of Digitally China we are trying to figure out how widely spread 996 is, how it impacts people and what effect the recent backlash in this hotly debated topic will have.

 

To understand the culture of working overtime in tech and how it is different from other industries, we interviewed contributors of the recently famous 996.ICU project on GitHub, Xu Ming and Xiao Yang.

 

Topics covered in this episode of Digitally China:

- The background of 996

- How 996 in tech is different compared to other industries

- How widely spread 996 is

- The recent criticism against on 996, going viral on GitHub

- How the Chinese tech industry might change going forward

 

Hosts: Eva Xiao and Tom Xiong

Guests: Xu Ming and Xiao Yang

Producer: Jacob Lovén

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China is powered by RADII (www.radiichina.com), an independent media platform exploring China from all angles. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Over the past five years, China’s internet industry has seen dizzying growth, with each year hitting record-levels of funding. In the second quarter of 2018, Chinese startups raised more venture capital than startups in North America for the first time. 

But at the end of last year, the industry started winding down -- fast. Rumors started about mass layoffs at different tech firms, from ecommerce giant JD to Quora-like Zhihu. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs braced themselves for a “capital winter.”

So is China’s startup scene finally facing the music after years of cash-burning growth? Is this just a market correction or a sign of worse things to come?

In this episode, we will cover:

- Stories from the good old days of China’s startup industry 

- Factors contributing to the slowdown

- The impact on China's tech industry and human cost of market correction

Guests: 

- Gu Xi, marketing partner at Higgz, a Beijing-based AI education startup focusing primarily on improving high school students’ learning capabilities.

- Chauncey Jung, a freelance writer based in Canada who focuses on technology, politics, and current affairs in China. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

This latest episode of Digitally China has a special format, partly recorded live from DCongress, one of the largest e-commerce conferences in Europe where co-host Tom Xiong and producer Jacob Lovén moderated panels with Chinese e-commerce experts.

 

In this episode we’ll listen to excerpts from Shenyi Wu (former CFO of Pinduoduo and RED) and Julie Chen (former Sequoia Capital China) that have founded the new western-focused e-commerce platform Flamingo.shop. Together with them we discuss how the Chinese e-commerce market have become the global leader, what the secret sauce behind social e-commerce is and how this has a potential to disrupt Amazon.

 

We also get to listen to Tingting Fang, Brand Director of JudyDoll which is one of the fastest growing cosmetics brands in China. Just founded 18 months ago, they have already surpassed established companies such as L’Oreal by utilizing social e-commerce and the new ways to both engage and sell products online.

 

Topics this episode covers:

- What is Social E-commerce?

- Why was Pinduoduo able to grab market-share from much larger players such as Alibaba?

Guests: Shenyi Wu, Julie Chen and Tingting Fang.

Hosts: Jacob Lovén and Tom Xiong.

Production: Jacob Loven.

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China ispowered by RADII (www.radiichina.com), an independent media platform exploring China from all angles. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

In a country where WeChat rules supreme, Bytedance is attempting the impossible. Last month,the Beijing-based startup launched its own social networking app called Duoshan.

It wouldn’t be the first time Bytedance has made larger, more established tech companies nervous. It runs TikTok, a video-sharing app that has quickly grown popular worldwide -- a rare feat for a Chinese tech firm -- inspiring Facebook to launch its own competing app called Lasso.

The startup has also already started butting heads with Tencent. Last year, the heads of both companies became embroiled in a public spat on WeChat, where the Bytedance CEO accused Tencent of copying Douyin -- the Chinese version of TikTok -- and blocking it in WeChat to slow its growth. A few months later in a separate case, Tencent sued the startup for 1 RMB ($0.15) for defamation.

As large tech firms solidify their monopolies around the world -- Google dominates search, Tencent owns social -- it is becoming increasingly difficult for newcomers to challenge tech giants on their own turf. So will Duoshan be successful? And is Bytedance the company that can finally break Tencent’s hold on social?

In this episode, we’ll discuss:

- The promising features of Duoshan -- and their disadvantages

- China’s younger generation and the appeal of disappearing videos or “stories”

- Bytedance’s AI edge

- Bytedance’s success with TikTok and foray into gaming, another important business for Tencent

Guest: Ashley Dudarenok, founder of Alarice International, a Hong Kong-based digital marketing agency that focuses on Chinese social media.

Hosts: Eva Xiao and Tom Xiong

Production: Jacob Loven

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China ispowered by RADII (www.radiichina.com), an independent media platform exploring China from all angles. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

With DJI's recent 150 million USD embezzlement scandal we are investigating what happens when Chinese tech companies grow too fast. What compromises are made to enable a fast growth that also increases the risk of embezzlement and internal fraud?

Together with our external guest Alex with in-depth experience from both Accenture and large Chinese e-commerce companies we are discovering:

- How embezzlement and internal fraud are being done in Chinese tech companies?

- Is there any difference between China and the US?

- How will this impact the fast-growing Chinese tech sector.

- Will this issue be fixed, or is it even necessary?

- The misconception of publicly listed companies. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy