Bytedance is negotiating the sale of popular video streaming app Tiktok with Microsoft, now it became into hot water with an executive ban by US President Donald Trump. Business analyst Arnold Ma tells CGTN why that might be a good deal for Bytedance, since it has 60 apps in China, not just a few like most tech companies, and might focus on those other apps. Even the price, 10 billion US dollars for a company valued at 120 billion, is not bad for an app that only exists for three years, he adds.Read More →

Marketing expert Arnold Ma runs his branding agency Qumin from London in both China and the West. He explains how brands, and his company, are doing now relations between China, the US and the UK get complicated, to put it mildly. Arnold is interviewed by Shirley Ze Yu and Martina Fuchs. What Chinese brands are doing well in the West, and many other questions.Read More →

China is home to four out of five largest unicorns – startups valued over one billion US dollars, second to the US, says the latest report by the Hurun Global Unicorn Index, published on Tuesday.  “The rest of the world needs to wake up to providing an ecosystem that allows unicorns to flourish,” says Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun report to the South China Morning Post.Read More →

Donald Trump’s plan to ban Tiktok from the US is straight-up Sinophobia, says former Baidu communications director Kaiser Kuo to Slate. Most successful apps in China will not make a decent following among consumers in the rest of the world, he argues, just because they are too much adjusted to China’s internet rules and customs, he adds.Read More →

India has been one of the hotspots of investments from China, but that might end now the hostilities between both countries increase, says business analyst Shaun Rein to AP. Chinese apps have already been banned by the Indian government, and startups seem to be next. Anti-Chinese feelings among consumers might be putting Chinese investors also off.Read More →

The plan to ban immigration by US President Donald Trump will be mostly hurt US tech companies who cannot recruit talents anymore, says business analyst Shaun Rein to the BBC. “Now, with the immigration ban, more top Chinese, Indian and other foreign talent will seek jobs in tech hubs globally like Shenzhen, Seoul and Bangalore rather than Silicon Valley,” Shaun Rein adds.Read More →

Tencent might still dominate social media in China with WeChat and QQ, but competition is heating up, and the internet giant is preparing for more competition, says Tencent watcher Matthew Brennan in Asia One. Asia One: “WeChat and QQ are like huge ships … too big to change course toRead More →

The successful social platform Tiktok got into hot water when it comes to its relation with China, now the company goes international. Former Baidu communication director Kaiser Kuo looks at The Ringer how Tiktok thrived, like others, in this climate of uncertainty, fuzziness and unpredictability that is key for China’s internet.Read More →

Tencent’s WeChat has been an unprecedented success story on the China internet. But new platforms are undermining the dominance of WeChat, says marketing expert Arnold Ma, CEO of London-based Qumin, at  CBBC. Short-video medium Douyin is one of them.Read More →