Maverick China Research - Maverick China Research
Maverick China in the News
Maverick China analysts are regularly quoted in the Chinese and international media. Below is a collection of our latest media quotes.
SIMpass: Is China's NFC Dream Doomed? -- The Biz Loft
Note: This article was originally published for the Italian-language tech site The Biz Loft; the excerpts below are from the automatic translation on the website. Click here for the original article.
That of the mobile payment market is one of the most greedy of next year. We all have at least one mobile phone and we all have to pay for what we buy. If we add to this the progressive dematerialization of money, strongly desired by many for various reasons, you get a clear picture: the first one will be able to impose a system that allows everyone to pay for everything with the phone will have, say, turned.
In fact, many people are trying to. And the nascent Chinese industry innovation tries to play a global role with a technology called SIMPass.
SIMpass is nothing but a variation of NFC (Near Field Communication), developed by one of those Chinese companies, Watchdata, who are trying to impose on the international markets not only its products but also its technology. By inserting a card into the phone SimPass, the user is able to make payments approaching the terminal to a compatible player. China Mobile and China Telecom have embraced this technology, thanks to economies of scale possible in the country has reached in a few months, the significant threshold of 5 million users. Thanks largely to a pilot project launched in Shenzhen city, but also in other cities in China and Thailand.
SIMpass competes with other similar technologies on the market, including the NFC that we use in Italy (very popular especially in Japan) and another technology called SWP, which is developing too patchy in South Korea, France, Russia and Turkey.
Looking forward, the numbers would seem to account for the Chinese option. But there is something that probably will not allow her to leave the country for becoming internationally.The card was designed by Watchdata in fact, includes an antenna rather massive (thin, but with rough surface of a box of matches). So it can only be used with terminals designed specifically to accommodate the antenna is the sim.
Dave Carini, an analyst expert in these matters of Maverick China Research that The Loft Biz interviewed in Beijing, "Although SIMpass has great potential, I doubt that it can become a global player in the NFC market. In fact, despite the local market to provide a starting point difficult to reach by their foreign competitors, the presence of the external antenna will make it very difficult for the promoters to convince the producer of the terminals to develop customized models for this technology. "
"Moreover - added Carini - while having an easy life in the Chinese market, SIMpass will find it hard to be successful in more developed markets, where a jumble of players such as Visa, MasterCard, Google, Paypal and Square are already marking their territory with a dense web of partnership ".
Speaking to The Biz Loft on the subject, managers have stressed SIMpass Watchdata has found considerable success in the area of transport in more than 20 Chinese provinces, pointing out that within months the presence of the external antenna may not be necessary.
But in a sector such as mobile payments, where technology and the search run faster than ever, "few months" may be too long. The time when Chinese companies were limited to copy and produce is finished. But where will the international search has not yet begun.
China's Payment Market -- Reuters (Video)
Maverick China Managing Director Dave Carini was recently quoted in a Reuters video piece about China's payment market growth and on difficulties faced by foreign payment companies trying to break into China:
In terms of transactions and overall users, it is already as big or bigger than in the US and other markets. But I think within the next two to four years, in just about every area, China's online payments market is going to surpass the US....
Most of the foreign companies that have tried to come into China, the payment companies, they have discovered that they can’t come in the areas that are their core strengths. And so they have to find alternate ways, new ways to come in, new ways to make money into China.
Click here for the full clip.
An accompanying story, "China's e-payment booms, foreigners get the boot", contains additional quotes from the interview.
On a side note, the video was filmed just outside our new office!
China's e-payment booms, foreigners get the boot -- Reuters Insight
Note: Additional quotes from this interview appeared in a Reuters video piece.
(Reuters) - Use your fingerprint to buy a bowl of noodles for half off at 10 yuan ($1.60).
It was a proposition attractive enough to send Su Weiting out of the Shanghai noodle shop where she was getting lunch and around the corner to sign up for an account with yet another payment service provider, Live By Touch.
Western Union Could Double China Agent Locations -- Wall Street Journal
Western Union Co. could more than double its number of agent locations in China and also hopes to offer domestic payment services, expanding from the cross-border payment services it currently offers in the country, the company's chief executive said Thursday.
