9/16 TBC Insider Digest
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Insider Digest 9/16/21: Alipay to be split into separate apps, Ximalaya profile, and NFTs in China
Housekeeping / Announcements …
TBCI London Meetup: Thanks to QuanNM for organizing a meetup! See our beautiful members below!
Hong Kong Meetup?: VJ is calling for a meetup in Hong Kong! I think there are even more of you here, so check the #east-asia-meetup channel and add VJ!
Institutional Investors ($100mm to deploy in Chinese equities): I’m still missing some of you … please do fill out this typeform! You won’t regret it I promise!
Voice Chat is cancelled tomorrow. I’m headed to the doctors, but we do have an Insider only session for next week on live(streaming) ecommerce!
Sept 23, Thursday 8am PST / 11PM Asia time With Raymond Huang, who just left apparel ecommerce platform MOGU as their Chief Strategy Officer. MOGU is a bit of a sad story, and I kind of wonder if it would have survived in today’s regulatory environment, but regardless, very few people know that MOGU was actually the first company in China to roll out live commerce, has it as a primary business, and so Ray is actually really well positioned to answer all your questions about the topic! Please sign up for the event here! This will be recorded as a livecast as well but as you know, it usually takes us a month before we release it, so do try to join us live!
Now for some posts from me … it’s a slow news week though …
9/13/21 Alipay to be split into separate apps
Where I explain that this was not surprising at all, if you talk to anyone in China, anyway. “Even back in April, it was widely regarded as fact on the Chinese interwebs that of course the products would have to be separated into separate companies and apps. What other meaning could there be by the word "disconnect" and requiring different licenses with separate qualifying shareholders for the main businesses? Sure, Ant could still be the majority or controlling shareholder and the ultimate parent company, but the businesses wouldn't be able to be fully integrated like before and serving only one customer really ... Alibaba.”
Ximalaya IPO - Largest Audio Platform in China
I have a special soft spot for Ximalaya. First because having the podcasts means I'm an actual user of their product (yes, check out our channel here, we're at nearly quarter of a million listens, which is not bad considering we're an English show!), second because I've actually taken investors to see the company in 2019 when they were raising their pre-IPO round, and last but not least ... they are the answer to one of the questions on the Tech Buzz Insider Quiz, the one that is the most frequently missed, on longest time spent in app. (That's right, 146 minutes, comparable to Spotify, and much longer than the 90 minutes Kuaishou clocks in at.)
Anyway, as you probably heard, the company just filed for an HK IPO. It actually filed to go public in the US in April, but had to pull its offering in late May due to data security concerns, or at least that's the rumor. Click through to read more.
NFTs in China - Not Likely To Take Off As It Has Abroad
This might be a little far from what many of you care about ... but if you exclusively focus on tech like me, then you'll know that NFTs are out of control here in Silicon Valley and everywhere else where crypto is popular. I like to joke that no one is actually doing any work these days, everyone is speculating or getting read to speculate on NFTs. Not me, though, even though folks in the space have seriously sat me down and tried to pitch me on issuing a token or NFT. (Don't worry, I won't be issuing any TBCI coins any time soon.) But it made me wonder, how are NFTs doing in China?
That’s it! Please check the forums and the Discord for amazing contributions from our members!
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