China ICT (Info Communications Technology) Industry, Infra, Commerce, Exports: News & Discussions

[艹艹艹]

China Mobile 4G subscriber base reaches 509 mn in Nov

 

[TaiShang]

This also corresponds perfectly well in the decline of the share of exports in China's national GDP.

Exports of goods and services (% of GDP)

The share is still higher than that of the US, but the US consumption rests on debt; so, potentially unhealthy. In the meantime, Germany's export to GDP ratio is over 40%.

@Shotgunner51 , @AndrewJin , @Zsari

 

[ahojunk]

China moves to regulate e-commerce
(Xinhua) 17:21, December 19, 2016

[File photo]​

China's top legislature is deliberating a draft law that will regulate and facilitate booming e-commerce in the country.

The draft law was submitted for review by legislators at the bimonthly session of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, which runs from Monday to Sunday.

It is the first reading of the draft by the top legislature.

Explaining the draft to lawmakers on Monday morning, Lyu Zushan, deputy director with the NPC's Financial and Economic Affairs Committee, said booming e-commerce in recent years had served to reveal loopholes in China's legal system and commercial rules.

The draft law will facilitate e-commerce growth, help maintain market order and protect consumer rights.

The draft law said the nation should put online and offline commercial activities on an equal footing and protect the safety of e-commerce transactions.

All e-commerce operators have an obligation to pay taxes and should acquire the necessary business certificates, under the draft.

Operators must also ensure personal information security for consumers. Those that fail will face fines of up to 500,000 yuan and could have their business certificates revoked.

They must also work to protect intellectual property, the draft said.

The draft requires third-party e-commerce platforms to offer technical support for "law enforcement activities by relevant authorities."

China is the world's largest e-commerce market.

According to Lyu, e-commerce trade amounted to over 20 trillion yuan (about 2.87 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2015, with online retail sales totaling 3.88 trillion yuan.

Last month, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba saw 120.7 billion yuan in gross merchandise volume during its 24-hour Singles' Day event, an annual online shopping spree on November 11.

In addition, the draft law said China will work to facilitate cross-border online shopping and push forward exchange and communication on cross-border e-commerce with different countries and regions.

The Ministry of Commerce predicted the volume of cross-border e-commerce in 2016 will reach 6.5 trillion yuan and will soon account for 20 percent of China's foreign trade.

"Promoting e-commerce is conducive to China's opening-up strategic layout and the optimization and upgrading of its foreign trade," Lyu said. "It is also conducive to building the Belt and Road Initiative and to implementation of the FTA (free trade area) strategy."

China will improve efficiency in customs clearance for cross-border online shopping. It will also take part in formulating international rules on cross-border e-commerce, and work to set up dispute settlement mechanisms with countries and regions involved, the draft said.

 

[TaiShang]

China's online sales of farm produce jump 46%
Xinhua, December 20, 2016

Online retail volume of China's farm produce is expected to grow by about 50 percent in 2016 as more farmers use e-commerce platforms to sell their produce.

Online produce sales might reach 220 billion yuan ($32 billion) this year, up over 46 percent over the previous year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Agricultural e-commerce has been developing fast in recent years, reaching 150 billion yuan in 2015, more than triple that of 2013.

The government started a pilot program in 2014 to digitalize agriculture and aims for internet cover in almost all villages by 2020.

 

[TaiShang]

Payment services make global expansion push
China Daily, December 26, 2016

When 33-year-old Shanghai resident Xu Lei walked into the Santa Claus Village tourism office in Rovaniemi, Finland, he was surprised to spot a sign with the Chinese word zhi.

That's the logo of Alipay, the fast-growing mobile payment service of China's e-commerce giant Alibaba. It meant Xu could use the Alipay mobile app on his phone to scan a QR code provided by the tourism office to pay for his Arctic Circle visit certificate, just like he would do in China.

"I was shocked, and felt that I now truly understood what a powerful and global organization Alipay is," Xu said.

In Japan, Li Yiying, a 25-year-old Chinese woman traveling in Tokyo, also benefited from payment services provided by Chinese companies.

"I often prefer to use Alipay or WeChat Pay (mobile payment provided by China's Tencent) instead of cash so I don't need to take a lot of paper money with me. It is also easier to keep track of transactions with the app," Li said.

