The Hurun Research Institute recently conducted an investigation about luxury consumption towards 551 rich men and women from 31 cities. Among the rich, 69 people were billionaires. The average age of multimillionaires and billionaires was 38 and 40 years old respectively. And the average money they spent yearly was 1.77 million yuan (USD 290,000), less than 3% of their average wealth which was 59 million yuan (USD 9.67 million).

Brief Summary

• Moutai dropped from the fifth place of last year to the thirteenth place, falling out of the Top 10 Preferred Brands for Gifting, but it still remained the only Chinese brand in the list.
• One out of four rich people had confidence in the development of economy, indicating the ratio dropping from 56% three years ago to 25%, sinking to an all-time low.
• The average sleeping hours of billionaires were six and half hours, with half an hour more in weekends.
• The enthusiasm for collections rose rapidly, with watches ranking the first, calligraphy the second and contemporary art continuing to fell to the sixth.
• The rich concerned about health, time and family life most.
• Burberry, Gucci, Montblanc squeezed into the list of Top 10 for the first time this year.
• Brother Watch (Biaoge) phenomenon affected the ranking of Swiss watches, resulting in the fall of watches ranking. Accessories were favorite gifts for rich consumers.
• Billionaires spent one third of time on the way and 9.2 days every month on business trips, 3 days less than last year, 1.7 days more than multimillionaires.
• Australia, being the best tourist destination in 2006, dropped out of the top three for the first time in recent nine years.
• France still remained the top of international travel destinations for rich consumers. England rose from the thirteenth in last year to the fifth this year. The Maldives went through spikes and drops in the list, falling from the fourth of last year to the tenth this year, being out of the Top 5 for the first time during these three years.
• The Internet was the primary access to information, newspaper and magazine ranking the third and fourth. TV was down to the fifth from the first in last year.
• Switzerland rose from the eighth to the fourth in the education destination list.
• 60% of riches were willing to let their children grew up freely.
• The most proud identity was an entrepreneur for a man of wealth.
• 43% of multimillionaires and 58% billionaires held a master degree or EMBA degree.

The Hurun Research Institute published Hurun Report Chinese Luxury Consumer Survey 2013 for the ninth consecutive year in the press conference of Hunrun Best of the Best Awards dinner party. This survey aimed to reveal a holistic picture about the brand recognition, consumption habit and the lifestyle of China’s wealthy consumers. Statistics about happiness index was added into the survey for the first time this year.

Among all the brands favored by rich consumers, Moutai dropped out of the Top 10. Impeded by the alcohol regulation and the health scare involving the use of plasticizers, its ranking dropped from the fifth to the thirteenth this year. French wine maker Chateau Lafite became the only alcohol brand in the top 10  brands for gifting list, indicating the increasing favor of wine for the wealthy.

The ranking of watch was influenced by the Brother Phenomenon about financial irregularities of government officials which stirred up public opinions. As a result, Swiss watch Rolex was squeezed out of the Top 10 for the first time, and replaced by Longines which was cheaper and ranked the fifteenth of the list. Every multimillionaire owned 4 watches on average while the average number of watches owned by Billionaires dropped from 5.6 to 4.9.

French and Italian brands were favored mostly by the Chinese riches. British brand joined the list of Top 10 for the first time, owing to the performance of fashion brand Burberry which ranked the ninth. Accessories gained the most popularity of gifts for the wealthy.

Apple, being the only electronic brand in list, was widely welcomed by the wealthy, rising from the fourth of last year to the second this year. Due to the massive expansion in the Chinese mainland, Gucci and Montblanc performed particularly well and both broke into the Top 10 list.

Rupert Hoogewerf, the chairman and chief investigator of Hurun Report, said that the wealthy preferred to buy the luxury brands with high reputation but modest price.

