Unlimited possibilities in this area have opened up, which can be attributed partially to social messaging app WeChat and its versatile miniprograms—lightweight apps within the messenger that have minimal functionality and have proven to be a hit among users.
Lower-tier cities drive ecommerce consumption.
Brands and marketers are paying attention to lower-tier cities in China because of the areas’ fast-growing retail sales and higher consumer confidence. On top of that, urban households are seeing rising debt levels, which have driven ecommerce players to seek new growth opportunities. Following the success of group-buying site Pinduoduo in lower-tier cities, ecommerce giants Alibaba and JD.com are aggressively promoting their own services in the group-buying category—named Juhuasuan and Jingxi, respectively.
Brisk sales of smart speakers.
According to GfK in October, the number of smart speakers sold in China reached 19.0 million in 2019, compared with 11.3 million units sold in 2018. Reaching critical mass was crucial for the smart speaker industry to prosper. But the next step is more important and arguably more difficult to pull off: monetization of smart speakers, which first requires understanding how consumers use these devices.
Facial recognition payment adoption is taking hold.
While China’s digital giants have been successful in integrating mobile payments throughout consumers’ shopping journeys, the search for the next technology to bring consumers greater convenience has led to facial recognition payments, with both Alibaba and Tencent having launched their own point-of-sale (POS) devices at retail locations. According to iiMedia Research, facial recognition payment users in China grew 94.0% in 2019 to 118 million and are projected to rise rapidly in the next few years.