INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Welcome to TechCrunch China roundup, a digest of events that happened at major Chinese tech companies and what they mean to tech founders
and executives around the world.
The talk about United States -China relationships over the past two weeks has centered heavily on the NBA
controversy, which has put the interest of some of China largest tech firms at stake
Last week, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey voiced support for Hong Kong protests in his since-deleted tweet, angering China NBA
fans and prompting a raft of local tech companies to sever ties with the league
But some businesses seem to be back on track.
Tencent, which is famous for a slew of internet products, including WeChat and its
Netflix-like video service, has been NBA exclusive streaming partner since 2009 and recently renewed the deal through the 2024-25 season
As many as 490 million fans in China watched NBA programming through Tencent in just one season this year, the pair claims.
The basketball
games are clearly a driver of ad revenue Subscribers for Tencent amid fierce competition in China video streaming market, but following
Morey statement, the company swiftly announced (in Chinese) it would suspend portions of its broadcast arrangements with the NBA
Popular smartphone brand Vivo and Starbucks local challenger Luckin also promised to pause collaboration with the NBA.
It was a tough call
for businesses having to choose between economic interest and patriotism, and Tencent was tactful in its response, pledging only to
''temporarily& halt the streaming of NBA &preseason games (China).& As public anger subsided over the week, Tencent resumed airing NBA
preseason games on Monday
After all, the content partnership reportedly cost Tencent a heavy sum of $1.5 billion.
Entertainment giant turns to education
TikTok is
probably the Chinese Internet service being most closely watched by the world at the moment
Its parent firm ByteDance, last reportedly valued at $75 billion, has ambitions beyond short videos.
This week, more details emerged on the
upstart education endeavors through a WeChat post by Musical.ly founder Lulu Yang, whose short-video startup was acquired by ByteDance and
subsequently merged with TikTok
Yang confirmed he was helping ByteDance to develop an education device in collaboration with phone maker Smartisan former hardware team,
which ByteDance has absorbed
The product, which leverages ByteDance artificial intelligence capabilities, will be a &robotic learning companion& for K-12 students to
use at home.
The news arrived in the same week that ByteDance flagship video app TikTok announced producing educational content for India,
where it used by 200 million people every month
The move is designed to assuage local officials who have vehemently slammed TikTok for hosting illicit content, as my colleague Manish Singh
pointed out.
Diving into education appears to be a sensible move for ByteDance to build relationships with local authorities, which can at
times find its entertainment-focused content problematic
The multi-billion-dollar online education industry is also highly lucrative
ByteDance, with 1.5 billion daily users across TikTok, Douyin (TikTok for China), Toutiao news aggregator and other new media apps, is in a
good position to monetize the enormous base by touting new services, whether they are educational content or mobile games.
Also worth your
time
A total of 53 major video streaming services in China have introduced a &safe mode& for teenagers as of this week, state media reported
During the controls mode, underage users won''t be able to search for content, send real-time comments or private messages, upload or share
videos, or reward live streaming hosts with virtual gifts
It part of China national effort to protect young people from consuming harmful digital content and internet addiction, which has also
spawned age checks processes in Tencent games.
Xiaohongshu, a fast-growing social commerce app in China, is back in Android app stores
nearly three months after it was banned by the government for undisclosed reasons
Rumors had it that the service, which was reportedly valued at more than $2.5 billion last year, was used to spread pornography and fake
It hardly the first tech company hit by media regulation, and it can probably learn a thing or two from ByteDance, which has aggressively
ramped up its content moderation force following a sequence of crackdowns by the government.
Meituan will partner with 1,000 vocational
schools in the country to train as many as 100 million workers from the service industry over the next ten years, the Hong Kong-listed
company announced (in Chinese) this week
Food delivery makes up the bulk of the on-demand services giant business but its footprint spans a wide range
The classes it provides to prepare workers for a digital era will also touch upon skincare, hair styling, manicure, plastic surgery,
hospitality and parenting, a program highlighting the extensive reach of technology into Chinese people every life.
Chinese workers turn out
to be big advocates for the application of AI
According to a survey by Oracle and research firm Future Workplace, workers in India (60 percent) and China (56 percent) are the most
Japan, where the labor force is shrinking, ranks surprisingly low (25 percent), and the United States has an equally mild reaction (22
percent) toward the technology.