Personal Investment

Despite the macroeconomic regulations and controls by Chinese government, the wealthy still kept the faith for the real estate investment which was the primary choice up to 40% for all investments. Stock declined to 43.6% for four consecutive years but it still ranked the second. Fixed income and gold came the third and fourth.

Economy Confidence

One out of four rich persons had confidence in economy. The percentage dropped from 56% to 25%. The ratio of the wealthy with no confidence rose from 1% three years ago up to 9.4%. Under such circumstances, even though most of the entrepreneurs were reluctant to take risks but still more than one third of the wealthy took initiative to invest.

Society Responsibility

Tax payment was still the best way to show responsibility. The concern for environmental protection rose up to 17% from 11% of last year, ranking from the fifth to the third, especially for the respondents who were under 45.

Collection

One out of three rich people had favor for watches. Even though, the watches still remained in the first position but the trend went down for the recent four years. Passion for cars was surpassed by Beijing quadrangle dwellings and Shanghai aged villas. The love for contemporary art fell to the sixth from fifth. And the ancient calligraphy and painting remained the second place.

Travel

Travel was still the first choice for leisure. The frequency dropped for the first time for past five years. Multimillionaires went abroad for 2.8 times on average and billionaires for 3.4 times dropping from 4.2 times in 2012. One third of billionaires’ time were on the transportation with 9.2 days business trips per month, 3 days less than last year and 1.7 days more than multimillionaires’ business trips. The holidays for billionaires were one day longer than the ones for multimillionaires and up to 21 days. The resorts in Sanya was the best destination.

Tourist Destination

Australia dropped significantly to the seventh from the third, staying out of top 3 for the first time for three years. The Maldives went through spikes and drops in the list, falling from the fourth of last year to the tenth this year, being out of the Top 5 for the first time for past three years. Half of the countries were from Europe in the Top 10 list. In last year, there were only two European countries in the list. Japan dropped out of Top 1o this year.

Sports

Swimming, replaced golf, became the favorite way of sports. In recent years, swimming and golf occupied the first two places all along. The ratio of interest for horse-riding doubled and became the fastest growing interest. 40% of the wealthy did exercise three times every week.

Study Abroad

There was a stable ranking for the top three countries, America, England and Canada. Australia dropped from the forth to the fifth. France rose from the ninth to the seventh. One third of the wealthy chose to send their children to study abroad during high school.

Tencent’s Qzone usage reached 1 billion, with Qzone Microblog posts exceeding 62 thousand on the sixth second of midnight and feedbacks flying fast and furiously the whole day on Jan 1st in 2014. From grasping a remote control to posting wishes on website, Chinese netizens were renovating the way to spend their New Year’s Eve.

According to official statistics, Qzone microblog posts reached 28 million in the first hour of the New Year 2014.

During the whole day, Qzone microblog usage surpassed 1 billion times at an astonishing speed of 11.5 thousand times per second.

The most active province was crowned by Guangdong with an outstanding performance of 114 billion usages.

An obvious contrast was seen between southern and northern part. Southern provinces tended to be more active in Qzone than northern.

Female users accounted for 56%, which was an opposite result of the population ratio of male and female. This phenomenon was owed to the sensitive emotion of female users who were more willing to express their feelings.

People in different age bracket had different function preference.

Among all the new year wishes, even though wage hike, promotion, and travel were still the major theme, accompanying family and health of parents came out on top.

The old 2013 slipped through our fingers, meanwhile the new 2014, being brave and bright, is striding forward with full of hope. Billions of Chinese netizens shouted out the wishes and poured their dreams into the New Year. WORLD, did you hear that?

In 2013,China online transaction value reached 1850 billion Yuan with a gradually stable growth .

Market Size: In 2013,China online transaction value reached 1850 billion Yuan with a 42.0% year-on-year growth.

According to the 2013 China Online Shopping Market Data from IResearch, China online transaction value of 2013 reached 1850 billion Yuan with a 42.0% year-on-year growth which was slower than in 2012. Based on the forecast data of total social retail sales in 2013 from Ministry of Commerce, The online transaction accounted for a 7.8% share of total social retail sales of consumer goods, rising 1.6% than last year.

