Introduction: Wherever there is a smartphone, there is a Chinese overseas app.
Author | Shen Danyang
Editor | Zhao Siqiang
2019, the world witnessed "China Intelligent Manufacturing".
Ordinary people in Indian slums have transformed into internet celebrities on short videos of Chinese going overseas, achieving a counterattack in life; the international version of Douyin TikTok is popular all over the United States and has become a phenomenal Internet product; the rich and beautiful anchors of Middle East met on the Chinese live broadcast platform and staged a romantic love story; Japanese netizens are separated from us by the sea and are addicted to the happiness of "good luck, eat chicken tonight"; South Korea's most popular "BTS", leads millions of fans to play short videos of Chinese going overseas together; in the distant Brazil and wild Africa, the figure of Chinese apps is also clearly visible.
short videos, live broadcasts, social networking, games, film and television variety shows and other "content overseas products" shine with the same dazzling light in different countries.
Where there is a smartphone, there is a Chinese overseas app.
If not, don't worry, they must be on the way.
I am a star scout in India
"Senior students earn 200,000 yuan a month by rushing to sea videos", "The income of self-media in the village of rural women exceeds 10,000 yuan, and the average salary is higher than that in Shanghai", "The new fishermen in Fuyuan, Heilongjiang, and the fans are millions, and they get rich through live broadcasts"... We have heard a lot about these Internet products changing the lives of Chinese people in recent years, and it has gradually become commonplace.
However, in India, a change brought about by Chinese short video products has just begun.
Orchha is a small town in Madhya Pradesh, India. It takes more than 6 hours to get from the capital New Delhi , and it takes two transportation options. In this village with a population of less than 100, more than 1,000 people have used short videos and nearly 100 Internet celebrities.
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The versatile Indian people Picture source: The Paper
The work of a Chinese girl Gao Chen is to be a "star scout" in India and explore potential grassroots internet celebrities.
She has shared her story with the media. In India, Gao Chen and his team colleagues frequently visit various villages and slums. On the one hand, they teach local people how to use smartphones and skills to shoot short videos, and on the other hand, they can also discover talented and suitable for Internet celebrities.
Ocha is also the "new world" discovered by Gao Chen.
Kajul is an ordinary girl in the village who makes a living by doing farm work. She shot her daily farming routine into short videos and became popular online; Komal was originally a housewife who was dependent on her husband's life, and she loved dancing since she was a child. After getting involved in short videos, Komal showed his dancing scene to netizens, attracting countless fans. Her husband didn't want her to show up in public, but Komal earned much more money from filming short videos every month, which gave Komal more autonomy and his family status improved. Ganesh is a magician who has oral cancer and has no work at home due to illness and owes a lot of foreign debts for treatment. After the short video appeared, he took a photo of the scene of performing magic tricks to children in the welfare home on weekdays, and turned into an internet celebrity magician, and his economic situation improved greatly.
Ganesh performing magic for children Picture source: The Paper
Behind these stories, there are Chinese short video products.
Ali 's short video Vmate, which is located in India, has been launched in India for half a year, and the number of monthly active users has increased from 30 million to 50 million. ByteDance's Tiktok international version has more than 200 million users in India; the short video Likee launched by Huya also has more than 60 million monthly active users in India.
These "Copy from China" products are reshaping the downward society in India.
Southeast Asian people, let’s watch the drama together!
In the past year, we have been obsessed with the brain-burning drama "Game of Thrones", shouted to be satisfied with the cool drama " Deadly Woman ", and furiously hit the "international CP" for "Others Are Hell" and "Crash Landing of Love". On the other side of the earth, Southeast Asian people are also fanatically pursuing Chinese TV series. As early as the 1990s, "Return of the Condor Heroes" and "The Return of the Condor Heroes" set off a craze in Southeast Asia.
In 2019, domestic dramas are accelerating.
The popular domestic "The Untamed", "Qing Yu Nian", "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an" and "East Palace" have all entered the Southeast Asian market.
"Story of Yanxi Palace" and "Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace" were broadcast in Vietnam, and the cultural effect was unprecedented: the classic lines in the play were widely circulated; the classical and beautiful palace clothing caused a cosplay trend; local women even imitated the makeup of concubines; and Vietnamese fans also fell in love with Chinese history because of this, and they checked relevant information online and enjoyed research.
The unprecedentedly popular IP adaptation "The Untamed" also caused a strong response in Thailand. The starring actor of the drama is a fan meeting in Thailand. The tickets are sold out on the day of issuance. The price of scalpers has increased several times, but it is difficult to get a ticket.
