ALIBABA’S NEWEST 11.11 GMV RECORD: US$38.4B

Eleven years in, and Alibaba Group, the e-commerce and media giant that created and grew 11.11 into the world’s largest shopping festival, is still delivering record results – and the innovations necessary to make them happen every November.

By the time 11.11 ended at midnight on Monday, Alibaba had generated RMB268.4 billion (US$38.4 billion) in gross merchandise volume in just 24 hours, a 26% jump over last year’s numbers. GMV in 2018 was RMB213.5 billion, or US$30.8 billion.

“Today we showed the world what the future of consumption looks like for brands and consumers,” said Fan Jiang, president of Taobao and Tmall. “We are meeting the growing demand of Chinese consumers and helping them upgrade their lifestyles, while introducing new users to our digital economy from across China and around the world.”

WATCH: Highlights from 2019’s 11.11 Global Shopping FestivalPlay

In addition to a new record GMV, the total number of delivery orders also reached a new high: 1.292 billion, up 59% from 812 million last year. There were 299 brands to reach RMB 100 million in GMV, including Apple, Nike, Estee Lauder and Giorgio Armani. The top 10 countries selling to China through Alibaba’s cross-border platforms were Japan, the U.S., Korea, Australia, Germany, France, the U.K., New Zealand, Italy and Canada.

Last year’s festival was all about the Alibaba ecosystem, and certainly that ecosystem continues to play a critical role in setting new GMV records and generating greater levels of consumer engagement, as Alibaba draws additional businesses into 11.11. 2019, however, was all about consumers: where they are in China, how to reach them and providing them with the best possible selection of products.

Capturing Lower-Tier Consumption

Increasingly, those consumers are in China’s lower-tier cities and rural areas. Alibaba had said that it expected most of the 100 million new users participating in this year’s 11.11 to come from these areas, where China’s biggest consumption growth is happening. In fiscal 2019, more than 70% of Alibaba’s 102 million newly acquired annual active consumers were based there.

“Lower-tier areas are the most important business strategy for us this year and a strategic direction for the company, because China’s less-developed markets have a lot of potential for growth when you consider their population, geography and shopping habits,” said Liu Bo, general manager of Taobao and Tmall Marketing, at a press conference on Monday afternoon.

Alibaba is leveraging its powerful consumer analytics and supply-chain capabilities to create new products for lower-tier consumers, Liu said, firstly by partnering with multinational brands, such as P&G and L’Oréal, and secondly by working with China’s vast network of manufacturers. The company provides both brands and manufacturers with the data they need to develop and market products tailored directly to these new online shoppers.

By delivering better-quality goods at affordable prices, consumers in lower-tier areas “have a lot of potential to make frequent purchases,” Liu said. And Alibaba wants to capture that consumption.

New Products to Meet New Demand

As essential as lower-tier areas are to Alibaba’s growth strategy, the company’s focus on new products is not bound by geography. In fact, this year’s 11.11 alone included 1 million new products on the company’s e-commerce platforms.

“We take new products as a major strategy for this year’s 11.11 has become the largest platform to launch new products,” Liu said. “Many international brands are leveraging the platform and the results have been excellent.”

For example, cosmetics brand MAC sold 60,000 units of a limited-edition, just-for-11.11 lipstick in five minutes of pre-sales. And brands are committed to developing even more new products for Alibaba’s platforms going forward. Ten global brands, including Olay and Shiseido, have committed to incubate more than 50% of their new products with Tmall this year, Jiang said.

The Must-Do of Livestreaming

Once just a single marketing tool among many for brands selling to China, livestreaming has since become a must for any company that wants the attention of Chinese consumers.

These consumers use livestreams, typically hosted by popular key opinion leaders, to find and learn about new products, making it an essential part of product discovery. That’s a stark contract to the West, where most livestreaming platforms are focused on gaming and entertainment.

Just how popular is the trend? Taobao is home to over 4,000 livestream hosts who generate 150,000 hours of content each day. For 11.11, more than 100,000 brands and merchants used livestreaming to market their products.

“It’s a brand-new experience. Livestreaming is becoming ubiquitous for merchants and a new [shopping] channel for consumers,” he said.