With the growing habit of online shopping, the gradually established rules and regulations and the improving online shopping environment, China online shopping market was going to enter its maturity. In the near future, the online market will be growing steadily. At the same time, the traditional enterprises will stride forward into the e-commerce market at a massive scale. The potentialities of the western provinces and tier provincial cities in eastern part of China will also be exploited. And the mobile internet will enormously enlarge the convenience of online shopping. The situation mentioned above helped the fast growth of online market. According to the estimate, China E-commerce value will reach 4000 billion Yuan in 2016-2017.

Market Structure: The percentage of B2C was growing and reached 35.1% of the online shopping in 2013.

The B2C transaction value reached 650 billion Yuan with a 35.1% percentage of the online market, rising 5.5% from the 35.1% in 2012. Last year B2C market developed at a soaring speed with a 68.4% growth which was higher than the 30.9% growth of C2C market. B2C market will continue to be the main impetus of online shopping market. As estimated, B2C market will surpass C2C market and reach 52.4% in 2017.

According to I Research analysis, the reasons of B2C to be the main impetus of online shopping market:

(1)       From marketing part, C2C market grows steadily with limited room, whereas in B2C market, many entrepreneurs have the access of B2C market and with plenty of opportunities.(2) From the enterprises part, except from the traditional B2C E-commerce websites, the traditional enterprises will attach the importance to the B2C market enter it. (3) From the consumers part, with the gradual development and maturity of online shopping, the consuming attitudes was changing and the demands for quality was enhancing. Compared with C2C, B2C market had more advantage on the reputation and quality guarantee.

Future Trend: B2C,O2O Platform and cross-border e-commerce will be the developing trend.

As the online shopping industry grew rapidly, B2C platform will become the mainstream. According to the online shopping structure, the proportion of B2C was becoming larger and larger and to be the main impetus of online shopping market. About the core competence of enterprises, most enterprises in the market were increasing the intensity of open platform development. Since online shopping reached 7.8% of total social retail sales in 2013, traditional enterprises realized the urgent need to do the e-commerce. And they will join the open B2C platform if they cannot build the platform themselves.

The O2O market had great potential. Having the character of connecting the online and offline, O2O can solve the problem of e-commerce trend for the traditional enterprises and will become an important part of internet market. Currently the traditional enterprises endeavored to combine the online and offline business. Among them, the local service industry had an early start with a mature development. In the future the local service will move toward mobile end with a vertical development. The retail market gradually sought the optimization and integration of online and offline resource. In the future, O2O mode will spread to more business.

Cross-border E-commerce industry improved and will develop in a fast speed. Cross-border e-commerce had become a hot point of e-commerce economy growth. Through years of development, China had a whole industrial chain including marketing, payment, mailing and financial service. The industry structure became stable. In the background of a big trend of global e-commerce development and Chinese e-commerce globalization, with the help of policy support from government and strong push from enterprises, Cross-border E-commerce will welcome a high-speed developing period in the following several years.

Market Size: China Search Engine Revenue grew by 40.1% year on year in 2013. The market size of 2017 will surpass 90 billion yuan by forecast.

The China search engine revenue in 2013 reached 39.32 billion yuan, with a 40.1% year-on-year growth. Compared with last year, the growth slipped a little bit but remained above 40%. In the near future, China search engine market will witness a steady growth and to reach 96.33 billion yuan in 2017.

According to iResearch analysis, search engine market already entered to its maturity after years of development. And the growth will slow down little by little with the enlargement of the market size. The growing amount of active customers and the Average Revenue Per User provided solid foundation for the market. In addition to these, the commercialization of the mobile search engines and the growing revenue of 360 search engine gave impetus to this market as well.