The Untamed "Qing Yu Nian" broadcast on Netflix at the end of
is more popular overseas than in China. There were rumors that "Qing Yu Nian" is updated faster abroad than in China. The English version of "Joy of Life" has a single episode of up to 660,000 views.
Overseas fans even sent overseas comments. A netizen named RoseNzieg exclaimed at the pillow Fan Xian used to sleep. "What a hardcore boy! He actually sleeps on a stone." Under this message, another netizen named BBQ responded, "In ancient Chinese people sleep on porcelain, because they are cool, and they can keep their hairstyle as elegant as before."
, which has always been questioned by the industry, has also improved in recent years. In 2016, the export amount of domestic dramas was only 297 million yuan, less than half of the imports, and the deficit was as high as 517 million yuan, which decreased to 229 million yuan the following year.
In 2019, the three major online video platforms of "ii, You and Tencent" were each deployed overseas. Youku reached a content cooperation with Netflix, Tencent launched the overseas version of WeTV to land in Thailand, and iQiyi joined hands with Malaysian media Astro to jointly open up the local market. With its own advantages, while accelerating the overseas output of domestic dramas, "I'll be the best for drama to go overseas. According to data in the annual report of Maoyan Research Institute, the current price of the top dramas can reach US$100,000 per episode. The countries that go overseas for the series are no longer limited to Southeast Asia. North America, Africa, South Korea, Japan and other places have gradually become the main countries for exporting domestic dramas.
The US government is afraid of TikTok?
The United States is the earliest country with the emergence of the Internet and the most mature Internet product form. It has nurtured many international Internet giants such as Facebook, Netflix, and Google+. In addition, the per capita consumption level in the United States has always been at the international leading position.
North American market has always been the place where Chinese Internet companies want to conquer the most but suffer repeated setbacks.
There is an exception in recent years. TikTok, the international version of TikTok, surpasses the products of , Facebook Group, and is popular all over the United States.
Hedgehog Commune introduced its story in detail in the article "How powerful is TikTok in abroad?"
Tiktok in the United States, just like Tiktok in China, has penetrated into all areas of society.
Major mainstream media in the United States have successively joined TikTok and used short videos to attract young audiences; top stars Kardashian, Schwarzenegger , Mr. Bean and Jonas brothers have all opened personal accounts; local top sports events NHL and WWE have also reached content cooperation with TikTok; many popular musicians have even promoted their new works through TikTok.
Editor-in-chief of the Washington Post, short videos playing tricks in the office
The "viral" spread of Chinese short video products in the United States has attracted the attention of local governments and even the military.
Just as 2020 began, the US Army issued a directive: ban soldiers from using TikTok software on government-issued mobile phones.
"It is considered a cyber threat and may disclose state secrets." Army spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Ochoa said in an interview with foreign media.
Just two months ago, the US Army recruited new recruits through short videos on the official TikTok account.
After the Army issued the TikTok ban, the US Navy and Air Force also issued the same instructions one after another.
American soldiers who love TikTok Photo source: Buzzfeed News
The suppression of the government and the military has not extinguished the enthusiasm of the American people for TikTok.
TikTok has become the place for social public opinion events, which is quite similar to domestic Weibo.
Recently, American medical staff joined the army of TikTok users and popularized daily medical knowledge to the public through "performance + rap". A TikTok user named Nurse Holly said in a short video that "the best way to prevent gender diseases is abstinence." Once the video was published, it caused an uproar among the public. All parties in society criticized their views as wrong and subjectively interfered in other people's private lives.
Previously, a nurse named D Rose posted a series of short videos imitating her patients on TikTok to complain that "the patient deliberately pretended to be sick." These short videos were once on TikTok's hot topic list, causing countless discussions.
In 2020, the United States is about to usher in a new presidential election. In the last election, Facebook attempted to use political advertising to influence the results. With such a precedent, the US government's supervision of TikTok will only be increasingly strengthened.
The Middle East tyrants, seeking true feelings online
, most people have the impression of "strong religious culture" and "the situation is turbulent all year round". Its mystery has never faded away due to the advent of the Internet era. On this continent, people's social methods tend to be conservative, and men and women who are not related should not be too close to each other. Public entertainment venues are not common in the Middle East, and even the few shopping malls and restaurants have to be treated separately by customers of different genders.
Although Middle Eastern women dress conservatively, they still have a yearning for beauty. Source: TLD.com
It is hard to imagine that in such a social environment, live broadcast products with strong social attributes will be sought after by the public.