A Green 11.11

Jiang said that Alibaba’s logistics arm, Cainiao, had delivered 100 million packages before 8 a.m. on Monday, just eight hours into 11.11. But he said the company was committed to fulfilling those orders sustainably.

“Green is the most important keyword for this 11.11,” Jiang said. “We’ve shipped 1.292 billion packages, but through this we want even more to promote the concept of green consumption.”

To that end, Cainiao has set up more recycling stations – 40,000 of them – across China through its Cainiao Smart Logistics Network, while its express-courier partners is hosting an additional 35,000. Consumers will also be rewarded “green energy” points on Ant Forest for their recycling efforts.

Alibaba has established Nov. 20 as “National Cardboard Box Recycling Day” in China, as well, to further promote its push for a green shopping festival.

AliExpress Arrives In Russia With A Joint Venture

The joint venture features AliExpress, Mail.ru Group, MegaFon Russian Direct Investment Fund

The operation to establish a joint venture in Russia signed Alibaba Group – which will bring together e-commerce platforms, social media and popular games for the benefit of the country’s consumers and will offer Russian small and medium-sized enterprises greater access both locally and locally international markets – it’s a done deal.

First announced in September 2018, the joint venture features AliExpress, the leading Russian Internet company Mail.ru Group, the Russian mobile telecommunications operator MegaFon and the sovereign wealth fund Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).

After the federal anti-monopoly service of Russia authorized the JV to move forward last June, now AliExpress Russia JV is owned by the majority of Russian shareholders, with a board of directors composed of RDIF executives, Alibaba Group, MegaFon and Mail.ru Group. Group CEO Mail.ru Boris Dobrodeev is the chairman of the board, while AliExpress Russia’s chief Liu Wei and the first deputy general manager of the group Mail.ru Dmitry Sergeev will serve as co-CEO of the JV.

Alibaba remains focused on fulfilling its basic mission

“Alibaba remains focused on fulfilling the mission ‘to make it easy to do business anywhere.’ “AliExpress Russia JV is an important part of Alibaba’s globalization strategy and a key step towards our long-term goal to help 10 million small businesses achieve profitability and serve 2 billion customers worldwide,” he said. Daniel Zhang, Executive Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group.

“Together with Mail.ru Group, RDIF and MegaFon, we are committed to accelerating the development of the digital economy of consumers in Russia and the CIS countries, allowing regional brands and SMEs to reach and serve their target consumers through our unique and innovative shopping experience, “said Zhang.

The JV group and Mail.ru will conclude a strategic cooperation agreement related, among other things, to traffic and product initiatives. The JV will also promote its services on the Mail.ru Group platforms through exclusive solutions for product integration and marketing.

Mail.Ru Group has 100 million Internet users

Mail.Ru Group has 100 million Internet users through its social media properties, messaging, e-mail and online games, with 90% of all Internet users in Russia using at least one of its properties every month. The two largest Russian social media sites of Russia VKontakte and Odnoklassniki and its main email service are all owned by the Mail.ru Group.

In addition to combining social media and e-commerce, the joint venture will work to support the upgrade of consumption in Russia by offering a greater selection of high-quality products on the market. For Russian small and medium-sized enterprises it is an opportunity to tap into a new connected ecosystem in the domestic market, accessing over 600 million consumers using Alibaba platforms, including China, Southeast Asia, Turkey, Europe and India.

The joint venture also plans to participate in the acceleration of the Russian digital economy, exploiting the respective strengths of the parties in electronic commerce, social and digital media, logistics and the local market and helping to build the future commercial infrastructure in Russia and in the world.

New Retail: “The Future of Retail is Not a Question of Channels, But of Experiences”

New Retail is replacing traditional retail. Pioneered by Alibaba, the blending of online and offline commerce is introducing experience in the equation, thus changing the whole game

A recent report released by eMarketer has made it clear: China’s $1.94 trillion e-commerce market is the largest in the world. It is three times larger than the US one, contributing to 54.7% of the $3.5 trillion global e-commerce market expected in 2019.

