Covid-19 has spurred growth in the SaaS sector. Office Automation (OA), in particular, is at a tipping point. Apart from AI, automation in the professional services segment — the use of information technology to automate basic business processes — has also made steady gains, increasing the ability of business leaders to transform their operations.

Feishu, a Chinese work collaboration platform designed by ByteDance, rushed in the front and Ding Talk (owned by Alibaba) and WeChat Work (owned by Tencent). Those 3 platforms have become the most popular work collaboration tools in China since the quarantine. They feature instant message, file sharing, and other OA functions. Ding Talk was topped in both iOS and Android app stores during February and sustained the ranking for straight 29 days. It now accumulates over 200 million individual users and 10 million enterprise accounts on its platform.

Yonyou, another key SaaS player, offers management software products in Singapore and APAC. Based on a cloud-native architecture, their flagship product YonSuite provides growing enterprises with a unified platform encompassing OA. By ensuring an enabling environment for digital development, YonSuite helps global enterprises achieve customer-centric, data-driven, and real-time operations.

In today’s digital age, powerful OA systems reduce manual effort and store a large amount of data in little space. They not only streamline day-to-day tasks but also speed up information retrieval. Additionally, these tools improve process visibility and help businesses spot bottlenecks easily. Thus, back offices that can focus on value-added service provision help find greater cost savings and efficiency. This, in turn, allows businesses to invest more resources into growth, service delivery, and innovation.

The pandemic has propelled contactless and cashless transactions in Asia at warp speed, paving the way for virtual banks.

Fintech News showed that approximately 16% of Hong Kongese currently have a virtual bank account, while 12% of Hong Kongese are planning to open one in the next 5 years. WeLab Bank, one of Hong Kong’s homegrown virtual banks, has already seen customers taking advantage of the 24/7 fully remote access and user-centric experiences. Hong Kong is a perfect landing pad for fintech companies eyeing opportunities in Asia. With its established and vibrant ecosystem, the city has enabled fintechs like WeLab to innovate and develop.

Southeast Asia has also seen a boom in virtual banks. Singapore, for example, has strengthened its focus on the digital economy in recent years, pushing legal tech and pitching itself as a regional leader in business innovation. Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced that 4 entities were awarded digital banking licenses. Virtual bank licences have been something of a work in progress in Singapore over the past few years, and despite the pandemic, this process has remained on track.

The internet has dramatically changed the behaviour of bank service users. They can now make financial transactions using their smartphones anytime, compare interest rates and Forex on Google, and thanks to social media they can learn the bank service before stepping in a branch. The need for traditional banks is gradually decreasing, giving an opportunity for the rise of virtual banks.

Marketing for virtual banks is not just about advertisement. Good UX/UI of the banking app is a must and engaging social media content will be a bonus. Brands need to move beyond simple touch-points to create ongoing relationships with consumers.

Users of Douyin, which accumulated 600 million daily active users, previously could use Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent ‘s WeChat Pay to buy virtual gifts for live-streamers or goods from shops on the platform. Recently, ByteDance launched its own third-party payment service for Douyin, the Chinese version of its hit short video app TikTok, as it presses to expand into the e-commerce business in China.The set-up of Douyin Pay is to supplement the existing major payment options, and to ultimately enhance user experience on Douyin.

Bilibili, the YouTube of China, has been recruiting payment business-related positions on its website since November last year. The company is ramping up efforts to expand its business into the domestic payments market and could be launching its own online payment system in the near future.

Meanwhile, online deals giant Pinduoduo unveiled its Duoduo Wallet payment app recently while ride-hailing firm Didi launched Didi Pay last year, an e-payment platform that can be used for the company’s services including ride and taxi hailing, bike sharing, and public transportation.

There is no doubt that adding a third-party payment business has become common practice among Chinese internet giants, particularly social commerce apps. E-commerce elements are featured heavily more than ever before in Chinese social media scene. Keeping an eye on the new movement on Chinese social media platforms is crucial for global brands who wish to develop a marketing strategy to enter Chinese market.

At Comms8, our digital marketers understand your customer and help you to keep track of what’s trending in Chinese market. Contact us now to get started!

Chinese internet giant Tencent is aggressively stepping up its presence in the cloud computing industry in SE Asia this year. Last month, Tencent unveiled a new data centre in Jakarta, its first in Indonesia, with another one set to go online in a few months.

Besides, Huawei and Telekom Malaysia signed a partnership about the integration of Huawei’s cloud infrastructure services into the Malaysian operator’s ecosystem of small and medium-size clients. As Malaysia’s local operator with its own core data centers and full data residency, Telekom Malaysia is an attractive entry point for Huawei Cloud’s expansion into the Malaysian cloud market.

In fact, many cloud providers are saying that with the rise in cloud usage and the pandemic accelerated cloud adoption throughout SE Asia in 2020, there has been a noticeable increase in interest towards cloud in SE Asia. CIO showed that the cloud computing market revenue in this region is estimated to reach USD 40.32 billion by 2025 as a result of increased demand for cloud computing among small and medium-sized enterprises.