From buying luxury bags to paying Uber bills, from convenience stores to theme parks, China's top wireless payment providers are tapping into the international market in the footsteps of globe-trotting and big-spending Chinese visitors.

Alipay has emerged a front-runner. Created in 2004 as a tool to facilitate transactions on Alibaba's Taobao e-commerce site, it is now accepted by more than 100,000 merchants overseas, according to a report from Ant Financial, the division of Alibaba that owns Alipay.

Ant Financial banks on its 450 million users in China as it rolls out business abroad. Alipay handled around half the estimated $738 billion Chinese spent online last year by offering an escrow service in collaboration with overseas partners such as banks, financial institutions and online payment providers, according to iResearch.

In Finland, Alipay is accepted by over 100 merchants, including hotels, shops and restaurants, through a partnership with local mobile payment firm ePassi. In Germany, its partnership with payment processing service Concardis gives it access to more than 200,000 local merchants.

Alipay also works with BNP Paribas, Barclays, Yusin Bank, SIX, Wirecard, Ingenico Group and other agencies in Europe, which helps it cover some 930,000 merchants in the continent.

In Japan, where Chinese tourists often buy expensive household electronics products, jewelry and cosmetics, Alipay is available at nearly 3,000 vendors.

To quench the thirst of wealthier Chinese buyers, Alipay was introduced to 10 major overseas airports across Germany, Japan and New Zealand in October. Departure tax refund services processed by Alipay are also available in 23 countries. It can be used to pay for Uber and Grab ride services in 70 countries.

Other domestic wireless payment provides like WeChat Pay and Baidu Wallet are also expanding overseas.

Tencent Holdings, a social networking giant, has allowed foreign stores since late 2015 to apply to be part of its WeChat payment system as long as they have a trading license and a website or an app. So far, the WeChat mobile system has been accepted in over 10 countries and regions.

Online search giant Baidu announced in September that it would join with Israeli startup Travelers Box to provide a convenient way for Chinese travelers to exchange their unused foreign money before returning home.

Travelers can choose to credit their Baidu Wallet accounts by depositing money at Travelers Box kiosks at airports in some of the most popular countries for Chinese tourists, including Japan, Italy and Canada.

The collaboration between Chinese and foreign companies is benefiting both sides. Shops that accept Chinese wireless payment systems, for example, see more Chinese customers.

But the ambitions of payment providers does not stop there.

Ant Financial intends to serve 2 billion customers over the next decade globally, with more than 60 percent of those users from outside the Chinese mainland.

Apart from setting up six branch offices -- in the United States, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg and Australia -- the company picked ex-Goldman Sachs banker Douglas Feagin to smooth the way for its global push.

Through signing pacts with financial institutions and distributing technology to retailers, the company is preparing the ground for what could become a major rival to banking monopolies and the likes of Visa.

In the US, Ant Financial teamed up with payment technology providers First Data Corp and Verifone to expand its presence through their extensive merchant networks.

"We aim to have at least 1 million merchants outside the Chinese mainland accepting Alipay in three years. Working with our network of global partners like First Data and Verifone will help us achieve the goal," said Feagin, senior vice-president of Ant Financial and head of Alipay International, in a speech at the Money 2020 event in Las Vegas.

Jeongwen Chiang, a professor of marketing at China Europe International Business School, praised the potential of online payment by comparing Alipay with China's UnionPay, the world's third-largest payment network by value of transactions processed. UnionPay trails only Visa and MasterCard, according to November statistics compiled by the US research service BI Intelligence.

"UnionPay is great in helping Chinese travelers make payments overseas, but it still requires consumers to carry a card," Chiang said.

"Alipay is amassing a large amount of data on its customers' spending habits, and its big data capabilities are currently greater than UnionPay's. It helps European merchants more efficiently target Chinese shoppers."

China's BigData-Research found that transactions via mobile payment services, worth 9.3 trillion yuan ($1.3 trillion) in 2015, are expected to increase to 15 trillion yuan in 2017.

 

[TaiShang]

Big data apps help Toutunhe farmers fit market demand
2016-12-28

Farmers in the Xingjiang region have reduced the amount of waste crops being produced every year thanks to the application of big data.

By collecting merchant and consumer orders in advance through an online platform, farmers have been able to plant the right amount of crops and prevent over supply in the market.

