The Latest from Rita Liao
How ByteDance plans to crack the gaming industry
For the last few years, ByteDance, the parent company of short video app TikTok, has been working to diversify its revenue streams beyond advertisement and find more ways to monetize its hundreds of m
Hong Kong fintech unicorn WeLab raises $75M led by insurance giant Allianz
One of the few industries that have benefited from the COVID-19 crisis is online finance. Around the world, the pandemic has forced consumers to adopt digital banking. Hong Kong’s WeLab, a finte
Chinese beauty app Meitu bought $40 million worth of cryptocurrency
Following in the footsteps of Tesla, Chinese app maker Meitu has joined the ranks of cryptocurrency investment. In the early 2010s, Meitu reached such dominance in the portrait touch-up space that its
What China’s Big Tech CEOs propose at the annual parliament meeting
The annual meetings of the Chinese parliament and its advisory body are underway in Beijing this week. Top executives from some of China’s largest tech firms are among the thousands of delegates
Boss of Chinese gaming titan NetEase calls for shared parental leave
China’s relaxation of its one-child restriction has not delivered the population targets set by its policy planners. In 2019, the birth rate in China slumped to a seven-decade low, which experts
China’s cosmetics startup Yatsen to buy 35-year-old skincare brand Eve Lom
In China’s cosmetics world, where foreign brands were historically revered, indigenous startups are increasingly winning over Gen Z consumers with cheaper, more localized options. One of the ris
How China’s synthetic media startup Surreal nabs funding in 3 months
What if we no longer needed cameras to make videos and can instead generate them through a few lines of coding? Advances in machine learning are turning the idea into a reality. We’ve seen how d
Qualcomm veteran to replace Alain Crozier as Microsoft Greater China boss
Microsoft is getting a new leader for its Greater China business. Yang Hou, a former senior vice president at Qualcomm, will take over for Alain Crozier as the chairman and chief executive officer for
Tim Hortons marks two years in China with Tencent investment
Tim Hortons, the Canadian coffee and doughnut giant, has raised a new round of funding for its Chinese venture. The investment is led by Sequoia China with participation from Tencent, its digital part
Xiaomi further localizes India supply chain via BYD, DBG partnerships
China’s Xiaomi had dominated the Indian smartphone market for three consecutive years until recently losing the top spot to Samsung. It has played by the Indian government’s rulebook to su
Chinese mobile games are gaining ground in the US
Over the past year, the coronavirus crisis has spurred app usage in the United States as people stay indoors to limit contact with others. Mobile games particularly have enjoyed a boom, and among them
A race to reverse-engineer Clubhouse raises security concerns
As live audio chat app Clubhouse ascends in popularity around the world, concerns about its data practices also grow. The app is currently only available on iOS, so some developers set out in a race t
China’s Black Lake raises $77M to give factories a digital upgrade
Zhou Yuxiang doesn’t have the typical profile for working in China’s manufacturing world. A soft-spoken yet incisive person in his early thirties, Zhou graduated from Dartmouth College wit
TikTok’s China twin Douyin has 550 million search users, takes on Baidu
The advance of short videos is reshaping how information is created, disseminated and consumed online. Snappy 15-second videos aren’t just for entertainment. On Chinese short-video apps Douyin a
Tesla summoned by Chinese regulators for quality concerns
Tesla, which is seeing rapid growth in China as it ramps up local manufacturing capacity, has been called upon by the Chinese government for talks over quality issues in its electric cars. A group of
Clubhouse is now blocked in China after a brief uncensored period
Thousands of Chinese users suddenly found themselves unable to access Clubhouse on early Monday evening as the country prepared to start the week-long Lunar New Year holiday. Inside WeChat groups, Clu
China court accepts ByteDance case filing against Tencent over alleged monopoly
ByteDance is bringing its battle with archrival Tencent to the court at a time when the Chinese government moves to curve the power of the country’s internet behemoths. The Beijing Intellectual
Will the Clubhouse model work in China?
On Friday just past midnight, I stumbled across a Clubhouse room hosted by a well-known figure in the Chinese startup community, Feng Dahui. At half-past midnight, the room still had nearly 500 listen
Kuaishou, TikTok’s Chinese nemesis, surges 194% on IPO debut
Kuaishou, a Chinese video app that’s largely underappreciated outside China, has just completed a massive initial public offering in Hong Kong. The app is by far the biggest rival for Douyin, Ti
China’s national blockchain network embraces global developers
While China bans cryptocurrency exchanges and initial coin offerings, the government is set to leverage the underpinning technology — often without the decentralized part. Blockchain, for instan