Recent stories about Asia

Employees walking outside the Shenzen headquarters of Tencent. Photo by Getty

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From Apps to Dumplings: China’s Tech Workers Switch Careers, Countries As Layoffs Mount

By Juro Osawa · Sept. 1, 2022 6:00 AM PDT · 2 comments

Early this year, Mars Zhao was full of optimism about the future. He had just landed a new job in Shanghai at Chinese internet giant Tencent, putting together advertising campaigns for brands, a position that paid 30% more than his previous job. Despite a government crackdown on tech companies, Zhao was confident enough about the sector’s... Early this year, Mars Zhao was full of optimism about the future. He had just landed a new job in...

Photo by Bloomberg.

markets e-commerce

The U.S.-China Headline That’s Not All Bad News

By Jessica E. Lessin · Aug. 25, 2022 5:00 PM PDT

We listened to Mark Zuckerberg’s three-hour interview with Joe Rogan so you don’t have to. In short: New virtual reality products are coming in October. It might be a tall task for Meta Platforms’ VR headsets to recreate all the running, fencing, surfing, wrestling, jujitsuing and hydrofoiling the Meta co-founder and CEO tells Rogan he... We listened to Mark Zuckerberg’s three-hour interview with Joe Rogan so you don’t have to. In...

Singapore's business district. Photo by Bloomberg

Chinese Venture Firms Expand in Singapore as Risks Rise at Home

By Juro Osawa and Shai Oster · Aug. 18, 2022 6:00 AM PDT · 2 comments

China’s venture capitalists made fortunes gambling on the country’s blockbuster tech successes such as Alibaba and Meituan. But as a slowing economy, new regulations and pandemic restrictions cast a pall over China’s tech sector, some of those investors have begun looking to make their next big bets from new outposts in another... China’s venture capitalists made fortunes gambling on the country’s blockbuster tech...

Art by Clark Miller.

How Instagram’s TikTok Envy Finally Backfired

By Kaya Yurieff · Aug. 15, 2022 6:00 AM PDT · 2 comments

Art by Clark Miller.

How Instagram’s TikTok Envy Finally Backfired

By Kaya Yurieff · Aug. 15, 2022 6:00 AM PDT · 2 comments

Last month, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and other influencers stirred up a public relations firestorm for Instagram, complaining to their hundreds of millions of followers about the app's recent attempts to mimic TikTok. Those efforts were just part of a broader internal effort to take on the Chinese short-form video app, though. The... Last month, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and other influencers stirred up a public relations...

Art by Josh Brill

startups google

TikTok’s $4 Billion Advertising Machine Is Messy Behind the Scenes

By Sylvia Varnham O'Regan · Aug. 11, 2022 12:39 PM PDT · 2 comments

Two years ago, social media sensation TikTok came up with a slogan to prod brands to be more authentic in their advertisements on the app: “Don’t Make Ads. Make TikToks.” But last June that approach went off the rails with a high-profile marketing stunt by Starbucks. The coffee chain launched an ad campaign with Chance the... Two years ago, social media sensation TikTok came up with a slogan to prod brands to be more...

A Lalamove-branded vehicle in Shanghai, China, 2018. Photo by AP.

Delivery Startup Snags Unexpected Gain From Didi’s Pain: A $13 Billion Valuation

By Juro Osawa · Aug. 2, 2022 5:00 AM PDT

Beijing’s sweeping regulatory assault on the domestic tech sector hurt a lot of companies. But for some startups, the government’s moves knocked out the competition. Take Lalamove, a last-mile–delivery startup for business customers whose backers include Sequoia Capital China and Tiger Global Management. When Didi Global,... Beijing’s sweeping regulatory assault on the domestic tech sector hurt a lot of companies....

Smrti Lab co-founders Wang Lusho (left) and Wang Bowen

China’s Top Angel Investors Pour $90 Million Into Crypto Hedge Fund, Betting on Recovery in Prices

By Shai Oster · July 29, 2022 6:00 AM PDT

The stomach-churning collapse of cryptocurrency tokens, savings accounts, and hedge fund Three Arrows Capital has wiped out fortunes just as the collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment bank did during the 2008 financial crisis. That means it’s the perfect time to buy cryptocurrencies, according to the founders of a young crypto... The stomach-churning collapse of cryptocurrency tokens, savings accounts, and hedge fund Three...