These are stunning figures, which are driven by innovation and China’s growing purchasing power. But there is a concept that is changing the whole game in the Middle Kingdom and that is now ready to inspire innovations in retail across the globe. It is the New Retail, the blending of online and offline commerce to drive higher levels of engagement between brands and consumers.

In the western world, it is called omnichannel strategy. However, the New Retail concept goes far beyond the multi-channel approach, introducing the customer’s experience in the equation.

© 123rf. O2O – “Online To Offline” and vice versa – indicates the two-way flow between the online and the physical world. Alibaba’s Hema stores enforce O2O business model.

The New Retail model was introduced by Alibaba’s founder three years ago. In October 2016, Jack Ma wrote a letter to the shareholders stating that “in the future, e-commerce alone will become a mature business and will fade away being replaced by the concept of New Retail, which is positioned at the convergence of four forces: online, offline, logistics platforms, and big data.”

At that time, Ma’s message came as a surprise. During Alibaba’s highest growth momentum, the president of one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies was saying that the only way to give online retail a future was to introduce a model completely different from the current.

For Jack Ma, the future of retail is not a question of channels, but of experiences. New Retail, therefore, consists of offering a new shopping experience, which blends online and offline commerce. This way, the entire customer journey is completely redesigned.

For years, in-store sales and digital commerce were managed separately by companies, each with its own databases, customer relationships, loyalty program, transactions, and logistics. Therefore, three years ago, the challenge was to create contact points between the online and the offline world.

New Retail is a phrase coined by global icon, Jack Ma. Ma started advocating for the concept in 2016, which he outlined as “the integration of online, offline, logistics and data across a single value chain.”

To implement the New Retail model, Alibaba acquired the supermarket chain Hema. Here, consumers can buy online via the mobile app and pick up the purchase in the store or have it sent home in half an hour if they live within a 3km radius from the point of sale. However, the Hema app is also central to the traditional in-store experience. Customers can use their mobile to scan the products and receive the related info or add the groceries to a virtual cart in order to receive them home.

On one hand, online and offline experiences become one for the consumer, who chooses and alternates them according to the time available, the mood or the arrangements for the day. On the other hand, Hema supermarkets double their role and act as both physical stores and logistics platforms.

The results of the first two years of the Hema experiment are extraordinary. Hema customers buy more than 50 times a year on average and online orders represent 50% of transactions, with peaks of 70% in the big cities. In the last three years, Alibaba’s Hema opened over 100 stores in China, driving the trend that is revolutionizing the entire retail industry.

Following Jack Ma’s innovation, in January 2018, China’s second e-commerce giant JD.com opened its grocery store chain called 7Fresh. Just like Hema supermarkets, 7Fresh provides fresh produce and 30-minutes delivery service. In addition, these stores also host robotic smart carts that guide and follow customers through the aisles.

© Unsplash. Wuhan. Alibaba has opened new Hema supermarkets all around the country. The chain now also serves consumers in Xi’an, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Guangzhou.

The one-dimensional purchasing tunnel as it existed a few years ago is no longer relevant. With the New Retail model, Chinese consumers will no longer think in terms of separate purchasing channels but use all of them at the same time for various purposes such as product research, delivery or customer service.

Accordingly, brands also have more ways to interact with targeted consumers and thus ensure deeper brand engagement. This next-generation retail, in fact, provides customers with a personalized and interactive experience, leveraging new technologies and data science.

China is a mobile-driven society, therefore, digital commerce is already well established. Chinese consumers use their smartphones for almost everything, including payment. Thanks to the New Retail model, customers now can try on clothes virtually or pay via facial recognition without even going to a physical store or a checkout counter.

For example, during Alibaba’s Singles Day in 2018, the company partnered with brands to bring pop-up stores to its consumers, where artificial reality mirrors and smart speakers were connected to personal shopping accounts on retail websites Tmall and Taobao.

China’s increasing digitalization, the emergence of data science, and the consumers’ need for immediacy and traceable quality are the key factors in the success of New Retail.

However, this system is essentially based on personal data collection. Through the collection of consumers’ data, New Retail makes stores omniscient. With big data, brands can use artificial intelligence to customize product catalogs and experiences according to consumers’ demands, thus increasing both engagement and loyalty.

