China's Mobile Economy

"The book will focus on three major areas of the digital economy in China that are, by nature, inter-linked: (a) The boom of e-commerce on consumer goods. Alibaba's online shopping platforms Taobao and Tmall have nearly twice as many active buyers than the U.S. site eBay. It has already disrupted new shopping malls in China, but itself is also being disrupted by the mobile culture and social network. The mobile disruption in China is more thorough than the developed world: immature industries such as retail and logistics will leapfrog straight from the early industrial age to the internet one. (b) The beginning of the multi-screen age and mobile Internet for China consumers. The mobile consumption is growing so rapidly that the shopping malls, a new development in China by itself, have already been disrupted by online-to-offline (O2O) retail consumption. What's more, the growth and positive spillovers go beyond consumer goods sector to services, entertainment, media, finance and even traditional industry sectors. (c) Mobile internet is more about lifestyle and entertainment for China's online community (which tends to be younger than that in the US). The Chinese youth are pouring money into online games, video and music downloading, and virtual goods/ online personas in imaginary worlds. To meet the quest for high quality contents, the tech giants are not only betting on set-top box to convert TV and theatre viewers to online but also creating their own contents; meanwhile, the China market is changing the DNA of Hollywood's blockbuster movies"--