Sequoia Capital China chief Neil Shen. Credit: Fortune Live Media via Flickr

Sequoia Capital’s China Arm Raises $9 Billion, Exceeding Target

By Juro Osawa · July 4, 2022 10:26 PM PDT

Sequoia Capital China chief Neil Shen. Credit: Fortune Live Media via Flickr

asia venture capital

Sequoia Capital’s China Arm Raises $9 Billion, Exceeding Target

By Juro Osawa · July 4, 2022 10:26 PM PDT

Sequoia Capital’s Chinese affiliate is about to close $9 billion in fresh capital for four new funds, higher than its original target of more than $8 billion, according to two people familiar with the fundraising. The final amount could represent the biggest pool of capital ever raised by a single venture capital firm to bet on Chinese... Sequoia Capital’s Chinese affiliate is about to close $9 billion in fresh capital for four...

TikTok CEO Shouzi Chew. Photo by Bloomberg.

TikTok’s Oracle News Recalls Trump’s War on the App

By Martin Peers · June 17, 2022 5:00 PM PDT

Talk about déjà vu! TikTok’s blog post today declaring that all of its U.S. user data is now on Oracle cloud servers in the U.S. took us back in time, to the summer of 2020, when the big story in tech business was Trump’s war on TikTok. Trump’s threats to ban TikTok—over concerns about the security of U.S. user data—didn’t pan out, of course.... Talk about déjà vu! TikTok’s blog post today declaring that all of its U.S. user data is now on...

Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Photo by Bloomberg.

Brits Target Apple’s and Google’s Mobile Power

By Martin Peers · June 10, 2022 5:00 PM PDT

For all the talk of coming regulations squeezing big tech—and Britain’s antitrust regulator has a new study out today targeting Apple and Google—Wall Street doesn’t seem too bothered. Shares of the iPhone maker and Google’s parent, Alphabet, for instance, have performed better than most tech stocks so far this year, each having fallen around... For all the talk of coming regulations squeezing big tech—and Britain’s antitrust regulator has a...

Creator Caryn Marjorie. Photo: Ishan Goel

Creator Economy

Lessons From China’s Creator Economy; YouTuber Caryn Marjorie on YouTube’s Waning Influence

By Kaya Yurieff · June 2, 2022 2:03 PM PDT

By some measures, China has the world’s largest and most mature creator economy. Chinese sites embraced online tipping years before Western counterparts Twitch and YouTube. Before TikTok blew up in the West, the app’s Chinese version Douyin was already a hit in China. And the latest trend that has taken China by storm is livestreaming ecommerce,... By some measures, China has the world’s largest and most mature creator economy. Chinese sites...

Photo by iStock, Screengrabs of Viya (Taobao), Li Jiaqi (TikTok). Art by Haejin Park

Why China’s Influencers Are Losing Their Influence

By Juro Osawa and Shai Oster · June 2, 2022 6:00 AM PDT

Photo by iStock, Screengrabs of Viya (Taobao), Li Jiaqi (TikTok). Art by Haejin Park

markets e-commerce

Why China’s Influencers Are Losing Their Influence

By Juro Osawa and Shai Oster · June 2, 2022 6:00 AM PDT

China’s love affair with influencers is starting to cool. For years, the country’s internet users have been under the spell of online celebrities who promote all kinds of goods—makeup, automobiles, kitchen appliances—in livestreams, at times moving billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise in a single broadcast.... China’s love affair with influencers is starting to cool. For years, the country’s...

ByteDance's Douyin app on a smartphone. Photo by Bloomberg

startups e-commerce

TikTok Parent Aims to Double E-Commerce Volume on China App to $240 Billion

By Juro Osawa, Shai Oster and Mark Di Stefano · May 11, 2022 6:00 AM PDT · 1 comment

TikTok has taken on Facebook and YouTube. Now it hopes to compete with Amazon as well. In China, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, in recent years has turned its video app, Douyin, into a shopping powerhouse that has eroded the e-commerce dominance of Alibaba, China’s equivalent to Amazon. ByteDance this year aims to double the... TikTok has taken on Facebook and YouTube. Now it hopes to compete with Amazon as well. In China,...

Applied Materials is a leading maker of machines to make semiconductors, and would be hurt by a potential ban on sales to China. Photo by Bloomberg.

semiconductors asia

The U.S. Weighs a Broader Crackdown on Chinese Chipmakers

By Stephen Nellis · May 9, 2022 6:00 AM PDT · 1 comment

The U.S. Department of Commerce is weighing a ban on American companies selling advanced chipmaking equipment to Chinese firms, according to two people familiar with the discussions. The rules would expand on an existing ban on U.S. companies selling such equipment to China’s leading chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International... The U.S. Department of Commerce is weighing a ban on American companies selling advanced...