Thus, many tech companies and cloud-based service providers choose SE Asia to accelerate their cloud computing business because SE Asia has been widely considered one of the fastest-growing regions in terms of clouding market, where the population has embraced the digital transformation during the pandemic, especially in fintech and e-commerce sectors. Another incentive is that SE Asia has a swift growth in internet users and a nascent stage of business transformation based on cloud computing.

Cloud computing in Asia has significantly pivoted to the next stage where the demand for cloud deployment models has risen and moved from simple back-end functions to core business processes. The cloud market in Asia is projected to grow 117% from USD 133 billion to USD 288 billion in the years between 2020 and 2024, according to GlobalData.

Consumption of cloud services will maintain robust growth in China, driven by continuous expansion of online services and digitalization. Many tech giants expand their businesses from public cloud to private cloud and hybrid cloud. Alibaba cloud, for instance, leads a 40% market share. Besides reporting growth in the internet, retail and public sectors, this top cloud supplier has also been focusing on hybrid cloud with the launch of its hybrid cloud partner programme this year.

Other East Asian countries are also experiencing the growth of hybrid clouds. NTT, a Japanese technology services provider, created a partnership with Taiwanese smart device manufacturer SAP. NTT provided strategic counsel and technical expertise to help the client migrate its SAP software applications to the cloud. The six-year partnership aims to not only support the client with a strategic digital transformation journey, but also enhance business performance with hybrid cloud adoption.

Meanwhile, some popular businesses like EVs boost the demand of cloud-based services. Cloud computing power has been introduced in electric cars, which enable the EV chargers to come equipped with internet connectivity and access to online services such as remote maintenance and payment systems.

It is noticeable that cloud computing has become a fundamental requirement for many companies and businesses. In the digital and 5G era, as enterprises expand their understanding of the enormous benefits of cloud computing, they are now more willing to conduct workload tests on cloud and even migrate entire applications to the cloud. Apart from the EV sector, cloud-based enterprise solution providers should also keep a close eye on other Asia’s popular sectors embracing cloud computing, such as healthcare and K-12 education.

The Chinese female-targeted market, the so-called she economy, is expected to expand into more sectors in the post-pandemic era. According to CBNData, the female consumer market in China exceeded USD 1.5 trillion in 2020.

In terms of e-commerce sector, Tmall reported that 80% of the new leading brands on this platform focus on female consumer demand. As the women-focused advertising keeps extending to more parts in China, retailers turn various celebrations into female-skewed marketing opportunities, such as International Women’s Day — a shopping festival for females to treat themselves.

Meanwhile, with higher consumption power of women consumers in different sectors, some traditionally men-skewed businesses are putting more focus on female consumers. WuLing Hongguang Mini EV, for example, believes EV are not just for men. It is constantly debuting new colors, especially ones that are popular among female consumers. For instance its newest series of ‘macaroon’ colors are avocado green, peach pink, and lemon yellow. It became an instant hit among all generations, especially young female consumers. After launching, Hongguang Mini EV sold more than 200,000 vehicles within the first 200 days, setting a sales record for new energy vehicles in China.

Another emerging female-targeted segment is the game industry. In China, there are over 300 million female gamers, according to the 2020 China Gaming Industry Report, accounting for over 46% of China’s entire gamers population. With the traditional male-focused gaming market getting saturated, games for female players are likely to be the next big thing. Both tech giants like Tencent, NetEase as well as Bilibili, and smaller Chinese studios have begun to target the relatively untapped market of female gamers.

Marketing to Chinese women is not easy. Brands should be very cautious about perpetuating stereotypes. Tmall, for example, faced a lot of backlash for their 2018 Women’s Day campaign “Living with Feminine Power”, as their idea of “feminine power” included things like dealing with a blister from high-heel shoes and exercising to try to lose weight. Also, brands should not be tokenistic and launch a campaign simply for the sake of being feminist. An impactful campaign is one that builds upon the existing brand identity and storytelling. Brands should consider how to relate their story to women in a positive way.

Xiaohongshu, the popular social commerce platform in China, is eyeing an IPO in the US as soon as this year and has recently hired Citigroup’s former Hong Kong–based Managing Director as Chief Financial Officer, as part of the preparation for the listing. The sources said the IPO could bring Xiaohongshu’s valuation at more than USD 10 billion, much more than its latest private valuation of USD 6 billion.

As one of the fastest growing platforms, Xiaohongshu has over 300 million registered users. According to CBNData, in 2020, 86.1% of Xiaohongshu users were female, while 83.7% were under 35. The user base is also slowly stretching into the lower tier cities.

Xiaohongshu was originally designed as a user-generated content (UGC) social sharing platform. As the spending power of modern Chinese women is getting higher, ‘she economy’ continues to emerge in China. More brands are eager to engage with Chinese women through more targeted campaign strategies. As a result, Xiaohongshu has seen the opportunity in the female-focused market and leveraged the increasing spending power of Chinese female consumers to build a highly-engaging community among young, urban women. Xiaohongshu believes that women not only drive consumption but also boost ‘she economy’.

