In India, due to the underdeveloped infrastructure, people are used to using a software called "eggplant quick transmission" to transfer files; In Turkey, the way young people get to know the opposite sex is very limited. Many people use a social software called "MICO" to find partners; In Brazil, "PUBG MOBILE" has become the most popular mobile game... These APPs are all originated in China.

Source | Outlooking at Sea (ID: Globalinsights)

Author | Yan Qi

On Christmas Day in 2004, Sarah, an American, suddenly found that 25 of the 39 Christmas gifts she received were "made in China". Surprised, she began to check other items at home and found that socks, toys and table lamps were all from China. She couldn't help thinking: Can Americans survive without Chinese products?

From January 1, 2005, Sara began an adventure: leading her family to live a year without buying Chinese products. In this year, Sarah faced numerous headache problems. She had to spend several times of the price to buy shoes. The range of choices for her son in the toy store was very poor. After the electrical equipment in the home failed, she could not buy repair tools. On her husband's birthday, she finally canceled the link of lighting candles

On New Year's Day in 2006, Sara's family lifted the ban on "make in China" and returned to normal life. Later, Sara wrote the year's experience into A Year Without Made in China, which sold well in the world.

In the past few decades, Chinese factories have produced all kinds of goods for the people of the world. More than 70% of Christmas goods come from China, more than 80% of Japanese clothes are made in China, and almost all of the election flags in the US presidential election are produced in Yiwu

Made in China is everywhere. However, few people have found that in recent years, Chinese products that have influenced the world have come not only from the assembly line workshops of the manufacturing industry, but also from another organization - China Code Factory.

APP outlet

On August 23, the animated film "Two Kingdoms" was released in Japan, and newcomer Qin Zeshun (せりしゅんんんゅんんん) gave his voice and participated in the performance. The official selected voice actor was a silent senior student more than a year ago. In February 2018, Qin Zeshun participated in an activity called "TikToker Challenge" and became famous.

The sponsor of the event was "TikTok" (overseas version of "TikTok"). Tens of thousands of Japanese users participated in the event, and Qin Zeinstant eventually became the popularity champion of "fashion" category. Three months later, his number of fans exceeded 80000. A year later, he was selected as a voice actor by The Country of Two. Along with him, another popular anchor of TikTok, Shuisetyao - these two young Japanese people became famous through TikTok.

At the beginning of last year, the Japanese Economic News conducted a questionnaire survey on 100 teenage girls in the streets of Shibuya, Harajuku and Ikebuki. The results show that up to 24 people have downloaded TikTok from their mobile phones.

Not only Japan, this short video product made in China has become popular in many countries. The code carries the "Brainstorming Divine Comedy" across national borders, and people all over the world are "learning to call cats together".

The popularity of TikTok is not unique. Thousands of Chinese Internet products are going overseas.

China's mobile Internet market, with 700 million Internet users, has cultivated numerous successful products and models in the past few years, as well as a large number of mature industrial workers, including product designers, technical developers, marketing personnel, and so on. The APP export industry followed.

Some code factories copy and transplant mature products from China to overseas, and some directly create for overseas users. This business is also called "Internet Sailing".

Exported APP products have profoundly changed the lives of foreign people:

In India, due to the underdeveloped infrastructure, people are used to using a software called "eggplant quick transmission" to transfer files; In Turkey, the way young people get to know the opposite sex is very limited. Many people use a social software called "MICO" to find partners; In Brazil, "PUBG MOBILE" has become the most popular mobile game... These APPs are all originated in China.

If you look at the app store download list in these countries, you will find that the top APP usually includes made in China. In the top 10 list of some countries, the number of Chinese products is even more than half.

With the large-scale export of code factories, the global penetration of domestic APP has been "extremely thoughtful".

World Fold

If we say that the export of manufacturing industry has changed the material world of foreigners. The export of the code factory has changed their spiritual world. APP export is essentially the export of content, culture and lifestyle.

At 0:00 on November 12, 2018, Ali's Double 11 Shopping Festival ended with a new record of "213.5 billion yuan". Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia, Lazada's 2018 Double 11 Shopping Festival also ended. On that day, more than 20 million "Hand Choppers" from Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam "went shopping" in Lazada.

In 2016, Alibaba held the Southeast Asia e-commerce platform Lazada. Since 2017, Ali has technically comprehensively promoted the transformation and expansion of Lazada. Double 11, a special festival originated in China, has also been brought to many countries in Southeast Asia.

The way of "online fitness" has also spread to many countries, especially the European and American countries that love fitness.

A company called "Chizicheng" has launched a series of fitness apps in Europe and America: "30 Day Challenge", "Female Glute Workout at Home", "Arm Max for Men", etc. They are designed for users of different genders and ages, and are specially used to train a specific part, such as abdomen, buttocks, shoulders, and arms, similar to compact versions of Keep.

In China, few people have heard of Chizicheng, but its series of products - not only fitness, but also music, games, etc. - have been downloaded nearly 700 million in the world. Therefore, they are well aware of the preferences of overseas users.

