The fate of seven American companies in China

Absrtact: "Guided" Twitter, Facebook, Dropbox and almost all Google products have been blocked in China, but this has not hit some American startups into the Chinese market, although it requires plenty of skill and is very different from foreign countries.

"Guided" Twitter, Facebook, Dropbox and almost all of Google's products have been blocked in China, but this has not hit some American startups into the Chinese market, though it requires plenty of skill and is very different from foreign companies.

Take a look at the fate of seven American companies in China and see if they can bring some experience and lessons to other overseas applications and services as they enter the Chinese market.

We are sorting these companies according to the degree of success of these American companies in China. We will grade them-a very full score to see if they can get close to this difficult but unique market. We will mix the following elements, including the number of users, the rating and comments of the App Store, and the random pull in the subway to interview the impression of the product (albeit not objectively). We will rank from top to bottom as these American companies expand in China. We give the first place

Impression notes

Official release time in China: May 2012

Degree of success in China: 9.2 points

Evernote officially entered the Chinese market in May 2012, but in the 2011 they already had some loyal users in China. The authorities set up a local team and took a new name. Operation in China is a completely different service, it disconnects the international version of Evernote, in China his name is called impression notes.

At the time of the release, Evernote's blog warned people that "using impression notes should be noted that Chinese authorities may have the power to access their data according to the relevant existing regulations." "So it is necessary to separate the services." Chinese services lack collaborative note-taking capabilities. Everntoe's main rival in China--in fact, his biggest competitor--is the Youdao cloud notes produced by NetEase. The Chinese internet giant last summer fought for 15 million users for its notebook synchronization applications. In the near future, impression notes have gained 4 million users in China and have climbed rapidly since then, reaching 8 million users in November last year.

NetEase wins on the price, about 80% of the Evernote fee service is provided free of charge. NetEase is also cross in its market share high news reader among the recommended notes, effectively gave him free advertising. And the impression notes are totally solo.

Youdao Cloud Note application, in the local application market than the impression notes of the Chinese application more popular, but, the impression notes in China's Apple App Store received a lot of praise, as well as five-star reviews, harvested the Pea pod store more than 1200 praise.

Collar English

Official time in China: February 2014 (now in beta)

Degree of success in China: 8.9 points

LinkedIn, which is listed on the NYSE, is one of the biggest American startups to develop a "niche" market in China – if not controversial, nyse:lnkd a broader social network like Facebook. LinkedIn, which focuses on the connections of business people, has never been blocked in China. Even without the Chinese version, it has grown in China for a few years.

China is the soil of business social, especially the word "relationship" is very popular, you know who, how much your charm, in the table with a bribe in the human relationship, may bring you to a high success. That's why LinkedIn is rushing into the Chinese market. Although China's interpersonal relationships are somewhat different and more interactive than in the West.

Because of the strong position of China's science and technology ecosystem, like other American apps on the table, LinkedIn already has rivals in its local business social network. The 2012 skyline has more users in China than LinkedIn, which had 10 million users. LinkedIn recently disclosed that it has 5 million users in China. The Horizon network is created by a French company, so it can also be seen as an overseas start-up company.

LinkedIn was eventually put back into China in 2014. This February a beta version of the Chinese version of the online, although there are many social functions at this level is missing. What is missing is group functionality, and the ability to publish articles in user files. Because of LinkedIn's strict adherence to Chinese laws and regulations on media content. These features may be added later, but there is no way to block censorship in China.

Just last week, a certain number of users noticed that they first sent some politically sensitive content and were subsequently deleted. LinkedIn's official statement on the issue is that "there is a certain service review relationship, and it is clear to us that in order to maintain the value of our membership in China and the world, we need to transplant the Chinese market review of content." ”

This creates a two-dollar system. Users in China, and what can be seen in China, are treated differently than in other parts of the world. But most Chinese users don't even realize that this is happening, and it doesn't have much to do with the growth of the site in China.

The company is hiring local employees in China and is preparing to release a Chinese version of the News reader Pulse. LinkedIn's hope in China is to get a lot of growth this year, with China's most popular chat application micro-letters joining the support of LinkedIn, where users can bind to LinkedIn in their micro-mail files.

Flipboard

Official release time in China: December 2011

Degree of success in China: 8.5 points

In the summer of 2011, Flipboard was blocked in China. At the end of the year, the magazine-style reader app finally found a way around the ban: a separate application for the Chinese market. Flipboard's Chinese version was first launched on the ipad and entered the iOS market in March 2012, when the Android version was released in June.

The global version of Flipboard has since been partly unlocked, but it was blocked again in August 2013. The Chinese version has never experienced similar problems.

In China already has a variety of magazine types of reader applications, such as Zaker or NetEase cloud reading, Flipboard in China's large number of third Fang Andro stores, must be through the hard battle to stand out. Flipboard and two such stores pea pods and application sinks collaborate to ensure that applications are displayed in a wider range.

Flipboard is not as popular in the Chinese app Store as Zaker, but the performance remains strong.

Excellent step

Official release time in China: August 2013

Degree of success in China: 8.3 points

Uber first entered China in August 2013 and entered the streets of Shanghai. By February this year, the soft landing process has come to an end. This mobile-based car rental service is ready to enter the rental market. "After this difficult release process, demand in Shanghai exploded, showing the fastest growth rate in the first six months of the world," said Sam Gellman, head of Uber Asia. ”

Now the company in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Beijing also into operation.