"I received an order for next year's cottons with down payment through an agriculture online platform and I can grow cotton according to a plan which will help me avoid stockpiling risk," said a farmer from Aksu in the Xinjiang region. One such platform is the Laodao Agriculture Online Platform, which was launched by Xinjiang Laodao Science and Technology Enterprise. Through the platform, farmers can grow plants in accordance to orders and can purchase wholesale raw materials from other vendors to reduce costs.

"At present, we have served more than 100,000 people with annual sales revenue of approximately 1 billion yuan," said Jiang Xiaoyang, general manager of Xinjiang Laodao.

The practical application of big data in traditional industries has become an importand part of Toutunhe district's smart city construction plan in recent years.

According to the merchant office of Xinjiang Software Park, 232 enterprises have registered in the park, and 75 enterprises have opened offices in the park.

 

[ahojunk]

China's e-commerce transaction value to exceed 38 tln yuan by 2020
2016-12-28 09:19 | Xinhua | Editor: Wang Fan

China said on Tuesday it aims to expand e-commerce transactions to more than 38 trillion yuan (5.5 trillion U.S. dollars) by 2020, up from 21.8 trillion in 2015.

By 2020, China's online population will pass 1 billion, growing by 7.8 percent a year from 2015, according to a State Council five-year informatization plan.

Information industry revenue is expected to grow by an average of 8.9 percent each year from 2015 to hit 26.2 trillion yuan by 2020.

By then 90 percent of villages in poverty will be covered by internet services, 12 percentage points more than that in 2015.

Online retail sales will more than doubled from 3.9 trillion yuan recorded in 2015 to 10 trillion yuan by 2020.

 

[ahojunk]

Wall St stays bullish on Alibaba
2017-01-03 11:22 | China Daily | Editor: Feng Shuang

Wall Street remains bullish about China's internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd amid a spate of stock selling by its principal stakeholders in the past six months.

Among the latest moves was the share sale plan adopted by Joe Tsai, which allows the firm's executive vice-chairman to sell up to 6.5 million shares of the company's stock through October.

The shares represent approximately 8 percent of Tsai's holdings, the company said in a filing to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission last month.

Tsai's affiliated entities, including the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, Parufam Ltd and MFG II Ltd, have adopted the prearranged sale plan in accordance with Rule 10b5-1 of the SEC Act of 1934, the statement said.

Based on Alibaba's annual report in March, Tsai holds a 3.2 percent stake in the company.

Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma unlocked 5 percent of shares under his beneficiary ownership through a similar plan in September, allowing for the sale of up to 9.9 million shares over a 12-month period commencing in September 2016.

These plans have been put in place to meet philanthropic commitments and for ordinary wealth planning purposes, the company told China Daily on Monday.

In 2014, the duo established a charitable trust that is designed to be funded by share options they own, representing around 2 percent of the shares in the company, Alibaba said.

"Rule 10b5-1 allows major holders to sell a predetermined number of shares at a predetermined time, as long as the sale isn't set to bring about major effects to the company. Many corporate executives use such plan to avoid accusations of insider trading," said Ling Xiao, partner of Hui Ye Law Firm specializing in overseas investment and financing.

The e-commerce giant's largest shareholder Softbank Group Corp said it would sell $7.9 billion of its shares in June, marking the first such sale since the Japanese company began investing in Alibaba in 2000. Its holding in Alibaba were reduced to around 28 percent, from 32.4 percent as of June 2016.

But a potential snowball effect shorting Alibaba is unlikely to occur. In November, rating agency Fitch Ratings Inc affirmed Alibaba at A+ with a stable outlook, and Morgan Stanley gave a "Buy" rating last month and a $130 price target, more than 40 percent up from its current price.

"We believe that Alibaba is in the early stages of unlocking the value from what we view as its most valuable asset－a rich database that continues to accumulate from its well-controlled and extensive closed-loop ecosystem, through advances in data technology," Morgan Stanley's Grace Chen and her team said in a report in December.

Selloffs don't necessarily reflect a shift in confidence among major investors, according to an analyst tracking Alibaba stocks at an investment bank who wished to remain anonymous. The institution also maintains a buy rating and had raised its target price to more than $130.

"In the case of Softbank Group Corp, the selloff is targeted at trimming debts and saving up to acquire the semiconductor and software design company ARM Holdings Plc," said the analyst.