Facts have proved that the online social needs of the people in the Middle East are urgent and common.
In the six Gulf countries in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, UAE , Qatar , Kuwait , Oman and Bahrain , the penetration rate of the Internet exceeded 84% as early as 2018. The local Internet industry has developed slowly due to the lack of investment and talents. Internet companies in Western countries, except for a few giants that have already made arrangements in the Middle East, other companies are not optimistic about this market.
China's Internet companies have become pioneers in opening up the Middle East market.
Huya Times and Beijing Mike World have launched mobile applications in the Middle East in the form of "social + live broadcast": Bigo Live and Mico. After the product was launched, it quickly attracted the attention and love of local users.
Middle East anchors Source: 36Kr
As we all know, the specialty of the Middle East is the local tyrants.
The rich and online live broadcast are perfect matches.
According to foreign media reports, the rich people in the Middle East spent a lot of money in the live broadcast room of online anchors. There was once a Saudi tycoon who drove dozens of kilometers to buy a recharge card in the middle of the night in order to reward the female anchor of Morocco . In the end, the two of them tied the knot.
A local widow made a living through live broadcast and successfully got rid of poverty; the live broadcast bounty of master's graduates is comparable to that of local colleges... Such stories have emerged endlessly.
The suppression of social interaction in real life in the Middle East has found an outlet online. The anchors will also watch each other's live broadcasts, and exchange rewards in a way that they can communicate with each other. Compared with money, building a good and extensive social circle is a deeper need for online users in the Middle East.
Japanese netizens also eat chicken
The story of Internet companies traveling east began as early as 2007.
was the first to test the waters, which was at its peak at that time, Baidu . As soon as it announced the start of internationalization, Baidu set Japan as its first stop and hired Sony's former chairman Nobuyuki Irii to give advice. The following year, Yahoo's vice president of Japan's business, Toshiichi Inoue joined Baidu as the president of Japan.
At that time, Goolge and Yahoo dominated the Japanese search engine market, accounting for nearly 90% of the share. Baidu used all its strength and did not splash any water. In 2015, Baidu, which had been struggling for seven years, quietly withdrew from the Japanese market.
On the other hand, Alibaba UC's CEO, Yu Yongfu also publicly stated in 2013 that "Japan is still a market that we are clear to give up on stage."
The Internet industry environment is relatively closed, which is the main feature of the Japanese market and the main reason for discouraging many Chinese overseas companies.
Until 2017, two domestic Internet products broke the silence.
One is the NetEase mobile game " Wilderness Action ", and the other is the Japanese version of Tiktok. Both have occupied a place in the Japanese market in just three years.
The main characteristics of Japanese game players are: the game culture is unique, which leads to many overseas companies being "unacceptable to the local environment" in the early stage; due to the greater social pressure, Japanese players prefer stress-free casual games, and an Ireland elimination game "Dream Home" is extremely popular in Japan; players value their own game strength and skills more, and are more repulsive to the conspicuous rankings.
The popular chicken-eating game in China, "Operation of the Wild", takes advantage of the characteristics of Japanese players' favorite local IPs, and cooperates with local well-known IPs "Attack on Titan" and " Evangelion " to successfully enter the market. In addition, the inherent strong social attributes of NetEase mobile games have also attracted many young players.
In 2019, "Operation Wilderness" was also included in the top ten "Free List" and "Bestselling List" of Japan's Apple and Android Systems in the annual "Free List" and "Bestselling List".
Tiktok has grasped Japan's home culture and invested hundreds of millions of dollars to introduce celebrities and experts.
E-Girls
Artist Yukina Kishita, who has more than 4 million fans on Twitter, was signed by TikTok in one fell swoop; after E-Girls, a female idol group with national popularity, entered Tiktok, it also brought a large number of young fans to it. After accumulating a certain number of user groups, TikTok operated a large-scale "Team Challenge" in Japan, greatly improving user activity and retention.
In 2019, TikTok twice topped the Japanese app free list.
BTS also loves TikTok
going to South Korea, which is somewhat similar to Japan.
TikTok is still the winner.
At the end of 2019, a Korean song "Colors" became popular around the world through TikTok. This song was first released in 2016. Because it was not the title song of the original album and there was no special promotion, the song was not outstanding at the time. In the summer of 2019, "Colors" was used in the background of TikTok short videos, causing large-scale dissemination. As of December 17, its cumulative number of views on TikTok exceeded 300 million times.