New Retail also turned shopping into an immediate purchasing experience. It means that while watching a showcase of products, the customer can directly choose to have one on the shopping cart. It was the “See Now, Buy Now” fashion show that has allowed consumers to immediately buy the clothes they were seeing during the show for the first time. Alibaba tested this technique during the annual Global Shopping Festival event in 2016, but it is now implementing immediate shopping in stores as well.

Nevertheless, in addition to speed, Chinese consumers also ask for quality today. Healthier products, higher food safety, and more precise tracking are now part of consumers’ demand. Therefore, New Retail stores have introduced product tracking. For example, at Hema, customers can scan a QR code to watch short reports on the origins of items, including, pictures of the distributor’s operating permits and food safety certificates.

Moreover, given that retail is consumer-centric, in-store technology has now become part of the strategy to attract customers and help them make purchasing decisions quickly. New Retail in China has made static stores obsolete. The in-store experience is lively now and leverages “sensory marketing” to influence the behavior of customers.

© 123rf. The New Retail trend that has emerged in China paves the way for retailers worldwide to profit from the digital economy.

China’s mobile-driven society and mobile payments are two crucial factors in the spread of New Retail across the country. Chinese consumers rely on apps for both online shopping and payments at physical stores. About 81% of smartphone users in the Middle Kingdom will use mobile payments this year, compared to just 27% in the US.

Therefore, we could say that the New Retail is built on China’s digital-first approach to commerce because it largely leapfrogged the brick-and-mortar expansion seen in the West and went quickly to online. In the West, instead, an omnichannel strategy is still trying to introduce digital services into the brick-and-mortar infrastructure to deliver to consumers the shopping efficiencies proper of the online world.

Here is what differentiates Alibaba’s model from the others tried so far: integration. Integrating data is a crucial evolution to understand everything about the consumer buying process. This means being an open book so that the system could know what the consumer needs before he actually needs it.

New Retail thus puts the customer at the center of the retail process. Given that China is home to over 600 million online shoppers, Alibaba’s system is, therefore, targeting an estimated $2 trillion market. No wonder why it is influencing retail across the entire globe.

JD expands the partnership with Camus Cognac

JD will work with Camus to launch exclusive products based on the opinions of Chinese consumers

Camus Cognac, the world’s largest family-owned independent cognac home, has announced an expansion of its partnership with JD.com, the largest Chinese retailer. As part of the extended partnership, in addition to offering several Camus premium brands to consumers, JD will work with the parent company to launch exclusive products, based on consumer opinions about Chinese market trends. Taking advantage of its various offline resources, JD will help Camus develop innovative marketing programs; a project in line with JD’s “Boundaryless Retail” strategy.

JD’s analysis of Chinese imported liquor consumers has found that many of them belong to a wealthy age group, aged between 26 and 35, curious to try new products. Based on this, Camus Cognac recently launched a Cognop VSOP gift pack on JD. The product has rich flavours and is ideal for young consumers interested in exploring new spirits.

The new partnership enthused both parties at stake

Cyril Camus, fifth-generation owner and president of Camus Cognac, said: “We are excited to grow our partnership and collaboration with JD.com. While Chinese consumers of wine and spirits continue to mature in refinement, I am confident that this partnership represents the perfect combination, mixing the incessant drive of Camus Cognac for JD’s utmost refinement and dedication to an impeccable omnichannel shopping experience “.

“We are excited to expand our strategic partnership with Camus Cognac,” said Carol Fung, president of JD FMCG. “We look forward to leveraging JD’s capabilities in customer analysis, marketing solutions and technology to increase the recognition of the Camus brand among Chinese consumers who are passionate about high-quality liquor.”

The number of imported spirits consumed in China will grow by 20% in four years

The extended partnership comes as demand for high-quality spirits in China continues to grow. According to industry estimates, the number of imported spirits consumed in China should grow by 20% within four years, from a total of 4.4 million boxes in 2018 to 5.3 million boxes in 2022.

In 2018, as a testament to the importance of the market, China surpassed Singapore for the first time, becoming the world’s second-largest cognac buyer after the United States, with over 255 million bottles consumed.