Xiaohongshu is a perfect choice for new overseas brands that want to test out the Chinese fashion and beauty market, particularly if they are targeting young Chinese women. It is one of the best platforms for social listening in China as the majority of the content and comments are based on users’ first-hand experience. Brands can easily understand the actual needs of the young Chinese female community and project whether their products will succeed in China.

At Comms8, no matter you want to kickstart your marketing journey on Xiaohongshu or localise your content to target Chinese female consumers, our Chinese-speaking marketing specialists will help you to launch a comprehensive digital plan on Xiaohongshu and other Chinese social media ecosystems.

Contact us now to get started!

Due to global chip shortage, many Chinese tech companies have begun to work on their self-designed chip.

TikTok-owner ByteDance is making plans to develop semiconductors. The plan is still at an early stage and the company’s focus is on ARM-based server-side chips, according to Reuters. Beijing-based ByteDance has posted a dozen semiconductor-related job advertisements last month on its official website and the company has established a team to explore the development of artificial intelligence chips.

Besides, Xiaomi announced its first self-developed Image Signal Processing (ISP) chip, the Surge C1 last month. Xiaomi said they spent RMB 140 million (USD 21 million equivalent) during the research and development phase of the Surge C1 chip. It is an independent mobile phone imaging chip from Xiaomi with its own algorithm.

Not only Xiaomi and ByteDance, but also many other Chinese technology giants are stepping up efforts to design their own chips. For tech companies like Baidu and Alibaba, they are doing cutting-edge work in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, a self-designed chip that can better cater to specific internal needs than a chip purchased from another maker.

However, the semiconductor industry requires years of massive investment with no immediate huge return. Huawei-owned Hisilicon, for example, took more than a decade to establish in the global chip market, but it still can’t compete with the dominant players. Thus, for new players in the chip game, it may be at least another few years before we can tell who’s succeeding and who isn’t.

Asian carmakers have been hit hard by a global chip shortage. Chinese electric car start-up NIO, for example, is shutting a factory for 5 days due to the global shortage of semiconductors, according to the company’s announcement last week. The overall supply constraint of semiconductors affected the company’s production volume in March, therefore the company expected to deliver approximately 19,500 vehicles in the first quarter of 2021, adjusted from the previously released outlook of 20,000 to 20,500 vehicles.

Meanwhile, chip shortage is threatening smartphone suppliers. Taiwanese company Foxconn, the Apple’s supplier, said that the global chip shortage will reduce its shipments by 10%. According to Foxconn’s CEO Young Liu, the company wouldn’t be able to fulfill some of its orders due to those shortages, which he expected would continue until at least next year.

From declined car deliveries to a supply shortfall in costlier smartphones, businesses across Asia are facing the brunt of an unprecedented shortage and high demand in semiconductor microchips.

The shortage stems from a confluence of factors such as large demand for new energy technologies like electric vehicle batteries. Besides, carmakers, which shut plants during the Covid-19 pandemic last year, compete against the sprawling consumer electronics industry for chip supplies. Consumers also stocked up on laptops, game consoles and other electronic products during the pandemic, resulting in tighter inventory.

Market experts believe that chip shortages are more likely to linger throughout 2021. Plans for supply resiliency must be taken, from research and development to manufacturing. As a result, Asian chipmakers are making moves to ramp up their production capacity. In 2020, the revenue of the semiconductor industry in Asia was around USD 267.59 billion. It was forecasted by Statista that this would increase by 2021, in which the semiconductor industry in Asia was expected to reach a revenue of USD 290.85 billion.

As reported by Tech Wire Asia, the Asia Pacific is the world’s biggest market for semiconductors, accounting for 60% of global semiconductor sales, with China alone accounting for over 30%. As 5G brings higher connectivity and the ability to reliably connect multiple gadgets, more projects and companies in Asia are looking to use semiconductor technology.

MediaTek, a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company, unveiled its new Dimensity 1200 and Dimensity 1100 5G smartphone chipsets with unrivaled AI, camera, and multimedia features for powerful 5G experiences in January 2021. The chipsets also integrate 5G HSR Mode and 5G Elevator Mode enhancements to ensure a seamless, reliable 5G connection across networks.

The Insight Partners revealed that the Asia Pacific 5G chipset market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 44.4% from 2020 to 2027, to account for USD 8,674 million in 2027. Driving factors such as a rise in demand for a reliable communication network and rapid growth in the development of smartphones are anticipated to have a huge impact on the development of the 5G chipset market in the coming years.

Furthermore, Asia Pacific is emerging as the main manufacturing hub of semiconductors. According to Financial Times, the US’s share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity fell from 37% in 1990 to just 12% last year, while Asia regions like China expanded its share from almost nothing to 15%, a figure that is expected to rise to 24% in the next decade. Thus, many believed that the semiconductor market in Asia Pacific is expected to showcase a positive outlook during the next decade.