A China is a country where everything is done by smartphone. With a population of 1.3 billion, about 710 million have access to the Internet and 656 million use smartphones.
In China, people did not have to go through the use of PCs, they soon passed on to smartphones. As WeChat which allows the user to do everything from within the application. That is, instead of having WhatsApp, Facebook, Uber, airbnb, bank app, etc., you only use WeChat. Today WeChat does all the functions that the applications mentioned above do. This is only in terms of social networks, because in reality the platform has a thousand and one functions and with it you can make new friends, buy and sell, receive and send money, make withdraw from your bank account and so many other things all just with a smartphone.
China is an example of the true O2O, online to offline. Didi, for example, the Chinese Uber, has gas stations and workshops to serve its partner drivers. Tujia, Chinese Airbnb has its own network of locations. The difference is cultural: in Silicon Valley, Internet companies stay online and leave offline for others. In China, due to the fierce competition, they verticalize, to be more difficult to copy. QR codes, the meeting of strangers and other functions are replicated in many applications. China follows a trend very opposite to that of the West: if the fashion here is to disassemble apps into smaller and more specific ones, there every app adds more and more functions. The list of things that the Chinese do through the WeChat app:
- Pay bills and manage your bank accounts. Order food for home delivery (restaurants and supermarkets). Buy from clothing to movie tickets. Request a taxi. Schedule medical consultations. Stand on social media. Send money to friends / suppliers. Do check-in for flights.Read news from newspapers and magazines.
The following video shows fantastic examples of smartphone usage in China. And it gives us a very real reality. All payments are via QR and smartphones, no credit cards or even cash. Our future? Perhaps more like China, with each person using their smartphone to make payments.