Uber Black, the company's traditional service, allows drivers to exclusively join his car network and has a large number of local rivals in China. One of the main opponents is the easy road car, but Uber positioning himself as a luxurious and fluent car rental experience.

In addition, Uber will not compete with the online rental network, they have many years of "relationship" (we see the word again), and can provide a lower rent. Some companies also bring in a lot of business. And Uber is already the most cost-effective solution in the market.

Uber's application in the Chinese iOS market and the mainstream Android App Store pea pods, the growth rate is relatively slow. Although opponents have spent a lot of time developing their user base and the enthusiasm they deserve. Another aspect of the bonus point is that they are doing some promotion and are well on their way to reaching their elite audience. The service has fun promotional activities in other markets, such as the ice-cream business in New York and the Dragon Service in Singapore.

TuneIn

Official release time in China: April 2012

Degree of success in China: 8 points

In order to officially enter the Chinese market, TuneIn has conducted a self-censorship of FM radios for users in China. When we tunein into China in April 2012, we noticed that they would direct any Chinese user who tried to listen to the BBC fourth to a Chinese state-run radio station, and the company representative said, "We are preparing to adapt to the Chinese government's regulatory measures to remove some of our services in China." ”

In China, where only one similar product is available on a mobile phone, TuneIn is doing well in the App Store, and he has also been recommended by other Chinese partners and pre-installed on a range of car entertainment systems.

Pocket

Official release time in China: April 2014

Degree of success in China: 6 points

Later, the application pocket is being promoted in Asia, with Japanese, Korean and Chinese support added in March and April respectively.

There has been a series of later reading applications, but this is more of a niche, a special field, and the same fate will befall the pocket.

It is too early to talk about pocket access to the number of users in China, and they are too late to provide East Asian language support, so it is possible to miss the peak of this wave of application development. Another big danger is that micro-letters are actually being used by Chinese as a reading application. Micro-letters and microblogs do not support offline reading.

When the pocket comes, a series of local apps have started to enter the market. In addition, the pocket's release in China is a huge shock, allowing Chinese app stores to score more than in American stores. She scored 132 points, both positive scores or five-star, and there was a lot of growth in the comments.

Path

Official release time in China: Summer 2012

Degree of success in China: 5 points

(continued) Path founder and CEO Dave Morin said in September 2012 that China is the second largest market for this application and that Indonesia has overtaken China.

It seems that the concept of path is more prevalent in China than path itself. The idea of a miniature, private social network was massively plagiarized during the 2011-year focus, and a number of Shanzhai products appeared, some of which were launched in 2012. Sina Weibo, a maker of Sina Weibo, has even developed a cottage version of its own, called Sina Chum.

But the clones of path have since fallen out of favour. The main reason is that in China, micro-letters have left many people out of other social applications, even though Sina Weibo itself is under serious threat. Because he would do a lot more things outside of instant messaging, get a status update on a circle of friends, picture reading and sharing news, telling people what you're listening to-all of which should be a patent for path, but micro-letters do all this and do more.

You can survive on the internet in China, but ...

What are we going to learn from these American tech companies? All of these American companies that enter China must not be allowed to censor themselves, no matter how small the service is, China's stringent media regulatory measures will always have a certain impact, allowing your start-up companies to remove part of the functionality when necessary. In order to enter the market, it is necessary to create an independent, or parallel to the international application of the Chinese special edition.

We've even seen this happen: micro-letters do much more in China than he does for overseas users. It is particularly necessary to emphasize that you cannot use the same global strategy that you do when you do business in China.

What else should be paid attention to? To put it simply is a word--enterprise. There are no overseas companies that are allowed to have access to specific media, search, or uncensored social networking sites. The key to success in China is to have a very small product, suitable for Chinese urban business people, and people interested in technology. These people can see how the original product is more attractive than the local competitor.

Similarly, for overseas startups, it is important to have rapid iterations. For localized products, it is possible to remain in front of local competitors and to enhance the activity of users of Sina Weibo, micro-credit, Youku and other related products. We should learn from Chinese enterprises like millet. We need to know what your customers like, and to get local product managers to talk to your heavily reliant clients and motivate them. If you go to China too late, or are too irrelevant to mainstream usage habits, it's a good chance to get a user's gravity in China.

Although there are always exceptions, it is worth noting that there are many sites in China where survival is walking on the tip, is walking on the brink of danger. It only takes those censors a little bit of a switch to decide their life and death. Instagram, a picture-sharing site, has survived for years in China and has been alive since the start of their business and even after being bought by Facebook. But such a huge social network could be shut down in a few seconds in China, just because the app publishes a protest in a Chinese city that will be blocked. In any future day, the same thing will happen.

When we try to write about China in the tech in Asia, we avoid writing the data "1.3 billion people" because few companies really have completely generic products. You need to see 1.3 billion of consumers in China when you're selling cola, detergent, or search engines. Startups in the U.S., or any internet company overseas, need to ignore this huge number because you're never allowed to be in the hands of anyone who goes online in China. Instead, you're looking for a niche market. Know how many people really like your product in this area of China. It doesn't matter if the population is 10 million or 100 million, and what you need to do is change their traditional thinking.