 

[ahojunk]

WeChat still dominates sector, makes inroads on payments
By Liang Fei Source:Global Times Published: 2017/1/3 18:58:39

Alipay’s social networking dream
It is no secret that domestic e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding wants to be stronger in social networking. The company has made several major investments in the sector, but none has born much fruit. Meanwhile, Tencent Holdings, whose popular instant messaging app WeChat dominates the field, is encroaching on Alibaba's lead in mobile payments. Nonetheless, Alibaba isn't ready to give up on social networking, which remains an effective way to capture user loyalty.

Alibaba Group Holding's payment app Alipay is mulling over improvements for its social networking feature, according to recent media reports.

It has recently appointed a new executive to oversee its social feature, called Circles, media reports said.

Alipay declined to comment on these media reports on Monday.

Still, the news has received a great deal of attention, as Alipay's Circles stirred up something of a controversy when it was launched on November 24, 2016.

The controversy focused on two Circles groups open to all users: Campus Diary and White Collar Diary. Inexplicably, only female users were allowed to post photos in the two groups and only male users were allowed to comment under the posts.

There were more rules for male users, who were divided into two groups depending on their scores on Alipay's credit-rating system, Sesame Credit. Those with credit scores above 750 were allowed to comment under posts in the two groups, while those with scores below the threshold were limited to "liking" photos.

Soon after the launch, the two groups were flooded with racy photos. Users complained, accusing Alibaba of turning Alipay into a dating service.

Alipay responded on November 28, 2016 that its real-name registration system allows it to easily spot and deal with inappropriate content, according to a statement the company posted on the microblogging site Weibo.

On November 29, Peng Lei, CEO of Ant Financial, the Alibaba arm that runs Alipay, apologized for the suggestive content on Circles, and promised to shut down any offensive groups on the platform.

A social laggard

It is no secret that Alibaba, a leader in e-commerce and online payments, wants a stronger social networking platform. In has made several major investments in the industry over the past few years. It invested in the social networking app Momo in July 2012, and bought an 18 percent stake in Weibo in April 2013.

When voice-messaging became popular in China in 2013, Alibaba launched a platform called Laiwang in September 2013 to compete with Tencent's WeChat.

Later, in December 2014, Alibaba rolled out Ding Talk, a messaging app geared for corporate users. None of the apps has come close to being as successful as WeChat, which boasts around 768 million active users.

In the wake of the criticism, Alipay put Circles on hold. But with its reemergence, there is once again buzz about what Alipay might do in social media.

Because the credit score was the primary way that Alipay divided users into different groups in Circles, the app will try to capitalize on users' credit scores as it moves forward, said Tao Chuanliang, an industry analyst at the Beijing-based CCID Consulting.

"It is not yet clear how it will be done, but I think [Alipay's social networking effort] is all about the credit data," Tao told the Global Times on Monday.

The Chinese central government has been trying to build a nationwide credit score system, but it has yet to succeed, Tao said. But Alipay, with its access to the credit records of millions of users, has the potential to build one.

"People say that [Alibaba founder Jack] Ma Yun has always had a social networking dream, but I believe that social networking is not the ultimate goal," said Zhang Yi, CEO of Internet consultancy iiMedia Research. "User loyalty is."

Social networking has proved an effective way to gain users for services such as payments and e-commerce, Zhang noted.

Although Circles has received criticism, that criticism has also given it a lot of attention, which is a good thing for Alipay's future plans for social networking, analysts said.

Unexpected move

Alibaba and Tencent are rivals on many fronts in the tech industry, including social networking and payments. While Alibaba is pushing hard in social networking, Tencent has been making inroads on payments.

Over the past few years, the two companies have sought to promote their payment tools by launching promotion campaigns featuring virtual red envelopes containing money during the Spring Festival holidays.

During the 2015 Spring Festival holidays, with a strong red envelop promotion, WeChat users connected 200 million bank accounts to the app in two days - a feat that took Alipay eight years to accomplish.

This year, WeChat founder Zhang Xiaolong announced during a company event on December 28, 2016 that WeChat would not hold a red envelop promotion for the upcoming Spring Festival holidays, which will start on January 27 and end on February 2, 2017. The news surprised many, considering how successful the promotion had been in the past.

This doesn't mean that WeChat is placing less importance on payments, which remain crucial to WeChat's business.

"The purpose of the red envelope promotion was to gain users, but the promotion is no longer as effective because it can't gain as many users as it had in the past," Tao said.