China Unicom Launches 'WoStore' - Wall Street Journal
This article was posted on WSJ.com's Digits technology blog as well as its China Real Time Report:
China Unicom has launched a long-expected application store for users to download apps like games and Internet browsers to their mobile devices, making it the latest mobile carrier looking to reproduce the success of Apple's App Store.
Mobile carriers, especially, are building their own takes on the App Store as they look for sources of revenue besides providing simple data connections, a business where tough competition drives down margins. Many carriers want to control their own download stores in addition to any offered by the makers of their customers' handsets...
Both China Unicom and China Mobile have long offered downloads of items like ringtones and handset wallpapers, and those value-added services have produced a good deal of revenue, said Dave Carini of Maverick China Research.
But that doesn't necessarily give their newer application stores a leg up on the competition. The state-owned Chinese carriers are often slow to react to consumer demand, and have to cope with government censorship requirements and other regulations.
"You're going to have more, heavier oversight by the operators here," said Carini. "Since the application market is not as open, it's going to develop more slowly."
----
Real Name Registration for Online Shops - China Radio International
Maverick China Managing Director Dave Carini was recently interviewed by China Radio International for the People in the Know program. Host Nigel Ballard asked Dave about the regulation of e-commerce in China, focusing on recent government regulations requiring online retailers to register their businesses using real names and other personal details.
On the fear of fraud and trust in the online payment system:
In much of so-called online payment, people will order something online but then wait until products are delivered to pay, often in cash, which is a very traditional form of payment, and that's an example of a lack of trust for many people.
On the new regulations and whether they will dampen growth:
I don't see any reason that these laws will hinder online growth...I think the language of the laws is intended to promote growth and stability. Much of it is addressed to consumers of China, to help convince them that this is a safe sector of the economy, that the government has given its approval, and that's okay to do business online.
To hear the full interview, click here for the streaming version or download the mp3. The interview begins at approximately the twelve-minute mark.
Beijing Is Playing Rough with Online Gamers -- Bloomberg Businessweek
China has 400 million Internet users, a quarter of them avid gamers, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. Despite that enormous market, a government campaign against online gaming is giving investors pause. Shares of Tencent, the Chinese market leader in Web-based games, has dropped 23 percent this year. Perfect World, another major operator, is off 47 percent, and Shanda Games is down 42 percent.
Mobile payment market hurt by weak demand -- China Daily
BEIJING - In a country with over 700 mobile phone users, exploring the mobile payment market may appear lucrative. And that may explain why telecom operators, banks and technology firms - from home and aboard - are aggressively pushing their services in China's mobile payment industry.
AirPlus turns to China for business travel growth -- China Daily
AirPlus International, a global business travel management services company, hopes to accelerate growth in China, one of its fastest growing markets, in a move designed to help it recoup losses incurred during the global economic downturn.
"Expansion of our presence in China is a strategic priority and our competitive advantage during the downturn has enabled us to continue to increase our investments here," said AirPlus President Patrick Diemer.
For a song -- China Economic Review
On the morning of May 25, 2006, John Kennedy, CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), mapped out the state of China's music industry during his keynote address at an event in Shanghai. He spoke on behalf of the 1,400 record companies his association represents.The speech began full of optimism as he cited the "extraordinary growth potential for the music sector in China" and listed his reasons for being "cautiously optimistic" about the coming years.
Page 1 of 10
Upcoming Events
Maverick China News Feed
- Call for Survey Participants / 寻求受访者: Online Payment and e-Commerce in China
- Another Look at Taxi e-Payments in Beijing and Shanghai
- Would a "Mobile Direct Bank" Work in China?
- Maverick China's Boaz Rottenberg elected Vice Chairman of Ischam China
- China Issues Third Batch of Third-Party Payment Licenses on Final Day of 2011
- China Unicom's WO+ app platform unveiled
- Financial Channels and Payment Innovation China 2011 - Beijing, December 8-9, 2011
- Wealth Management and Private Banking Asia 2011 - Shanghai, November 28-29, 2011
- SIMpass: Is China's NFC Dream Doomed? -- The Biz Loft
- Now Hiring Market Researchers!