Market Structure: key words advertising and contextual advertising brought the primary revenue. Search engine companies endeavored to foster new growth points.

According to the search engine market total revenue, keywords advertising revenue took up 74.1%, with a 2% slowdown comparing to 76.2% of last year. Contextual advertising and Navigation advertising revenue accounted for 13.7% and 4.5%, with a 1% slowdown both.

Other advertising revenue took up 7.5%, which was double of last year. Non-advertising revenue shared 0.3%. Among them, search engine revenue which included key words advertising and contextual advertising, took up 87.8% of the whole search engine market revenue.

iResearch pointed out that key words advertising and contextual advertising, being the core business and primary revenue of search engine companies, would gain stable growth in the future. In the meantime, to seek a higher rate of revenue growth, search engine companies were exploring new sources of growth.

The main source of huge increase in the other advertising revenue came from Baidu’s acquisitions of IQIYI and PPS, as well as the good performance of TV program Papa, Where to Go. Non-advertising revenue in the future would include game operation of search engine companies and the possibly-paid service of Baidu which will give a push to the market size enlargement.

Advertising Revenue: In 2013, China search engine advertising market reached 34.52 billion yuan.

In 2013, China search engine advertising revenue reached 34.52 billion yuan with a 34.9% year-on-year growth. The estimated 2014 search engine advertising market would sustain more than 30% growth and gain revenue of 84.3 billion yuan.

According to the analysis of iResearch, search engine advertising, as mature advertising models, can provide more exposure and better return on investment which were favored by advisers.

Future Prospect: Owing to the higher market concentration, mobile search engine would be the important growing point of this market.

Higher market concentration: In 2013, Tencent implemented capital injection to Sougou, followed by the Soso’s exit of the search engine market. According to iResearch analysis, search engine market would gain higher market concentration with Baidu, 360 search and Sogou to be main players. It would be difficult for the new players to enter this market and easy for the old players such as Google to be marginalized.

Mobile Search Engine to Be the Important Growing Point: Mobile search engine forged ahead at a fast speed. The growing number of users and advertisers, together with the growing amount of internet flows, internet flow value and advertising charge, promoted the revenue of mobile search engine.

Indicated by iResearch report, search traffic will continue to grow with the increasing number of mobile netizens and the development of netizens’ searching habit. At the same time, advertisers would gain better understanding of search engine advertising. Under the joint push of these two factors, mobile search engine advertising will developed rapidly and to an important growing point for search engine companies.

According to a study from Fortune Character Institute, Chinese would buy 47% of the luxury products worldwide in 2013. The November 11th, also known as Chinese Bachelor Day, had become a shopping carnival for Chinese netizens to satisfy their shopping desire. It’s even reported that a lady from Zhejiang Province bought a 13.3g diamond ring on that day. Zealousness for luxury products has made China the biggest market place. Now let us take a glance of Chinese luxury purchasing customers and their interests.

From the first chart, it shows that 6.34% more female concerned about luxury products than male.
Chinese younger generation tended to pay more attention to the luxury product. 19-30 years old customers accounted for almost 60%.

Chinese female customers tended to be younger. Below 18 years old, there are 11.33% more female than male.

Chinese luxury consumers frequently visited news media, portal media and female media.

They liked fashion and emphasized life quality. They would pay attention to travel, sport, clothes, IT products and luxury autos.

Chinese luxury consumers preferred to travel abroad.

Chinese loved SUV and luxury cars .

As overseas purchasing was becoming popular, logistics industry was growing as well.

In 2013, competition between Chinese brands were extremely fierce. Some brands provoked the war, some were forced to confront. As for old enemies like Wang Lao Ji and Jia Duo Bao, they already got used to combating with each other. Social media rose to be important battle fields in recent years.