Tao noted that it was a "reasonable" decision to drop the red envelope promotion in 2017.

Zhang from WeChat also said at the company event that the red envelope promotion has accomplished its "mission."

Although it appears that Tencent no longer cares enough to compete with Alipay during the Spring Festival holidays in 2017, it is still too early to say that Tencent has secured a leading position in both social networking and payment, analysts said.

In the third quarter of 2016, Alipay still held a 50.42 percent share of the mobile payment market.

Tencent's payment tools had 38.12 percent, according to a report released by Analysys International on December 27, 2016.

Besides, Zhang from iiMedia noted that Alipay still has advantages of its own. For instance, Alipay is better at building offline payment infrastructure, Zhang said.

The rivalry of the two companies in the areas of social networking and payments will be "long and tense," Zhang noted.

 

[ahojunk]

Mobile wallets becoming way of life: Study
2017-01-05 09:31 | China Daily | Editor: Feng Shuang

Mobile wallets have grown into a lifestyle choice embedded into daily activities and interactions, as more Chinese embrace third-party services to pay back credit cards and run errands, a latest study has found.

Alipay users from five municipalities and provinces made average transactions of more than 100,000 yuan ($14,400) via Alipay last year, the country's top online payment provider said on Wednesday.

Users in Shanghai topped the ranking with average spending of 148,000 yuan in 2016, 1.5 times that of 2015.

In terms of total transaction volume, Guangdong province grabbed the top spot by claiming 16 percent of the payment pie nationwide.

The study also found that mobile gadgets have become the mainstream vehicle for payment. In 2016, about 71 percent of all transactions conducted via Alipay went through mobile devices, up from 65 percent from the previous year.

Digital wallets have gained tremendous popularity in inland provinces, the firm said, where residents rely exclusively on their smartphones and mobile carrier coverage to access the internet.

For example, 90 percent of Alipay transactions were conducted on mobile devices in the Tibet autonomous region and 88 percent in Qinghai and Gansu provinces.

According to Worldpay's 2016 Global Payments Report, Alipay accounts for 44 percent of global mobile wallet spending and is on pace to reach 60 percent by 2020.

It also gained steam by integrating its payment functions into public service platforms. With a few taps on the app, its 450 million users can pay utility bills, settle traffic ticket fine payments and make medical appointments.

Online access to these services is made available in 357 cities in China. Such services were accessed over 1 billion times last year, up 218 percent from the end of 2015.

Chinese people are increasingly willing to make purchases with borrowed money. Powered by a credit-scoring service from Alipay's parent Ant Financial Services Group, some 2.3 billion transactions on Alipay were made with loan service Ant Check Later, up 344 percent year-on-year. Around 40 percent of Ant Check Later users were born in the 1990s.

Chinese payment tools have become an essential part of consumers' day-to-day lifestyle, years ahead of their Western counterparts, said senior IT analyst Yang Yaqiong from consultancy Analysys.

 

[ahojunk]

Square dance craze might mean big bucks for web firms
Source: Agencies Published: 2017/1/5 18:58:39

People dance in the streets when there aren't squares available. Photo: Li Hao/GT


A cellphone app that targets square dancing dama (middle-aged and elderly women) has received tens of millions in investment.

The square dancing industry in China is growing larger and larger, with more and more firms seeking to profit from these dance groups.


As soon as the music starts to play, everything else stops. For a few hours, it's just the women and their routines.

Every night at 6:30 pm, Chen Hua, 41, from Fujian Province, and her fellow dancers gather at an empty space outside a community center in Donggezhuang village, Beijing's suburban Shunyi district.

Dressed in a blue and black one-piece and black sneakers, Chen is the lead dancer of a group of women who are all migrant workers at a small curtain-making factory. Guangchangwu (square dancing) is more or less their only entertainment. They wave their hands, shake their hips, swirl, turn and jump under the pale fluorescent streetlights.

There are tens of millions of women like Chen. They all love dancing in squares, plazas, parks or any other public places. They are referred to as square dancing dama - a word used to describe middle-aged and elderly women. While for these women, and sometimes men too, it's just a bit of fun, for others it represents a huge business opportunity. Even Internet startups have gotten into the square dancing game, making apps to cater to the middle-aged twirlers.

