How to make it big in Xi Jinping’s China
Greater bay technology’s transformation into a mythical beast has been speedy. The startup, which specialises in super-fast lithium-battery charging, was launched in late 2020. Only 19 months later it had reached a valuation of $1bn, making it a unicorn (ie, an unlisted firm valued at or above that amount). Such creatures are becoming far more common in China. Greater Bay joined a field of more than 300 of them in 2022, double the number five years ago. These new unicorns offer an intriguing snapshot of the country’s shifting industrial priorities.
The list, for that reason, is ever-mutating. Firms fall off because they go public or tumble in value. Some of the most promising ones get stuck as they encounter regulatory problems. The initial public offering (ipo) of Ant Group, a fintech powerhouse, for instance, was ditched at the last moment under pressure from regulators in 2020. Its valuation has reportedly tumbled from more than $300bn before the failed flotation to around $64bn. Others have gone from strength to strength. Beijing-based ByteDance, which owns TikTok, a short-video app, was most recently valued at $220bn, making it the world’s most valuable unlisted firm.
To understand which sectors are being prioritised, and which ones are being neglected or crushed, The Economist has analysed the changing mix of China’s most highly valued startups over the past five years. The results reveal a country teeming with unicorns that are intensely focused on making wares favoured by the Chinese government. They are cropping up outside the established tech hubs of Beijing, Hangzhou and Shenzhen. And whereas privately controlled tech giants, such as Alibaba and Tencent, used to dominate the startup scene, much of the recent growth is being underwritten by state firms.
2023-04-24 13:16:09
Source from www.economist.com
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