NO.1 Jia Duo Bao VS Wang Lao Ji

Wang Lao Ji is a Chinese herbal tea drink, its brand is owned by Guangzhou Wanglaoji Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. The brand was leased to Jia Duo Bao Beverage Co., Ltd. in 1997. The lease would expire in Dec 31 2011. Jia Duo Bao Beverage managed the operation of Wang Lao Ji, after 2002, its successful marketing strategy made Wang Lao Ji the top beverage brand in China. In 2011, the total revenue of Wang Lao Ji hit 16 billion yuan (USD 2.62 billion). The brand value of Wang Lao Ji was worth 108 billion yuan (USD 17.69 billion).

Guangzhou Wanglaoji Pharmaceutical sued Jia Duo Bao Beverage for bribery to extend brand lease contract to 2020, and the court annulled the brand lease contract. This became the beginning of war between Jia Duo Bao and Wang Lao Ji. Guangzhou Wanglaoji Pharmaceutical wanted to expand Wang Lao Ji brand to a variety of health related products, such as medicinal liquor, cosmeceuticals and healthcare products, which Jia Duo Bao Beverage disagreed because it would dilute the brand value of Wang Lao Ji drink. In the end of 2011, Jia Duo Bao Beverage began eliminating Wang Lao Ji. First, they wiped out “Wang Lao Ji” in advertisement, added “Jia Duo Bao produce”. Second, they added brand name “Jia Duo Bao” on the other side of the can.

In 2013, the lawsuit between Jia Duo Bao Beverage and Guangzhou Wanglaoji Pharmaceutical continued. A ban forbade Jia Duo Bao to use any advertisement that involved “Wang Lao Ji changed its brand name to Jia Duo Bao” or one that had the same meaning. Later, Jia Duo Bao posted on Weibo crying about their incompetence of winning the lawsuit which gained public compassion. Their apologize phraseology on Weibo became a meme in 2013, many brands imitated Jia Duo Bao’s marketing strategy. In December, by Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court first instance verdict, Jia Duo Bao Beverage lost the case and was forced to compensate 10.8 million yuan (USD 1.77 million). Jia Duo Bao Beverage would appeal to a higher court.

No.2 Wahaha VS Qiulin

Other than Chinese herbal tea and cola, Gewasi drink (Kbac Drink) joined the war of beverage in 2013. At the beginning of this year, Wahaha Gewasi spent a lot of money on the advertisement in popular TV programs such as “I am a singer” , “JSTV You are the one” etc.  Hence, the brand awareness soared stunningly. In June, the traditional brand Harbin Qiulin Gewasi could not stand it anymore, and posted a series of posters on Weibo, criticizing that Wahaha copycatted their traditional century brand Gewasi. Qiulin challenged the Wahaha Gewasi from the manufacturing process to the raw material. This movement gained plenty of support from Harbin fans.

Qinghou Zong, the CEO of Wahaha made a quick response to this event and claimed that “Gewasi can be produced by anyone, but to gain the consumer acceptance is crucial”.

No.3  NongFu Spring VS Huarun Yibao

The next war is also about beverage. Nongfu Spring was entangled in a reputation crisis. In April, the Beijing Times reported that the water quality of Nongfu Spring packed water was questioned and it’s acknowledged to be even worse than tap water.

About this series of constant negative reports, Nongfu Spring attributed the blame to Huarun Yibao’s intentional attack and posted on Weibo , saying” we had reason to believe the plotter of this incident is Huarun Yibao.” One of the reasons was that on March 22th which is Water Day, Huarun Yibao sent out the flyers about national water pollution from 2008 to 2012 with an eye-catching headline “Do you dare to drink the water carried from nature?”   It’s obviously that Huarun Yibao pointed to Nongfu Spring. In the same month, “the plotter” Huarun Yibao announced to sue Nongfu Spring for the reputation damage.

In the second half of the year, the battle between Nongfu and Yibao seemed to lead nowhere. But following the battle, a piece of news reported that Nongfu Spring was going to sue the Beijing Times for their false reports, claiming for 200 million yuan (USD 32.8 million) compensation.