Douyin? Here the Future of Social E-Commerce

Today it’s clear how Douyin is showcasing the future of social and e-commerce. Focus on Douyin if you want to win in China. Let’s see why

Chinese e-commerce sector is booming, having a higher e-commerce spend this year than the rest of the world combined. Last data show us, again, how China is such a big opportunity for brands. As we know, the Dragon, once known as less connected country in the world, has become the land of the e-commerce giants with Alibaba and JD amongst many others all dominating online spend right now. But other new players are growing behind the curtain. Pinduoduo, Meituan, Kuaishou, Little Red Book and Douyin some names.

© Weibo. Zhang Yiming recognized the importance of the social networks environment, so Douyin also integrated social sharing with major platforms such as QQ, Weibo, and WeChat.

That’s why is not wrong to say that the opportunity for brands isn’t in the Alibaba’s & JD’s. Whilst they account for over 50% of Chinese e-commerce, it’s more effective as a brand to go after the other portion that isn’t the lions share that is found through other e-commerce channels. Let’s see how Douyin is becoming month by month an important player in e-commerce sector. We’ve mentioned Douyin but also the “underbelly” of Chinese commerce, such as private communities, for example social sellers on WeChat.

Short-Form vertical video is going to be the dominant format over the next 5 years, and Douyin is the platform that will lead the way. We’ve always been confident on short-form video, and a large reason for that is the huge growth of Douyin, with over 500m monthly active users and rising, and over 50% of those using the app daily.

Today it’s clear that Douyin is showcasing the future of social and e-commerce, seamlessly integrating the two through content and future technologies. 

Douyin’s latest feature is a true game-changer. You can now select a feature in a video, for example, a person or item of clothing, and search for other videos or images containing them or directly buy the products recommended. What’s the meaning? It’s what we’ve predicted will happen: Next generation of social media led by AI. 

Could be a shock, but forget Tmall, Taobao and WeChat – focus on Douyin if you want to win. Let’s see why. Right now Douyin’s aims are to get as many users as possible and grow the platform, even outside China, and give exposure to great content, there is no ulterior motive like there is with other social platforms that are pay-to-win.

© Chinadaily. Video-based e-commerce is shaping up to be the next revenue battleground for China’s leading video apps, Douyin and Kuaishou.

On Douyin, content wins, and that’s the best time for brands to build an audience.  Digital experts always been bullish on short-form video and Douyin in particular, and this latest feature reinforces that and opens up a world of possibility for brands in connecting with their audience. Brands need to be working toward how they can leverage the direction that social is moving to, and they need to be doing that now – this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Are you going to start building an audience on Douyin?

China is a huge opportunity, but everyone should remember that it pays tenfold if you think outside the box, be bold and be creative. Think beyond the status quo platforms that everyone talks about and look at the opportunities everyone forgets. This is where the real arbitrage can be found, and Douyin is one the top player to interact with.

Alibaba Group To Improve The Experience Of Visitors To Universal Parks & Resorts

The two have formed a partnership to improve the user experience and to digitize the operations of the future Universal Beijing Resort, which will open in 2021

A cutting-edge theme park with the best technology that improves the user experience. This is the Alibaba and Universal Parks & Resorts project that intends to make the future Universal Beijing Resort, which will open in 2021, one of the most technological theme parks in the world.

The park will use facial recognition during park admission, app-based food ordering and more. To help is the ABOS project, which offers all the tools and services of Alibaba to companies so that they can better meet the pace and needs of the Chinese market.

Brian Roberts, president and CEO of US communications and entertainment company Comcast, owner of Universal Studios, said it was important to make sure that Universal makes it fun and easy for guests to enjoy their time with family and friends.

Visitors can use the local Koubei service app

“Our collaboration with Alibaba will help us do exactly that. Together, we can take the theme park experience to a new level, “Roberts said.

Visitors will be able to book tickets and hotels via Beijing’s Universal Fliggy flagship store and will also be able to watch the resort’s schedule and universal movies on Alibaba’s Youbu video streaming app.