Didi Global awaits a shareholder vote on delisting from the New York Stock Exchange. Photo by Bloomberg.

Rides With Pets, Flexible Fares: The Uber of China Gets Creative to Survive Purgatory

By Juro Osawa · May 2, 2022 6:00 AM PDT · 2 comments

When Chinese regulators launched a crippling investigation into Didi Global immediately after its U.S. initial public offering last summer—blocking new downloads of its ride-hailing app—managers hoped the curbs would be lifted within a few months. Ten months later, Didi’s purgatory status hasn’t changed. What once was one... When Chinese regulators launched a crippling investigation into Didi Global immediately after its...

People's Liberation Army personnel near a banner of Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing, 2020. Photo by Bloomberg

Despite Rising Risks, U.S. Investors Pump Billions of Dollars Into China VC Funds

By Juro Osawa · April 27, 2022 6:00 AM PDT · 1 comment

People's Liberation Army personnel near a banner of Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing, 2020. Photo by Bloomberg

asia venture capital

Despite Rising Risks, U.S. Investors Pump Billions of Dollars Into China VC Funds

By Juro Osawa · April 27, 2022 6:00 AM PDT · 1 comment

American institutional investors are pouring billions of dollars of fresh capital into some of China’s top venture capital firms despite rising geopolitical tensions between the two nations and regulatory attacks that hurt China’s biggest public tech stocks and some private companies over the past year. The investors are betting that... American institutional investors are pouring billions of dollars of fresh capital into some of...

Didi offices in Hangzhou, China. Photo by Bloomberg.

Why Didi Global’s Delisting Shouldn’t Be Forgotten

By Martin Peers · April 18, 2022 5:00 PM PDT

A lot of tech companies went public in 2021, and many if not most of them are trading below their IPO prices. That’s OK—markets rise and fall, and with any luck, the shares will recover eventually. But if you’re a shareholder in one such company, Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Global, you may be out of luck. Didi revealed today that it plans to... A lot of tech companies went public in 2021, and many if not most of them are trading below their...

Art by Josh Brill

semiconductors asia

China’s ‘Little Nvidia’ Has a Big Secret: Its Homegrown AI Chip Isn’t

By Juro Osawa and Stephen Nellis · April 5, 2022 8:09 AM PDT · 3 comments

Chinese microchip startup Moore Threads has a short history many Silicon Valley counterparts would envy. Within 100 days of its founding in October 2020, the Beijing-based company was worth more than $1 billion on paper after raising hundreds of millions of dollars from marquee investors including Sequoia Capital China and TikTok’s owner,... Chinese microchip startup Moore Threads has a short history many Silicon Valley counterparts...

TSMC CEO C. C. Wei, center, at the company's annual shareholder meeting in Taiwan in 2020. Photo by Bloomberg

semiconductors asia

Apple’s Latest Chip Could Help TSMC Gain an Edge on Intel in New Battleground

By Stephen Nellis · March 15, 2022 10:28 AM PDT · 1 comment

When Apple Inc. introduced its newest computer last week—a boxy desktop machine called Mac Studio—the star of the show was the powerful chip at the heart of it. But that chip, the M1 Ultra, isn’t new at all. It consists of two existing Apple chips—the M1 Max, which powers Apple’s high-end MacBook Pro... When Apple Inc. introduced its newest computer last week—a boxy desktop machine called Mac...

From left: Li Bin photo from Zhongguancun Rongxin Financial Information Technology Alliance, Screenshot of China's president Xi Jinping via YouTube, Apple CEO Tim Cook photo by Bloomberg. Art by Mike Sullivan

Meet the Investor Bailing Out China’s Chip Industry

By Wayne Ma and Juro Osawa · Feb. 22, 2022 6:00 AM PST

From left: Li Bin photo from Zhongguancun Rongxin Financial Information Technology Alliance, Screenshot of China's president Xi Jinping via YouTube, Apple CEO Tim Cook photo by Bloomberg. Art by Mike Sullivan

Meet the Investor Bailing Out China’s Chip Industry

By Wayne Ma and Juro Osawa · Feb. 22, 2022 6:00 AM PST

Last month, executives from two Chinese private equity firms hunkered down in a conference room at the Beijing headquarters of Tsinghua Unigroup. Once a star of China’s plan for semiconductor supremacy, Unigroup last year began choking on its own debt, filing for bankruptcy last July, and a government-led group had selected the two firms... Last month, executives from two Chinese private equity firms hunkered down in a conference room...

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