Video Challenge caused by "Colors" on TikTok Photo source: China Economic Network The Korean version of TikTok is also popular among top stars.
BTS (BTS) is the most popular boy group in South Korea nowadays. "Stop the constraints and prejudice of all growing teenagers" is their original intention of forming a group. Most of TikTok users are also teenagers. On September 25, 2019, BTS officially joined TikTok. In just 3 and a half hours of opening the official account, BTS gained 1 million fans. After 13 hours, the number of fans exceeded 2 million, and after 5 days, the number of fans was nearly 4 million, and the number of video likes exceeded 100 million.
BTS has been on the TikTok "Top 10 Korean Artists" list in 2019. BTS ranked first, followed by popular Korean groups and artists such as BLACKPINK, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, Cha Yinyou.
On the other side, mobile game products such as " Ark of Tomorrow " and "Identity V" have also achieved outstanding results in South Korea, and have been on the local popular mobile game list several times. For domestic mobile game overseas companies, the Korean market is developing rapidly, the user base is relatively young, and the payment habit is good.
In 2020, the Korean mobile game market, which is still in the blue ocean, will also usher in fierce competition from more Chinese overseas game companies.
go! Go to , , and take a look at
, Latin America and Africa, which are both in the southern hemisphere, are new markets that Chinese Internet overseas companies are targeting together. Several major players with
content overseas products have also entered the market one after another.
Brazil is the country with the largest economic output in Latin America. Cheetah Mobile , Meitu, Huya, Kuaishou, and ByteDance have launched their own content overseas products here. Kuaishou launched the international short video Kwai here, which won 7 million users retention in 2019, ranking among the top five in the Brazilian market. TikTok, the international version of TikTok, also caught up with it, accelerating the grabbing of the Brazilian market, and its current size is slightly behind Kwai.
The Brazil battle between Kwai and TikTok in 2020 may be staged with a more exciting plot.
The distant promised land of Africa has a wider and more sinking market than India.
Entertainment is the most important here, people pursue timely enjoyment, "Wine is drunk today." People who have worked in Africa have joked that the popular culture in some African countries is "living in the most broken slums and wearing the most expensive Armani".
This has allowed Chinese companies going overseas in Africa to target the entertainment industry.
It has to be mentioned that China's mobile phone manufacturers dominate Africa. Since entering the African market in 2006, Transsion has spent nearly fifteen years to deepen its roots. It has a market share of 48.71%, annual sales volume exceeding 100 million, and a reputation ranking first. It is the report card submitted by this low-key Chinese company.
Image source: Tencent Technology When smart mobile phones continue to become popular in Africa, short video products appear.
China's overseas products are still the main players in this track. Transsion's short video Vskit, along with TikTok, is constantly exploring the sinking market in Africa. At present, Vskit, the mobile phone overlord, has the upper hand, leading the KOLs at the head and waist of the platform, creating an African version of "old iron culture".
African short video Vskit promotional map
has 54 countries in Africa and has huge market potential. The ships that Chinese Internet went to sea in Africa have just set sail. This hot, plump and wild continent will surely carry more dreams and ambitions of Chinese overseas companies.
Whether it is North America, Latin America, India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Japan and South Korea, Africa, or the European and Australian markets that have not yet made large-scale breakthroughs, Chinese Internet companies are constantly breaking the differences in time, region and culture, and using products to connect people and stories from all over the world.
These moments when they are connected together have realized "the world is the same as this moment" on the Internet.
Reference materials:
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[2]. "Tiktok South Korea releases 2019 annual list, BTS firmly ranked first". Amy's strategy v. January 14, 2020
[3]. "App mobile games go overseas in South Korea, you need to understand these "unspoken rules"! 》. Amy's strategy v. November 5, 2019
[4]. "2020 Global Bedside Trend Forecast·Africa". 36Kr went overseas. January 16, 2020
[5]. "African Entertainment 2019, listing and acquisitions are all available". 36Kr went overseas. January 8, 2020
[6]. "Kuaishou entered Brazil, this time ahead of Douyin". 36Kr went overseas. November 13, 2020
[7]. "Harvest in the Middle East 《国六》.Huxiu. 2019-11
[8]. 2019 Global Mobile Games APP Market Report - Japan Chapter. 36Kr went overseas. 2020-15
[9]. 《Those years Baidu went overseas: "I feel like I missed an era"》. Sohu. 2019-11
[10]. 《Chinese girls are "scouts" in India, teaching these women how to use videos to change Mingyong. Interface News. 2019-13