Once at the resort, visitors have the opportunity to use Alipay’s facial recognition technology for anything. The use of Alipay mini-programs is also planned to improve the guest experience, such as travel planning or parking, as well as encouraging low-carbon lifestyle choices.

Alibaba’s cloud computing arm will support the technology infrastructure

The companies, which also collaborate with the Beijing Tourism Group, expect the collaboration to offer “the best experience for guests” and establish a new benchmark for the entertainment industry and theme parks globally.

Daniel Zhang, executive president and CEO of Alibaba Group, said: “This partnership will also bring to fruition a multidimensional, data-enabled operations-management solution for the industry and create a truly digitized theme park,” he said. “The future of commerce is driven by technology and big data, and digitization will be the source of brand-new growth opportunities for all businesses.”

The Alibaba Business Operating System (ABOS) program is a complete solution that helps brands use all the tools available in the corporate ecosystem, which includes marketing and branding, sales, product development, customer services, finance, logistics, supply chain and management channel and local services on request.

The Italian brand FILA aims to expand its brand in China

The FILA brand is owned by Anta, the largest Chinese sportswear manufacturer, which took over the Italian business in 2009

If we talk about sportswear, it is impossible not to mention the renowned Italian brand FILA, which has been producing sportswear for over a hundred years. The Italian company, which in 2009 was taken over by Anta, the largest Chinese manufacturer of sportswear, said it will try to extend its reach to various age groups in China, focusing on high fashion and performance sports.

In particular, Brian Yiu, CEO of FILA China, said that the brand will continue to be a fundamental element for the Anta Group, although its earnings could still be lower than the Anta brand, due to the slower opening of stores in the second half of the year due to a modified macroeconomic environment.

Anta said that FILA accounted for 40 percent of its total revenue during the first six months of this year and that FILA’s revenue increased 79.9 percent to 6.54 billion yuan ($ 921 million) in the same period.

FILA is present in New York, Milan, Hong Kong, Seoul and Tokyo.

With the intention of expanding the brand, FILA intends to use the four sub-brands under it, which are the main FILA Core brand, FILA Kids for children’s sportswear, FILA Fusion mainly for young consumers and FILA Athletics for sports shows.

In particular, FILA Core, which caters to consumers aged 25 to 45, is a leading brand that combines elements of fashion and sport and has collaborations with renowned fashion designers including Fendi, Jason Wu and 3.1 Phillip Lim.

Brian Yiu added: “It is essential to find an adequate way to communicate with the new generation, both as a company and as a parent. It is also one of the reasons why we founded FILA Fusion, so that we can communicate directly with younger consumers. ”

FILA is trying to win over middle-high income consumers

However, if on the one hand there is the importance of fashion, on the other the sporting performance is fundamental. Last year, FILA established the FILA Athletics brand, which deals with tennis, golf, running equipment, fitness and seasonal sports including skiing, cycling and water sports.

“We are seeing a growing number of Chinese taking part in high-level sporting activities such as tennis and sailing, as well as seasonal sports such as skiing and cycling,” said Yiu.

Adam Zhang, the founder of the Key-Solution sports consulting and marketing agency, said: “In order to maintain such a high rate of growth, FILA must listen carefully to consumer preferences and continue to invest in its categories of fashion sports to improve its advantage in fashion and to gain new strength from sports performance “.

China, The New E-Commerce Trend Is Second-Hand Luxury

The trend is confirmed by Liu Bo, general manager of TusStar Venture

The Chinese luxury goods sector has received a steady stream of investments in recent years. TusStar is one of the capital investors that pays money in the sector, acting as the main investor for the high-end operator of used Ponhu-Luxury.

Building an integrated offline platform for second-hand luxuries is what the market will need in the future, TusStar Venture’s general manager Liu Bo told TechNode.

“In Japan, the penetration rate for used luxury goods has reached a 1: 1 ratio, which means that every time a new stock is bought, an old one will be resold. In China, only 3% of the stock is sold. Basically, nobody bought second-hand luxuries,” Liu said.

TusStar invests in high-tech, high-growth start-ups

Liu expects growth in the market for the sale of high-end used products in China. “One must think that one day, if an economic recession hit China, second-hand luxuries would retain their value as they did in Japan in the past. The cultures of East Asia are similar. We see promising growth points in the luxury sector second-hand in China “.

