MobileMonday: Chinese Mobile Companies Going Abroad

Written by Tangos on July 23, 2008
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This Monday I participated in the Mobile Monday Beijing event with the intention to know the experience of going abroad from some Chinese mobile companies, including Pica.com, a mobile IM service provider, Yicha.cn, a mobile search company with presence in Japan since 2006, PP.cn, a mobile community with Japan market entry by partnership with Yicha.cn, Casee.cn, a mobile advertising company entering UK market with the help of its investors.

Mobile Monday Beijing’s website has a detailed transcript of the event, here are some of my quotes.

Why going abroad? PP.cn and Yicha enter Japan market because Japanese mobile market is more mature, and “it is easier to make money from mobile internet services in Japan”.

To find a right partner is critical for entering a new market, it seems their investors offer many helps to address this issue. For example, Velti, Casee.cn’s investor, helps Casee to sell its mobile marketing platform in UK and Europe. Yu Dong, CTO of Yicha, said “Our Japan CEO has 10 years of advertising and local launching experience in Japan, and our Japanese investor Hikari Tsushin helped to identify him as well as other key team members. As a result, it was relatively easy for Yicha to start and to manage.”

Alex Liang, CEO of Pica, thought “In some cases, your VCs can help you. Other ways are to go to conferences, meet local partners and local offices for large companies, like Orange. Huawei is another channel that can help you as they are looking for services to bundle with their platforms.”

What is difference between Japanese users and Chinese users? Jerry Lee, CEO of PP.cn answered, “Japanese users are young. They were born in the 1990s. Maybe due to the lack of space in Japanese houses, 13 to 18-year-old audience do not have their own computers in their rooms. Even if they have, the computer is around their parents. Therefore, they rely and spend much time on the mobile phones which dominates very much of their daily life (for entertainment, living…etc.).

Also, opposite spending habits are found between Japanese and Chinese users. Japanese would spend a lot of money for new and quality products. Often, buyers think that the more expensive the product is, the more reliable it is (no viruses,..etc.); however, this is not the case in China.”

Check Mobile Monday Beijing’s report for more about the event.

One Response to “MobileMonday: Chinese Mobile Companies Going Abroad”

  1. China Journal : Best of the China Blogs: July 24 on July 24th, 2008 12:43 pm

    [...] –Not content simply to export the hardware of mobile phones, Chinese companies are gearing up to take their mobile services abroad as well.. [China Web2.0 Review] [...]

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