Читать книгу The Digital War - Winston Ma - Страница 23

The shared bikes and then “everything share” (essentially “mobile renting”) is a unique Chinese phenomenon. The common denominator of all the “sharing” ventures, from cars and bikes to basketballs and refrigerators to clothes and massage chairs to luxury handbags and phone chargers, is the mobile payment mechanism for which China is by far the global leader. Unlike the United States, mobile renting of everything is a bigger story—for China and emerging markets—than putting existing under-utilized cars (Uber) and spaces (Airbnb) to more frequent use.

The bigger “shared economy” is on the major O2O platforms like Meituan, Alibaba, and Didi. They create affordable infrastructure for startups by allowing them to share the on-demand transportation system and a massive fleet of delivery staff, as well as additional operational systems like smart payment and location-based targeted consumer marketing, rather than own them. When everyone was ordering take-outs during the coronavirus outbreak, Meituan and Ele.me cultivated a clan of “virtual restaurants” that operate only out of a kitchen.