Chinese firms speed overseas expansion
Chinese firms have accelerated overseas business expansion, covering both products and services, local firms told a forum on Tuesday.
Startups in consumer electronics and information services and giants such as China’s biggest online literature company and venture capital firms discussed overseas marketing opportunities at the Wise forum in Shanghai.
More than 30,000 overseas authors have contributed English-language content on webnovel.com, a global online literature platform founded by Shanghai-based China Literature, the country’s biggest online reading platform.
“Good content and culture should have no boundary. Readers from India or South Africa can find favorite novels on our platform, written by native writers in their own languages,” Wu Wenhui, co-CEO of China Literature, told the forum.
Since 2017, the Shanghai-based company has established a global platform with more than 30,000 overseas writers and 50,000 works in English or other languages. Some of them have earned more than US$10,000 a month through the platform, Wu said.
The forum also heard that Relx, an e-cigarette startup, expects to expand to over 100 countries and regions in the future, compared with 43 now.
Over 81 percent of B2B (business to business) overseas decision-makers are interested in domestic brands and willing to buy products from China. Their ideas of Chinese goods have changed from “cheap and copycat” five years ago to “affordable, quality and fast delivery," according to a LinkedIn report.