N0.4 China Mobile VS China Unicom VS China Telecom

On December 18^th, China Mobile officially introduced a new master brand “he”, which means “and”, to signal the launch of its 4G network. For 4G network, China Telecom and China Unicom will continuously use the brand “Tianyi” and “Wo” which were created in the 3G networking. A netizen jokingly summarized the brands of three main operators as “Tianyi And Wo”.

To seize the 4G networking opportunity, these three operators rolled out overwhelming campaigns. In December, China Telecom’s slogan “The faster the better. A wonderful life is approaching” appeared in land mark locations in main cities. China Unicom’s slogan was “In the 4G era, the fantasy is still in Wo”. And China Mobile who strived even harder as it lost  lots of users in 3G era, put emphasis on “taking the lead”. It’s inevitable for the fight to be fierce between operators, since a big reshuffle is coming along with the 4G era.

No.5 Baidu Maps VS Autonavi

On August 28^th 2013, the Baidu map announced that Baidu Navigation would be free. Baidu Navigation is a smartphone app and used to cost 30 yuan($5) in the app store. On the evening of that day, Autonavi also declared the free charge of all the products and announced the coming of product press conference in the next day. On the 29^th, Baidu map dropped another bomb and made a statement that Baidu Company would refund all the previous buyers.

At the press conference held in the afternoon of 29^th, a top executive responded to this action and criticized the Baidu Company that the company was an internet company whose navigation service was not professional enough to charge. Baidu should not only refund the buyers but also pay the loss to its users. The rivals began to criticize each other on the free-charge topics. Baidu Navigation official weibo published a series of posters which began with “We are sorry” and @ Autonavi at the same time. These three messages are” We are sorry. we just want our products to be user-friendly” , ”We are sorry. We are just an Internet company” and “We are sorry. We are not professional enough yet.”

Autonavi posted a Weibo saying “No need to say sorry to me. Apologize to the users who were navigated to the sewer. ”and “No need to say sorry to me. Try harder to sell the fake medicine to make more money for your buyers’ refund”

The battle became a sensation on Weibo and attracted throngs of media to cover the story. No matter how fierce the battle was, it’s always beneficial for the users and the vast masses only memorized the “free “service.

No.6 Jing Dong and T mall

In 2012, Taobao Mall changed its name to Tmall (Tian Mao) which has phonetic similarity between its English and Chinese names. At the same time, a cat was designed as its mascot because of the name– Mao, which is cat in Chinese. One year later, Jingdong(also known as JD) suddenly changed its logo and designed a dog named Joy as its mascot. A war between a cat and a dog was triggered in the online shopping fest Double Eleven, November 11^th.

Before the coming of November 11^th , Jingdong launched a series of posters to promote their fast speed package delivery. Since Jingdong stocked its own items, their warehouse-to-doorstep delivery service was ensured timely and efficiently—in contrast to Tmall’s relatively slower transportation. As Tmall’s merchants relied on third-party mailing company. In the last poster, a picture of “Horse Stepping on Flying Swallow” was read as a satire aiming at Jack Ma( the CEO of Taobao) whose family name means horse in Chinese. In this battle, Tmall competed on price and put on the slogan “all 50% off”.

These two companies competed not only on different strategies and slogans, but also on advertisement. On CCTV, Jingdong’s advertisement always followed Tmall’s advertisement. In the cinema they showed up alternatively. Even in the subway, their advertisements were facing opposite with each other.

No.7 Voice of China VS Supper Boys

This summer, the fierce war in the TV circle was on the verge of explosion. Among the battles the most exciting one was the competition between the “Supper Boys” on Hunan Satellite TV and the second season of the” Voice of China” on Zhejiang Satellite TV. Since these two programs had the same broadcasting time, they two strived at the same time on the television ratings, website attraction and users opinions.