Tango and cash

There are an estimated 100 million square dancers in China, according to a report on the hobby issued in 2015, and they don't think twice about opening their purses to get gear. These middle-aged women represent major purchasing power, as has been seen in the luxury fashion sector.

One of the groups, the Red Maple dancing group was founded in 2003 in a northern Beijing community. The 31-member team performed about 30 times in 2016 at competitions held by banks or nursing homes and at shopping mall grand openings. They spent thousands of yuan on each performance, mainly on outfits.

"The most important thing about these square dancing dama is that they control the purse strings. They are the decision makers on everything from healthcare and financing, to travel and other purchases," wrote Fang Hui, founder of square dance app Darfoo and author of the 2015 report. "So square dancing is only a starting point to expand our business to other areas."

The square dancing market currently amounts to about 2 billion yuan per year, Fang told the National Business Daily in November 2015.

Banks also see the potential profits and many now sponsor square dancing competitions to get deposits and sell financing products.

Chen's troupe often use an app called Tangdou Square Dance. At the end of 2015, the app launched new features including a community and tools for making short videos. And that changed Chen's life.

"I watch videos of dancers on Tangdou every day. They are so professional," said Chen. She has bought over a dozen dancing outfits in under a year. She said her husband calls her "addicted."

She has uploaded over 40 video clips onto the app so far. "Sometimes I upload three or four videos a day; sometimes I take a video with a selfie stick at night at home," said Chen, who has a 20-year-old son.

She reads all the comments on her videos and said that this approval has helped her gain self-confidence. She dreams of becoming a square dancing "celebrity" someday.

Tangdou is one of many apps for square dancers. These websites and apps offer free tutorial videos and communities for dancers to connect with each other.

Tangdou has over 2.5 million daily users and close to 40 million monthly users, according to a November China Daily report.

It started out as just another video-sharing site, but began to focus on square dancing around 2012 and launched a virtual dance studio. They also teach dancers how to make their own videos.

The dancing dama dollar has drawn in venture capitalists too. In 2015, Tangdou got a round of $5 million financing. In November 2016 it announced a new round of $5 million financing, which followed a $15 million round of financing in September.

"Almost all of the top 100 or so square dance teachers are on Tangdou," Zhang Yuan, founder and CEO of Tangdou told Blog Weekly.

But these apps have yet to work out how to make money from their users. As with many other kinds of apps, their main focus is gaining traffic.

In the beginning Fang, founder of Darfoo, came up with a tablet especially for square dancers with a simple operating system and extra large screen but the project was a failure. So he changed direction and focused on creating online dance communities by hosting offline activities and competitions. He could then sell advertisements to banks, financial companies, and travel agencies.

Wudong Shidai was founded in May 2015 and its main platform is a WeChat public account with 120,000 followers, according to Entrepreneur magazine. The company plans to launch an app in February and to shoot a sit-com about square dancing grannies. Founder Liu Yinglong told Entrepreneur they are also not too worried about turning a profit at the moment but are focusing on attracting users through good dance teachers.

Renegade rumba

Gao Jingxuan, a dance teacher, has become an online celebrity among square dancers. After joining Tangdou as a choreographer in 2011, she found herself facing students who were not young kids, but women from 40 to 70 years old. She was surprised and amazed at their enthusiasm. The women would complain if they took a break for too long and were very competitive and constantly trying to improve, she said. Other people might think square dancing is boring and repetitive, but it's a source of joy for these women, said Gao.

Although she has never met most of her students or fans, she receives grateful text messages all the time and is often recognized on the street, in supermarkets or at highway service stations.

But despite the friendly community, square dancing does not have a good reputation. Over the years disputes over noise between residents and dancers have often grabbed headlines. In 2013, a Beijing man was arrested for firing a gun into the air and setting three mastiffs onto dancers. The same year, angry residents of Wuhan, Hubei Province had had enough of loud music and threw feces at dancers.

One of the reasons square dances do not enjoy a good reputation is because their - often blaring - music is usually considered tacky. But that seems to be the way they like it. The first few videos Gao made were not well received. While Gao personally prefers to dance to ballads, her fans want something with a strong beat. "You have to pick the most popular tunes," Gao told Blog Weekly.

In March 2015 the central government issued "standards and regulations" for square dancing so the dance representing the "collective aspect of Chinese culture" isn't ruined by disputes over noise and venues.

