In Episode 24 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about China Renaissance Group, a tech-focused investment bank founded and led by one of the country’s most famed rainmakers, Bao Fan. While the episode covers the firm’s recent Hong Kong IPO, as well as some of its top deals, its culture, and several of its business lines, the episode really focuses more on Bao Fan himself — after all, his career in many ways is the China tech industry. It is often said that everyone who's an...
Oct 10, 2018•21 min
Happy Holidays, TechBuzz listeners! That’s right, it’s Mid-Autumn Festival, followed closely by Golden Week for the Pandaily team back in Beijing. In honor of the holidays — and to commemorate *almost* six months since we released our first episode of TechBuzz back in April of this year — co-hosts Rui and Ying-Ying are taking off as well! We will be back with a new original episode on October 9. In order to not leave you hanging, and in recognition of Meituan-Dianping’s recent IPO in which it ra...
Sep 25, 2018•27 min
In episode 22 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about electric carmaker NIO, which went public on September 12 on the NYSE. This episode covers how NIO got started, its purported business model, and how it differs from its competition. Listeners will also hear from Elliott Zaagman, a writer covering Chinese tech as well as an organizational development consultant for Chinese tech firms. Rui and Ying-Ying start their story with Li Bin, or William Bin Li, who is NIO’s celebr...
Sep 19, 2018•33 min
In Ep. 21 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about the new messaging app, Bullet Messenger, which took the Chinese internet by storm and reached five million registered users in just eleven days. The key question: is this a true challenger to WeChat? Or is it more of a short-lived, false alarm without real long-term potential? Listeners will also hear expert analysis from Matthew Brennan, a speaker and writer focused on Chinese mobile internet who can be found at @mbrennanc...
Sep 12, 2018•34 min
In episode 20 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma look into the alleged causes behind the recent 22 percent year-on-year increase in rent prices in Beijing, a rise which has sparked outrage in citizens. In addition to blaming real estate startups, some headlines have also proclaimed that the influx of venture capital and private equity into the tech sector is at the root of the problem. In the episode, Rui and Ying-Ying take an analytical approach to break down the factors affect...
Sep 05, 2018•24 min
So far in 2018, Tencent’s stock price has continued to tumble from analysts’ price targets. Today, it sits at $430 billion, a far cry from its $570 billion market cap in January. Some commentators blame the decline on Tencent’s Q2 results, which showed a 2 percent drop in earnings and was the company’s first fall in profit in nearly 13 years. What is really going on here? What is the real cause? And what does it all mean for what is arguably still China’s leading internet company? In this episod...
Aug 29, 2018•27 min
On August 1, The Intercept broke a story that Google was planning to enter China with a censored search engine. Within hours, the same news was all over Chinese tech media. In this episode of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma tell the story of Google in China — or rather, its 2010 departure and oft-rumored return. Though Chinese tech media love speculating, how likely is this to actually happen? What role does the U.S. government play? What factors need to be in place for Google’s...
Aug 22, 2018•23 min
In this episode of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma tell the story of ecommerce company Pinduoduo, the fastest-growing app in the history of the Chinese internet, from its founding in 2015 to its recent listing on the Nasdaq. What does the company’s IPO prospectus reveal about the intentions and vision of its founder, Colin Huang? In what ways is the app a combination of “Costco and Disneyland” — or not? The episode concludes by revisiting the insights of Mark Pols, currently Cor...
Aug 07, 2018•37 min
This episode of TechBuzz China is our second of two focused on bike-sharing in China. In it, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma tell the story of the rest of China’s bike-sharing industry beyond Ofo, focusing on major players Mobike and Hellobike. They cover Mobike’s founders, fundraisings, current reach, and distinctive approach to its bike-sharing business, as well as fast-growing latecomer Hellobike’s entrance to the scene. Guest speaker Karl Ulrich, the Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innova...
Jul 31, 2018•29 min
The internet age has brought with it what China's state media calls the country's “New Four Great Inventions”: high speed trains, scan-and-pay mobile payments, bike sharing, and ecommerce. This week’s episode is the first in a two-part story on bike sharing — told against a backdrop of Ofo, one of the two major Chinese players, pulling out of international markets. What happened? And most importantly, what is happening now? Listen to this week’s episode of TechBuzz China by co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu...