After the programs finished the broadcasting, both of them acknowledge having the first rating nationwide. When the media of www.qq.com  reported that “Super Boys” won a landslide victory over “Voice of China”, www.sohu.com reported the other way around by using the exact same headline but changing the ranking. Both of the two programs declared to have more online viewings than the other. Anyway due to the difference of the statistical analysis methods, it’s hard to tell which the winner was.

The war of words not only appeared on the screen but also behind the screen.  The program “Voice of China” claimed that its singers are more competent even ten times at singing skill than the singers from Super Boys. To fight back, “Super Boys” questioned the Voice of China and asked them if they dared to do the live broadcast. The most dramatic plot was the performance of the song “chasing after the dream”by Zhang Hengyuan, the singer from “Voice of China”. What is ironic is that the song is the theme song of 2013 “Super Boys”.

NO.8 Yixun VS Wechat

In 2013, it was witnessed that micropayment grows rapidly. E-commerce company Yixun.com owed by Tencent began to take on the business of Wechat payment. In the meantime, Alibaba endeavored to promote the taobao mobile shopping app. The two rivals was having a trial of strength in the dark

In August, Taobao l blocked the QR code image which led to the external links. This action definitely prevented the visit to Wechat. In November, Laiwang, a social networking app owed by Alibaba, carried out a promotional campaign on Double Eleven (November 11th). The sharing link was blocked by Wechat. Taobao fought back afterwards. When the taobao users clicked the links shared via Wechat, a download page of Taobao mobile app appeared. Acknowledged by Taobao, this conduct was designed for security concerns.

At the end of this year Taobao spent 36 million yuan to buy all arrangement of double color (a kind of welfare lottery) as gifts to all Taobao users. During the same time, Wechat also cooperated with Haidilao(a popular hot pot restaurant famous for their considerate service) about the micropayment. From the sparkling battle, it showed that these two foes exerted themselves to the utmost to seize the market opportunity.

No.9  Baidu VS 360

It’s quite a busy year for Qihoo 36O.  On one hand, Qihoo was fighting a battle with Sogou browser, on the other hand Qihoo created another battle with Baidu search engine. The story began in November. 36o Company developed a new function of double clicks of Ctrl and then posted the slogan” Double clicks of Ctrl, to know faster” on their official Weibo and @Baidu. After two days, Baidu responded with the edited poster originally made by 360 Company. On the edited poster, it’s written “The winner will be working on the product,whereas the loser can only bully others  “

After seeing the edited poster, 360 pursued and attacked with the poster written “How dare someone to declare originality when he will even plagiarize the poster” Two hours passed by, Baidu promptly launched a hand-writing poster and a set of posters to criticize back the plagiary of 360 products.  In the next day, 36O launched the fourth set of posters with only characters to satirize the originality of Baidu products. In these short four days, the opponents fought 3 rounds back and forth with around 30 posters at an astonished speed.

No.10 Yixin VS Wanglai VS Wechat

Yixin, a free social networking app launched by China Telecom and the internet company NetEase in 2013 August, had currently become a competitive rival against Wechat, Weixin in Chinese. Alibaba joined this intense competition afterwards in September, and developed an app named Laiwang.

In this fierce battle, Yixin placed lots of advertisement in Weibo and subway with ironic words, attacking the number limit of group chat, the service of charging expression and the abusive articles of chick soup for souls. Immediately after the incident, Laiwang, criticized that Wechat intentionally blocked the linking from the friend circle shared in Laiwang, and launched a series of print ads attacking the monopoly behaviors conducted by Wechat, appealing to the Wechat users to literally “open the social circle and dismantle the wall”. Wechat responded with a counterattack and informed the opponent not to play tricks and hype up the crowd. They claimed that the truly good products was made not hyped.

It seemed that Laiwang and Yixin still had long way to go in the competition with WeChat which launched earlier and seized the main market at the early stage with more than 300 million users. As to the vast majority of users, the competition was obviously good for them since they could enjoy better service from the competition.