Huang Yongjun, an associate professor at Hubei Normal University, believes that square dancing has its roots around the founding of the People's Republic. "People upholding the spirit of collectivism often danced and sang in squares," he told Blog Weekly magazine. "We can see the enthusiastic people in the pictures and video clips from that time."

He also sees the recent surge in enthusiasm for square dancing as a result of migration, urban changes and social convergence over the years. Dancing is these women's way of expressing themselves and getting engaged in society, said Huang. "It makes them feel stable, safe and noticed, and therefore realize that there is so much passion, dreams and inspirations still to enjoy at this late age," he was quoted as saying.

That seems to be the case for Chen. She and her fellow dancers like to have people guess how old they are, in the hope of being complimented on how much younger they look. She's upset that they are often called "dama" by the media and other people. "We don't like that name. Its as if you must be very old if you dance in squares," Chen told Blog Weekly. "What does it mean to be old? For me, I just want to do whatever I like and whatever I want, at this moment."

Chen hasn't always been able to do whatever she wanted. She started working at a garment factory at the age of 17, after graduating from a vocational school. She had to take care of her parents and younger sister. "I've done everything," she said. "For people like us, who are from the countryside, if you are 17, 18 and still aren't working, there's no meal for you at home."

When she finishes dancing everyday and goes back to her small apartment, that's when reality hits.

"We have to make more money so that we could live a better life when we get back. I just hope I can feed myself without having to work, that's not too much to ask," she said. "We have to go back to the countryside, maybe when we are older."

But for just for few hours she can take a break from her monotonous factory work and dream of something different through square dancing and video sharing.

Agencies

 

[ahojunk]

Big data discloses China's sports preferences
2017-01-07 09:30 | Xinhua | Editor: Wang Fan

More Chinese people online searched for popular and grassroots sports in 2016, according to big data analysis released Thursday.

In a statistical analysis, China's leading searching engine Baidu showed the popular sports of running, swimming, ping-pong, badminton, and cycling were more common in searches for 2016.

Online search volume of the sports increased by 27 percent compared with 2015.

Chinese netizens last year searched for information about sports 1.6 billion times, Baidu said

"This means the daily retrieving volume went up by 4.4 million hits," said Zhang Wan, a Baidu executive.

"The statistic shows China is witnessing sports heat now," Zhang said. Basketball was Chinese netizen's most popular search among competitive sports, accounting for half of sports searches, followed by football with 40 percent.

The Chinese Football Association Super League received 1.4 times more searches than the English Premier League (EPL), which is the most popular European football league in China.

It is noticeable that EPL fans in China paid more attention to club performances, while fans of Spain's La Liga were more interested in world-class footballers such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

The data shows that Messi has three times more fans than Ronaldo in China.

"The data could help sports brands precisely find their niche markets and target-consumers by analyzing fans' behavior and preferences," Zhang said. "We discovered that supporters of Ronaldo prefer the brands of Audi and IWC watches, while Messi fans like Mercedes-Benz and Tag Heuer."

Zhang pointed out that the Chinese sports market was pushing brands to develop deeper interaction with consumers.

The data also found that sports fans also like information about fitness, entertainment, online games, education, automobiles, and fashion.

"We can see that extending the sports market could benefit many other potential industries," Zhang said.

 

[ahojunk]

Tencent launches WeChat 'mini apps'
(China Daily) 09:13, January 10, 2017

Chinese people check their WeChat 14.5 times on average and spend 48 minutes
on social media per day. [Photo/IC]

Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd launched "mini apps" on Monday, which let users interact with app-like services within its instant messaging app WeChat, without having to download and install them.

Users just need to scan the QR code or search from their WeChat accounts to open these apps, where they could book tickets or do shopping, Tencent said.

They can exit the apps easily without downloading them, these apps won't disturb users, such as by sending notifications and subscription messages, according to Tencent.

This is an important step in Tencent's commercialization of its messaging service. WeChat now has 846 million users worldwide, according to Tencent's fiscal 2016 third-quarter earnings report.

Lu Zhenwang, CEO of Shanghai-based Wanqing Consultancy, said: "The launch of mini apps can solve some of the problems caused by apps, but it won't take the place of AppStore or Android Market."

"Some 'lightweight' apps, which possess fewer functions and more simple algorithms, and apps that are not commonly used, are more suitable as WeChat's mini apps. However, the commonly used ones should still be downloaded to your phone," Lu added.

