China’s digital landscape: Breaking barriers to innovation

• Main Authors: REDDY, Srinivas K., WANG, Zack Zheng, DONG, Deckie He
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2015
• Subjects: Internet; e-commerce; China; social media; Taobao; Youku; Weibo; WeChat; Baidu; Asian Studies; E-Commerce; Marketing; Technology and Innovation
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/4761; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/5760/viewcontent/chinas_digital_landscape.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

When e-commerce giant Alibaba went public on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2014, its market capitalisation rocketed to roughly US$219 billion - a sum greater than any record previously set by its American contemporaries, Facebook, eBay and Amazon. It was a historic event that led many to believe that China’s digital economy was echoing the Middle Kingdom’s own meteoric rise onto the world-stage. China ranks high in digital connectivity. In 2015, almost half of the country’s population, or 649 million people, were online. It’s fast-growing Internet economy generates about US$100 billion annually and is predicted to reach US$277 billion by 2017.1 And for every popular site in the rest of the world, there is a Sino-doppelganger lurking behind the Great Firewall of China: Taobao, Youku, Sina Weibo, WeChat and Baidu being among the most well-known.