home << Policy << auto chinese high tech startups now more copied than copying
Fri, 29 Sep 2017
Chinese High-Tech Startups: Now More Copied Than Copying
Furnished content.
Techdirt has been pointing out for a while that the cliché about Chinese companies being little more than clever copycats, unable to come up with their own ideas, ceased to be true years ago. Anyone clinging to that belief is simply deluding themselves, and is likely to have a rude awakening as Chinese high-tech companies continue to advance in global influence. China's advances in basic research are pretty clear, but what about business innovation? That's an area that the US has traditionally prided itself on being the world leader. However, an interesting article in the South China Morning Post -- a Hong Kong-based newspaper owned by the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which has a market capitalization of $400 billion -- explores how it's Chinese ideas that are now being copied:it's a reflection of a growing trend in which businesses across Southeast Asia look to China for inspiration for everything from e-commerce to mobile payment systems and news apps.Once derided as a copycat of Western giants, Chinese companies have grown in stature to the point that in many areas they are now seen as the pinnacle of business innovation. The article mentions dockless bike-sharing, which is huge in China, being copied in California by a startup called Limebike. It notes that Thailand's central bank has introduced a standardized QR code that enables the country's smartphone users to pay for their purchases simply by scanning their devices -- a habit that is well on the way to replacing cash and credit cards in China. In Malaysia, an online second-hand car trading platform Carsome based its approach closely on a Chinese company operating in Nanjing. Other copycats of Chinese innovators include:Orami, Thailand's leading e-commerce business, which started out as a clone of China's online baby product platform Mia; Offpeak, a Malaysian version of the Chinese group buying website Meituan; and BaBe, an Indonesian news app that borrowed the business idea from China's Toutiao and has been downloaded more than 10 million times. As the article points out, it is perhaps natural that entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia should look to China for ideas given the commonalities of culture. But that kind of creative borrowing can only occur if Chinese companies are producing enough good business ideas that are worth copying. It's evident that they are, and it's time that the West recognized that fact.Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
Read more here
posted at: 12:00am on 29-Sep-2017
path: /Policy | permalink
comment...
home << Policy << auto chinese high tech startups now more copied than copying
|
|