"Users in Europe and the United States have a high acceptance of fitness products," said Yang Guo (a pseudonym), the product manager of Chizicheng, "but they don't like large and comprehensive products. Fine, focused and customized products will be more popular." A female hip beauty app designed by them has reached 70% of the retention rate in the United States the next day.

Usually, one APP will be exported to many countries. Although in different regions, they will be transformed according to local conditions, on the whole, these APPs are bringing the lifestyle of the world closer.

At 8:30 p.m. Beijing time, Los Angeles time, and Moscow time, "Wang Jianguo", "Jack", and "Vladimir" opened "Keep", "Arm Max for Men", and "Pacer" in their respective homes to start exercising.

Made in China makes the earth parallel in a certain dimension, and the Chinese code factory is "folding the world".

Code Factory

The assembly line of a code factory usually includes product, R&D, promotion and operation.

Code farmers are the core productivity of code factories. Previously, a netizen, referring to the number of registered users of CSDN and some information on Zhihushang, estimated that the number of programmers in China has exceeded 5 million, and the cities with the highest distribution proportion are Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Guangzhou in turn. The accuracy of this data remains to be verified, but it can be confirmed that China has become the country with the largest number of farmers in the world.

Although we also use code to talk with computers, we need to face more challenges to develop APP code farmers for foreigners.

Lao Wu (not his real name) is a technical partner of an Indonesian financial product, and previously served as CTO of an online travel company. In 2017, Lao Wu joined the sea going army, and since then he has been commuting between Beijing and Jakarta all year round. About 2/3 of the time, he painted products and codes in his office in Beijing. He spent the remaining 1/3 of his time on business in Indonesia.

Lao Wu needs to go deep into the front, understand the local financial policy, credit system, user habits, etc., and adjust the risk control process and technical architecture of the product accordingly. In his home, there is a small blackboard. If he lands in Beijing late at night, Lao Wu can conceive the prototype of the product on the blackboard as soon as he gets home.

Last year, 35 year old Wu met new challenges. In order to apply for the financial license in Indonesia, Lao Wu, as the product director, had to make a technical presentation to the local government in poor English to explain the technology and operation process of the product. Before setting out, Lao Wu practiced many times with his colleagues in the office. Fortunately, they finally passed the application.

In addition to code farming, overseas promotion personnel are also an important part of APP export, and their daily life is jet lagged.

Xiao Ou (not his real name) is the overseas launch manager of NetEase Games. He is currently responsible for the promotion of LifeAfter ("after tomorrow" overseas version) in North America. The prime time in North America is from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. When on duty, Xiao Ou needs to closely monitor product download data and maintain his Facebook account.

Netease Building is located in Beijing Houchang Village, where Tencent, Fasthand and Didi's Beijing headquarters are located. On the product launch day, Xiao Ou goes to work at 11:00 a.m., because he usually works overtime until 2:00 a.m. in the evening. There is no traffic jam in Beijing at night, but the taxi software often needs to queue up at this time. In Houchang Village, many people go home from work at the same time as Xiao Ou.

In addition to the members stationed in the "Rear Factory Villages", there are also some personnel stationed in front of the Code Factory.

Razan (not his real name) is MICO's Middle East operation. He graduated from Dalian Foreign Studies University with a major in Arabic. As a product with social networking as its core and entertainment content, it needs to take root and operate overseas. Razan is a member of the resident MICO Cairo office.

Razan, who lives in Jiuquan, Gansu Province, always has a hard journey home. During the Spring Festival holiday, she will fly from Dubai to Beijing, stay in Beijing for one night, and fly to Jiayuguan the next day. After landing, take the bus to Jiuquan. Compared with the research and development centers in Beijing and Shenzhen, MICO's Cairo office is relatively spacious. Razan and his colleagues also keep two cats in the office.

Razan said that it's really hard to work outside. It's far away from friends and family. There is no delicious food. This feeling is stronger when you are sick and uncomfortable. "However, when you see the data rising slowly, or when you see Egyptians using MICO on the street, you will feel very excited," Razan said. "When you are young, you don't do anything interesting. What can you remember when you are old?"

Rear+front has become the basic structure of many code factories. Thousands of kilometers away, the technology background and the operation front cooperate sincerely to export more Chinese APPs to the world.

At sea

Chinese code factory has been on the sea for more than ten years.

In 2008, Apple launched the iPhone 3G and launched the App Store simultaneously. A company called "iHandy" has developed the first carpenter's toolbox application in the App Store: iHandy Carpenter, which includes five tools, such as plumb bob, plane level, bubble level, steel ruler and protractor, within two months. In 2009, this product ranked first in the list of tools downloaded from iOS stores in many countries, and quickly opened the market.

In the following years, a large number of tool APPs took the opportunity to go to sea, and in 2012, they began to enter a concentrated outbreak period.

The most typical is "Cheetah Mobile". In 2012, they launched a super popular Clean Master overseas to help Android users clean up their mobile phone space. In just two years, they have achieved more than 100 million users a day. The "eggplant quick pass" mentioned above and the "UC Browser" of Ali are also representative products of this period.

At that time, the dividend of overseas traffic was huge, and the application market and promotion channels were more standardized and transparent than those in China. In addition, the business model of tools going to sea is clear and the realization path is short, so it has become the choice of many Internet entrepreneurs. The "micro code factory" of three or five people also has the opportunity to stand out.

