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Digital China is working overtime

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Ananth Krishnan
Ananth KrishnanJun 07, 2017 | 13:26

Digital China is working overtime

The speed at which China is going digital is bringing remarkable social and economic changes in the Middle Kingdom. In any mid-sized Chinese city, it’s possible to spend an entire day without a wallet.

All you need is a smartphone.

A morning roadside breakfast can be paid for by scanning the QR code that every street vendor now displays. Cars can be booked through Didi Chuxing, China’s ubiquitous Uber. Or even better, a shared bicycle from Mobike, Bluegogo or Ofo can be found nearby through a smartphone app and reserved — a mode of transport for 50 million Chinese by the end of this year.

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Photo: D-group.com

China’s online wallets – chiefly Tencent’s Wechat wallet and Alibaba’s Alipay – have transformed transactions. Around 600 million users conducted business worth $5 trillion — around half the GDP — reported the South China Morning Post this week citing consulting firm iResearch.

QR codes are now everywhere in China, from vegetable markets to tuk-tuks. In May, a story went viral of bridesmaids wearing QR codes on their dresses to receive cash payments from guests, which is the commonly expected wedding gift in China. Another photograph of a roadside beggar in Jinan, in eastern Shandong, also went viral as he too was accepting money through a QR code transaction.

The biggest example of this transformation is in the emergence of a massive sharing economy, not just limited to bicycles and cars, but to a range of services. The Chinese government’s newly set up sharing economy research office says this sector was worth $500 billion last year, Bloomberg reported.

Live video platforms in China are now attracting millions of users daily, offering everything from English lessons to yoga for a small fee. One worry is the flood of money pouring into this sector often with little due diligence.

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Bikes and cars can be one thing, but among the more outlandish ideas is a shared basketball service that has cropped up in some cities that allows students or office-workers to rent balls for use — a curious business idea when balls themselves aren’t particularly expensive in China. And this start-up too has received millions from investors.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)

Last updated: June 07, 2017 | 13:26
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