In his current role, Liu keeps an eye on TMT investment opportunities, energy savings and the environment, as well as the new economy and new services.

Moreover, TusStar invests in high-tech and high-growth start-ups, focusing mainly on TMT, mobile internet, cleantech, new material, health care, advanced production, education, intelligent hardware and consumption area. The company, in confirmation of this, has signed agreements with over 300 startups and so far has invested over 2 billion RMB.

But China, despite strong progress, seems to appreciate offline trade more

Some argue that digitization is the main driving force behind luxury sales in China, but Liu argues that the real “battle” develops offline. “Only some users might consider buying luxuries online. Most customers, in fact, care little about the discount, aiming more at brands and quality.”

According to a report published by Bain Analysis in 2019, although online luxury sales have surpassed the global market in 2018, online penetration in other luxury categories remains very low, with the exception of cosmetics.

“There are still many opportunities to build platforms in this area,” Liu said. “But it’s not the kind of e-commerce platform on the Internet that people talk about today, but an offline platform that unites all the key nodes of the entire commercial chain.

Alipay And WeChat Pay Say “No” To Cryptocurrency Transactions

The new Binance approach, one of the largest digital currency exchange rates in the world, has been avoided by the Chinese mobile payment giants in peer-to-peer trading

Alipay and WeChat Pay, Chinese giants in the field of mobile payments, reiterated their position on the prohibition of crypto-activity trading, especially after the news that the Binance cryptocurrency exchange allowed peer-to-peer trading against the Chinese yuan.

Binance, one of the largest digital currency exchanges in the world, announced on Wednesday that it had launched a peer-to-peer trading function that would allow the transaction of traditional cryptocurrencies – including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether – against the yuan.

Alipay has denied its support via Twitter

Zhao Changpeng, CEO of Binance, said in a tweet that the proposed exchange would offer Alipay and WeChat Pay trading in China. The rebuttal of Alipay came early and with a sharp “no”, again via a Twitter post.

The largest Chinese mobile wallet, owned by the e-commerce giant Alibaba, has in fact declared to closely monitor the counter transactions to identify irregular behaviour and at the same time guarantee compliance with the relevant regulations.

“If any transaction is identified as being related to bitcoins or other virtual currencies, Alipay immediately stops payment services,” it was made known; therefore, crystalline transparency for each operation.

Tencent, with WeChat Pay, has dispelled any doubts from users

WeChat Pay, Tencent’s mobile payment system, wanted to dispel the confusion that threatened to be created among its users, stating, with severe and firm tones, that it does not support any type of crypto-activity trading and that it has never integrated no cryptocurrency trader in his platform, according to reports from the local media SinaTech.

Meituan Exceeds Baidu: It is The Third-Largest Internet Company In China

The delivery food platform is preceded only by Alibaba and Tencent

Meituan, the Chinese delivery food platform, closed at $ 89 per share on October 8th, up 5.08% from the previous day, reaching an all-time high of $ 89.25 per share with a market capitalization of $ 516.2 billion.

The evaluation currently makes Meituan the third largest Internet company listed in China after Alibaba ($ 428.3 billion) and Tencent ($ 394.3 billion).

On the other hand, Chinese Internet research and Baidu’s artificial intelligence engine closed at $ 99.53 on October 9 with a value of its US stock market at $ 34.69 billion, actually lagging behind Meituan as the fourth largest Chinese Internet giant.

Meituan and Tencent are currently the two kings of Hong Kong shares

As a Meituan pillar activity, the financial report shows that the transaction amount of food and beverage delivery activities in the second quarter of 2019 was 93.1 billion yuan, up 36.5% year-on-year; the number of food and beverage delivery orders was 2.1 billion yuan, an increase of 34.6% on an annual basis. Furthermore, the average value increased by 1.4% on an annual basis.

According to an analyst at Tiger Securities, Meituan and Tencent are currently the two kings of Hong Kong shares. The data also showed that Tencent Holdings, in recent days, recorded a turnover of 4.967 billion HK $, while the turnover of Meituan approached 3.238 billion HK $.