At the beginning, there were only three programmers in the Chizicheng launched in 2013, and the Solo Launcher launched at that time has accumulated more than 100 million users overseas. This is unthinkable in China.

The situation of mainly taking tools to sea has changed since 2016.

With the upgrading of mobile phone hardware and network infrastructure, users' demand for tool APP is weakening. At the same time, the outbreak of domestic social networking, live broadcast, information, short video and other industries has also promoted the transformation of the offshore industry to "content".

In 2016, the "thousand broadcast war" in China has not yet ended, and YY's parent company has begun to layout overseas in the era of happy gathering. Starting from the live broadcast platform BIGO LIVE, the happy gathering era has gradually launched short video platform LIKE, video communication software IMO, game social platform HAGO, etc. According to the statistics of Sensor Tower, in 2018, among the top 20 short video/live broadcast applications in the Middle East, Chinese APP occupied 15 seats, and BIGO LIVE and MICO ranked 1 and 3 respectively.

Short video giants followed. In 2017, Toutiao acquired Musical.ly, a music and video product in North America, and renamed it TikTok in 2018 to speed up its launch. In 2018, Fasthand will not be left behind and will increase its investment in Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea and other regions. The competition between the two domestic giants has expanded to the world. In many countries, users may download TikTok and Kwai on their mobile phones at the same time.

The game Sailing also broke out rapidly in this period. NetEase's "Yin Yang Master", "Wild Survival" and other games are popular in Japan. Tencent's "PUBG Mobile" ("Stimulating Battlefield" overseas version) topped the list of app store games in 134 countries around the world.

At present, a series of regulatory policies for the domestic entertainment industry have led more companies to seek opportunities in overseas markets. The probe, which has been taken off the shelf repeatedly in China, clearly expressed the determination to go to sea in the second quarter financial report conference call of Momo, the parent company.

At the same time, the deep-water areas - life services, O2O, etc. - have gradually overcome the problem of "acclimatization" after hard exploration, and are initially on track. Ali's financial payment system is one of the most successful representatives.

If we take 2008 as the starting point, the APP industry will be 12 years old. Long wind and waves will sometimes break, and the code factories of "Xiaoshengchu" can look forward to the future.

Sailing "Ferry Man"

With the popularity of APP going to sea, the potential of overseas marketing market is also constantly released. Since 2013, the advertising expenses of mobile terminals in the world have risen rapidly, and finally achieved the goal of anti surpassing the PC terminals in 2017.

The continuous increase of advertising investment has led to the upgrading of the overseas marketing industry chain. "Huiliang Technology" has built a global media supply side network on the mobile end since 2013, and is now one of the largest overseas advertising platforms in China. At the same time, there are also advertising companies such as "Yidian Tianxia" and "Papaya Mobile", through which numerous Chinese APPs go overseas.

In addition, some companies that started with products in the early days built their own advertising platforms in the process of going to sea, and became "ferriers" of many APP's going to sea. The program advertising platform "Solo Math" under Akitoshi is the product of this period.

Since 2016, a significant trend has been the rise of the third equation sequencing advertising platform. In addition to the two core channels of Facebook and Google, the programmed advertising platform "beyond the wall" has begun to be favored by more code factories.

If the program advertising platform is abstracted, it is equivalent to an automated supermarket that operates 24 hours a day. There are many different shelves orderly distributed in the market, and the shelves are full of "goods" (i.e. advertising spaces) of high, medium and low prices. Across the time and geographical constraints, buyers (code factories) can easily buy the advertising spaces they need, and APP exports become more efficient.

In addition to the upgrading of technology and efficiency, the market scope of going to sea is also expanding. The traditional markets in Southeast Asia, Europe, the United States, the Middle East and so on have become more mature. However, Africa, Latin America, West Asia and other emerging markets have not been developed in the past due to restrictions such as economic development and infrastructure. In the past two years, Chinese APP has also begun to take shape.

In import and export trade, ports and freight companies often have the best understanding of market trends. Similarly, the outbound marketing platform is also the best insight into the market trend of APP export.

"At present, games are the most popular, followed by social networking, live broadcast, short video and other products. The best cash flow on our platform is light and medium games, and heavy games and live broadcast are mainly purchased domestically." said Harry (alias) of Solo Math, "In Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other regions, Chinese products have accounted for a large share. In Europe, America and South Asia, there are more and more Chinese APPs, especially in India this year. The user base of Japan and South Korea is not large, but because of the strong ability to pay, Chinese products are also accelerating to enter. "

Epilogue

At 6:00 p.m. New Delhi time, Amir Khan, who just got off work, opened TikTok in the crowded subway, and bowed his head to brush the short video. When he got home, he opened UC News to browse news while eating. After dinner, open Pacers to complete a fitness course. At 10:30, he lay in bed and played Tap Color for a while, and gradually fell asleep.

In the United States 15 years ago, Sarah's challenge left a story of a fantastic journey. India, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Mexico 15 years later may face a similar challenge: what will the world be like without a Chinese code factory?