Deposit-free rides will now be standard across the country. Existing users can apply to have their deposits refunded. According to a Mobike representative, if a warning appears in the app when you try to use the platform after being refunded, you will need to update the app. If it is up to date, the server is giving an old message, and it will work nonetheless.
Great news. This would definitely help drive adoption. Users who have paid deposits for other services are less likely to pay deposit for another service.
Mobike has also announced bike rental integration into the Meituan platform, a new fleet of e-bikes to extend transportation range for its users, and a program to recycle components from retired bicycles.
“We specifically don’t collect data, even from point A to point B,” notes Cue. “We collect data — when we do it — in an anonymous fashion, in subsections of the whole, so we couldn’t even say that there is a person that went from point A to point B. We’re collecting the segments of it. As you can imagine, that’s always been a key part of doing this. Honestly, we don’t think it buys us anything [to collect more]. We’re not losing any features or capabilities by doing this.”
The segments that he is referring to are sliced out of any given person’s navigation session. Neither the beginning or the end of any trip is ever transmitted to Apple. Rotating identifiers, not personal information, are assigned to any data or requests sent to Apple and it augments the “ground truth” data provided by its own mapping vehicles with this “probe data” sent back from iPhones.
Because only random segments of any person’s drive is ever sent and that data is completely anonymized, there is never a way to tell if any trip was ever a single individual. The local system signs the IDs and only it knows to whom that ID refers. Apple is working very hard here to not know anything about its users. This kind of privacy can’t be added on at the end, it has to be woven in at the ground level.
Because Apple’s business model does not rely on it serving to you, say, an ad for a Chevron on your route, it doesn’t need to even tie advertising identifiers to users.
Apple uses the data to improve the service. It doesn’t sell you ads or sell your data. This is why they don’t need to identify users or even build a profile of each user.
JD.com grossed RMB 160 billion in its mid-year sale with the help of physical stores
China’s e-commerce platform JD.com reached RMB 159.2 billion in sales during its annual 618 Shopping Festival, which occurred between June 1 and June 18.
The company said transactions were up 37% compared with the same period last year, and more than 90% of the orders from JD’s self-operated stores achieved same-day or next-day delivery, thanks to automated devices.
Good deals coupled with intensive marketing before 618. That’s what got me ready for a shopping spree on 618. Half price for many daily necessities and on top of that you get a 10% rebate for every RMB 200 or RMB 300 spent depending on the product category. No brainer to stock up on half a year’s supply to last me till Single’s Day.
Tmall and Taobao had promotions during this period too. It’ll be interesting to compare how Alibaba fared.
Google to pour $550m into JD.com in a strategic partnership
Most of Google’s services are still banned in China, but the US tech behemoth is trickling into that market in various other ways. Today, it announced that it’s pouring US$550 million into ecommerce powerhouse JD.com as part of a “strategic partnership” between the two.
Under the deal, Google and JD plan to jointly develop a range of online shopping solutions in regions outside China – specifically, Southeast Asia, the US, and Europe. JD will start selling products through the Google Shopping platform, an aggregator for ecommerce sites based on product search.
It is a tough battle against Alibaba for JD in both the domestic and international markets, that’s why it partners with Tencent in China to compete against Jack Ma’s ecommerce behemoth. Logical move to team up with Google in the international market. For Google, it’s a way to get a foot into the world’s largest market that it has no access to.
Jack Ma: It was Dr M’s MSC that inspired me to start Alibaba
Barrier of entry is much higher for NFC compared to QR code payment. This applies both for consumers and vendors. Consumers need to have devices that come with NFC and vendors need equipment that can accept NFC payments.
QR code, on the other hand has minimal costs involved. Vendors just need to print out their QR code. Consumers only need a device that has a camera and can support the Alipay or WeChat apps.
QR code payments, on the other hand, demand no such extra hardware requirement. It is for sure that NFC chips come with an additional cost, and that is a luxury for many Chinese customers who have little incentive for paying an extra price to opt for NFC-based payments.
[…]
Many vendors, mostly local small businesses, are hesitant to support NFC contactless payments due to the underlying costs. While it is reasonable to expect McDonald’s to accept credit cards, a vendor at a local farmers’ market in a Chinese city is less likely to own a POS machine that supports contactless chip cards.
QR codes are seen as a more convenient alternative to costly POS terminals. If you are a small business owner, you would have to follow a much more sophisticated, and pricey procedure to obtain a POS terminal than printing a QR code to request funds on WeChat or Alipay.
Another major factor is how users can easily link their Alipay or WeChat Pay wallets to their bank accounts, instead of a credit card. Or if you have cash, you can pass cash to someone and have them transfer money into your Alipay or WeChat Pay wallets. Many convenience stores offer such service, often charging a minimal service fee for their troubles.
Consumers in many Western countries are incentivized by the benefits and promotions that credit card holders enjoy. Although credit cards are ubiquitous in major Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai, they are not at all commonplace in rural parts of the country or even lower tier cities.
There are also roadblocks for college students, freelancers, retired citizens, and stay-home parents to apply for credit cards. According to a 2017 report from The People’s Bank of China, the average number of credit cards owned by each person in China is 0.39. In the US, the number is 2.6.
While the majority of Chinese people don’t get cash back from credit card companies, they can from Alipay. As third-party services, both Alipay and WeChat Pay have frequently offered (link in Chinese) promotions, cashback rewards, and “red packets” to users, including those who have only added debit cards to their accounts.
Apple Pay would be able to pose a bigger challenge and gain a greater market share in the Chinese mobile payments market if they add a QR code function and make it easier for consumers to add money into their e-wallets.