This Week in China (1/27–2/2)
Top news in China this week
Fight the Coronavirus
Tencent Health launched “Medical Health” services in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Due to the pneumonia epidemic, the Publicity Department of the National Health Commission, in collaboration with Tencent health, has launched a map of designated hospitals and fever clinics for respective treatments of the coronavirus. The map covers all provinces and municipalities as well as autonomous regions with 1512 hospitals and 11,594 clinics.
Furthermore, WeChat Pay opened up a new section called “Medical Health” in response to the situation, together with Tencent Health, Tencent Medical Code, Tencent News, and Tencent Maps, etc., which includes a 24-hour real-time epidemic statistics report from the National Health Commission.
Read our source (in Chinese) »
Baidu Maps launched “flash news on travel control for coronavirus”. This feature intends to give timely updates to drivers as well as travelers on traffic situations and other news affected by and related to the pneumonia epidemic.
Furthermore, Baidu has also established a collaboration with Health China, the official governmental news media platform of the National Health Commission. This allows the Baidu Map to update information on fever clinics across the country to its users.
Read our source (in Chinese) »Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital employed its new medicine distribution robots. According to hospital staff, these two new “employees” are completely immune to the present ongoing epidemic and have prominent memory storage and can accurately and efficiently deliver materials where they are needed. The two robots are named “PingPing” and “AnAn”, which means safety in Chinese.
The robots are among the latest unmanned technology currently in the country and include features such as map reading, medicine identification, and path planning. They are currently being implemented in quarantined areas to prevent infections of medical professionals and further spread of the virus.
Read our source (in Chinese) »
CCTV App live streams intense construction at Wuhan’s coronavirus hospitals, with 20 million online viewers. The comment section of the live stream was filled with netizens cheering for the construction staff who are working on a makeshift hospital area for new patients coming in with the coronavirus.
It is reported that the project is based on the model of the Beijing Xiaotangshan hospital during the hospital’s battle with SARS, consisting of a total of 33,900 square meters of medical space, accommodating 700–1000 beds for incoming patients.
Read our source (in Chinese) »
Fundings this week
New Retail
4inLook, a 12-year-old, Shanghai-based color contact lens e-commerce company has raised 200 million yuan (28 million USD) in its last two rounds of funding with participation from the Tiger Club Capital, Highlight Capital, and Xingtuo Capital. The B2C platform offers 200+ color contact lens designs for customers whose ages range from 18–30. Besides online stores, it also has 300+ chain stores in China.
Read our source (in Chinese) »
Medical Tech
Lachesis (Lianxin), a ten-year-old, Shenzhen-based medical technology company that helps doctors, nurses, and patients with IoT and big data to upgrade clinical service by providing hospitals with smart wards and chronic disease management solutions, has raised 150 million yuan (22 million USD) in Series B+ funding led by Shenzhen Municipal Government-backed Shenzhen Capital Group Co., Ltd (SCGC), with participation from existing investor GTJA Investment Group. Lachesis claims that more than 700 hospitals in China have been equipped with its products and services.
Read our source (in Chinese) »
FinTech
Nanyan Information technology, a five-year-old, Shanghai-based online insurance service company, offering services on cloud architecture, cloud storage, and cloud computing solutions for insurance majors on its platform, has raised 100 million yuan (14 million USD) in Series B2 funding BOC International, an investment institution under the Bank of China, with participation from several unnamed existing investors.
Read our source (in Chinese) » More Buzzes Short Video App
Kuaishou on the rise with its Chinese New Year’s success. Unlike many previous Chinese New Year festivals that were dominated by mobile “red packet wars” on WeChat Pay and AliPay, this year witnessed the rise of the short-video campaign.
Kuaishou created the “short-videos+likes” campaign for Lunar New Year’s Eve, giving out 1 billion RMB in red packets as a way to attract users. On New Year’s day, Kuaishou announced that the platform had a total of 63.9 billion global participations in the red packet campaign, 590 million shared posts outside of the campaign, its New Year’s eve topic hashtag was read more than 30 million times, which helped Kuaishou top the “free App list” of the Chinese AppStore.
This year’s Chinese New Year Festival was especially memorable because of the coronavirus outbreak. As one of the leading factions of the short-video market, Kuaishou donated 100 million RMB (about 14 million USD) as well as 50,000 masks to the Wuhan Municipal Government. They also started a campaign called “Wuhan Jiayo” (Let’s Go Wuhan), to raise funds for the cause.
Read our source (in Chinese) »
5G
On January 28th, 2020, the British government announced that Huawei will be aiding it in implementing a 5G network. Zhang Jiangang, the VP of Huawei, stated that this would allow the UK to obtain world-leading technology while ensuring a competitive market.
Zhang Jiangang also stated that Huawei has been providing cutting edge technology to British Telecom for more than 15 years and has built a stable track record for supporting those who are willing to invest in the 5G network, as well as promote economic growth and global competitiveness.
Read our source (in Chinese) »
Tesla
Tesla’s market value hits another new record, whether it can surpass traditional car companies might depend on the Chinese market. On January 29th, 2020, Tesla disclosed its fourth quarter’s results to be higher than expected. Its stock price rose to 600 USD, breaking its record, with an aftermarket growth of 11%.
Tesla’s total revenue of the fourth quarter was reported to be 7.384 billion USD, which is a 2% growth from the previous year. Despite the drop in average selling prices, Tesla’s delivery performance has far exceeded expectations, creating a record of 112,000 vehicles delivered in the fourth quarter. The inventory turnover was 11 days, which is comparable to Apple’s iPhone inventory turnover. This is largely thanks to the prominence of its Chinese branch and manufacturer. In its Q4 2019 Update Letter, Tesla stated that it can comfortably deliver 500,000 vehicles in 2020, and a lot of this will be due to the Model 3 ramp in Gigafactory Shanghai and the Model Y ramp in Fremont. Giga Shanghai, Tesla’s first car factory outside of the United States, achieved a run rate of 3,000 vehicles per week earlier this month and is set to hit 150,000 units a year.
Read our source (in Chinese) »Happy Weekend!
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