Dong Xu, an analyst with Beijing-based consultancy Analysis, said: "With the mini apps, users could find and use them whenever they need, and won't receive any advertising when they stop using them."

The aim is to ensure users spend more time on WeChat and extend Tencent's lead as an app vendor. Mobile app developers are vying for users in the fiercely competitive and lucrative market.

Chinese people check their WeChat 14.5 times on average and spend 48 minutes on social media per day, according to a report released by Chinese tech startup Kika.

Wang Qian, an employee of an IT company, has tried the "mini apps" since they were launched on Monday.

"The design of these apps is very clear, and will increase the utilization rate of the WeChat wallet. Maybe it could replace some apps, but I still prefer to download apps from my app store."

 

[ahojunk]

China to invest 1.2 trillion yuan in information infrastructure
2017-01-12 19:19 | Xinhua | Editor: Wang Fan

China will invest big in information infrastructure in the next three years as a way to help develop the new economy and foster growth momentum.

About 1.2 trillion yuan (around 170 billion U.S. dollars) will be channeled into Internet projects, mainly broadband and mobile network improvement, according to guidelines released Thursday by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The document sets a number of goals.

By 2018, a total of 90,000 km of high-speed fiber-optic trunk cables will be built, expected to expand the broadband network coverage to all urban areas and 90 percent of the countryside.

China will add 2 million 4G base stations, mainly for townships and villages, and boost the proportion of mobile network users to 75 percent of its population.

The number of points of presence connected to overseas networks will be increased to 120, up from the current 80, in a bid to enhance connectivity to the rest of the world and satisfy rising demand for international exchanges.

The country will also promote IPv6 networks, support R&D for 5G technology, and encourage businesses to use cloud computing and big data.

The government will cut red tape, strengthen financing support, and attract private capital to join the program.

Confronted with sluggish traditional sectors, China is vigorously developing and applying information technology to upgrade industrial models and create new growth points.

The "Broadband China" strategy was floated in August 2013 to improve Internet service.

.

 

[ahojunk]

8,000 apply for Baidu Map collector vacancies
2017-01-16 08:29 | Xinhua | Editor: Mo Hong'e

A Baidu Map information collector operates an unmanned aerial vehicle in Dukezong, an ancient Tibetan town in Yunnan province. (Photo/China Daily)

Baidu Map, a desktop and mobile map service, recently advertised vacancies for map information collectors.

The job requires collectors to gather detailed road data, such as the location of ditches and overpasses, with collectors spending most of their time on roads and mountains as well as by the sea. The role of chief map information collector offers an annual salary of 1 million yuan ($145,200).

Within two days of posting the vacancies in early December, Baidu received about 8,000 applications.

Collectors are provided with a sport utility vehicle and an unmanned aerial vehicle to carry out their job, in addition to high-tech equipment for information collection and professional photographic equipment. Furthermore, they are given summer and winter vacations, insurance and a high-temperature allowance.

The collective distance the collectors have covered has already surpassed 6.7 million kilometers, involving more than 700 million panoramic photos, with one collector having visited 215 cities in the past year, according to Baidu Map.

Tang Qiying, 21, has been working as a map information collector at Baidu for more than a year. He has traveled more than 30,000 km and visited five provinces in the past year.

"Because of the job, I have been able to experience the most beautiful scenery," he said

"However, the job can be lonely. One time, in a sparsely populated desert area in Qinghai province, I felt really lonely, as there was no one around. I kept driving until I saw a few antelopes, who I viewed as my friends. I think there is always a price to pay for getting what you want."

Zhu Zhaohui, a 24-year-old from Anhui province, has been working for Baidu Map for about 18 months. "My parents didn't understand my job at first, as I am away on business trips year-round, but I told them I want to visit more places while I am young," Zhu said.

"Sometimes, I encounter difficulties and feel afraid, but when I think about the more than 500 million people who are using the data that I have collected, it makes my efforts seem worthwhile."

Baidu Map is set to become a world mapping service provider covering more than 150 countries and regions, including Asia, Europe, Africa, North America, South America and Oceania, providing services for 99 percent of the world's population.

It said it holds about 70 percent of the domestic market share at present, with more than 300 million active monthly users and about 100 million car owners using its mapping service.


********

If you like travelling, this is a good job.
.