Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-02-25
Businesses in China may be overlooking a flourishing "grassroots" market of 500-600 million online consumers. With a modest monthly income of 2,000-3,000 yuan (US$320-$480) and located mostly in rural areas, these consumers nonetheless dispose of 40% of their income on internet shopping, entertainment, and friend-making, according to the Beijing-based Economic Observer.
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| A screenshot of Momo, a social networking app. (Internet photo) |
Businesses in China may be overlooking a flourishing "grassroots" market of 500-600 million online consumers. With a modest monthly income of 2,000-3,000 yuan (US$320-$480) and located mostly in rural areas, these consumers nonetheless dispose of 40% of their income on internet shopping, entertainment, and friend-making, according to the Beijing-based Economic Observer.
As a
result, Zhang Xiaowei, founder of retail website mmb.cn, embraces a business
model aimed not at crowded urban markets but at China's villages.
In the same
vein, yy.com, an multimedia website for finding friends, targets netizens in
the countryside and migrant workers in cities, rather than white-collar
workers. Different from QQ and other instant messaging websites, yy.com can
help clients through voice and video chat and provides various channels,
including entertainment, gaming, and education.
The music
division of yy.com, for instance, recruits signers to perform to boost
attendees, who pay in pre-purchased virtual money before the show. Profit is
split 8:2 between the site and performer.
Originally
a provider of gaming and audio software, yy.com has transformed into a platform
for entertainment and education. Some performing artists have found their way
into the national spotlight through the platform.
Karaoke,
another common pastime in China, is at the core of 9158.com, which provides
live video karaoke and boasts a large number of grassroots stars and idols.
Clients can visit the video-channel "chat room" to sing karaoke,
listen to songs, play games, and strike up conversation. A host for a virtual
room could potentially gather tens or hundreds of thousands of fans, who spend
several cents or dollars to buy them virtual gifts, such as virtual flowers,
which generate real income.
The
Economic Observer noted that 9158.com satisfies the entertainment needs of
numerous netizens in the countryside and migrant workers in cities during their
leisure time after long, arduous work. Often restricted to factory dormitories,
employees can connect to a wider social circle through these platforms.
The karaoke
site and several subsidiary websites host over 20,000 video chat rooms with a
total of 100-200 million registered clients and 20-30 million active clients.
At any one time, servers are capable of holding 700,000 clients online. It
racks up monthly revenue of 70 million yuan (US$11.2 million), which translates
into a 70% market share.
In the new
wave of mobile shopping, immomo.com is the first platform dedicated to mobile
e-commerce in China, offering shopping to mainly farmers, migrant workers, and
residents of third- or fourth-tier cities. Zhang Xiaowei, founder of the site,
claims that, "our aim is to serve the grassroots masses, as an e-commerce
revolution is taking place in rural areas in China." At present, the
e-commerce site has become China's largest mobile business-to-consumer website,
boasting annual sales of 500 million yuan (US$80 million).
In Dec.
2012, immomo.com joined hands with Tencent to invest 400 million yuan (US$64
million) for remaking the website into an operational, logistics, procurement
and R&D center for mobile e-commerce in China.
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