Jul 24, 2018•26 min
Xiaomi’s recent IPO in Hong Kong was the world’s biggest tech IPO since Alibaba’s in 2014, but will it soar in the stock market and become the Apple of China? Listen to the first ever debate on TechBuzz China and take your position as a bear or a bull on the new stock. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast focused on giving you a peek into what’s buzzing within the tech community in China. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China watchers with y...
Jul 18, 2018•24 min
On June 18, JD.com concluded its annual shopping festival with a transaction volume of roughly $24.5 billion. On the same day, the ecommerce platform also announced an investment from Google of $550 million. What does this new alliance mean? Listen to the latest episode from TechBuzz China to find out! TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast focused on giving you a peek into what’s buzzing within the tech community in China. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are b...
Jul 10, 2018•19 min
As a TechBuzz China listener, you must be at least a little bit crypto-curious. This week on TechBuzz China, we talk in-depth about Bitmain, the most valuable company in the cryptocurrency space, which happens to be from China. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast focused on giving you a peek into what’s buzzing within the tech community in China. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China-watchers with years of experience working in the technolo...
Jul 03, 2018•21 min
What do you call a unicorn worth more than $100 billion? A centacorn, of course! This week on TechBuzz China by Pandaily, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma discuss a newly minted centacorn — Ant Financial. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast focused on giving you a peek into what’s buzzing within the tech community in China. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China watchers with years of experience working in the technology space in China. They...
Jun 26, 2018•26 min
This week on TechBuzz China by Pandaily, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma tell you how Wang Xing, the legendary Chinese serial entrepreneur who started out with “copy to China,” is now standing behind one of the largest unicorns in the world, Meituan-Dianping. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast focused on giving you a peek into what’s buzzing within the tech community in China. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China watchers with years of e...
Jun 19, 2018•24 min
Earlier this month, Tencent sued Bytedance, better known as Toutiao, for 1 yuan and Toutiao fought back by suing Tencent for 90 million yuan. What sparked the feud between the David and Goliath of the Chinese tech world? Listen to this week's episode of TechBuzz China by Pandaily to find out! TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast focused on giving you a peek into what’s buzzing within the tech community in China. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both season...
Jun 12, 2018•20 min
This week on TechBuzz China by Pandaily, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma look at the resignation of Baidu's COO and tech genius Lu Qi and how the move sparked wave after wave of speculation, commentary, and reaction in the Chinese tech world. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast that is all about China’s innovations. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China-watchers with years of experience working in the technology space in China. They share ...
Jun 05, 2018•13 min
When Dale Carnegie wrote his magnum opus almost a century ago, he was most certainly not prepared to address social phenomenons such as live streaming in our ever-evolving digital era. This week on TechBuzz China by Pandaily, our hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma look at the Chinese live-streaming industry, the true darling of the Chinese internet age unbeknownst to the West. They trace back the origins of this industry, whose market cap grew by almost 250 times in half a decade, explain the psychol...
May 29, 2018•17 min
This week on TechBuzz China by Pandaily, our hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk all about the happenings in the auto industry in China. There is bad news, and then there is good news. The bad news that made waves all across China was the alleged rape and murder of a female passenger by a Didi Hitch driver. Rui and Ying-Ying talk about how the design of the Hitch product is partially responsible for the tragedy and the steps Didi Chuxing has taken to address this issue. The good news is that Chin...
May 22, 2018•20 min
This week on TechBuzz China by Pandaily, our hosts, Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, talk in-depth about a story that sparked great controversy across China’s technosphere — the debate on whether Tencent has still got its mojo. TechBuzz China by Pandaily is a weekly technology podcast that is all about China's innovations. It is co-hosted by Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma, who are both seasoned China-watchers with years of experience working in the technology space in China. They share and discuss the most imp...
May 15, 2018•18 min
This week on TechBuzz China, our hosts Rui Ma and Ying-Ying Lu discuss two major stories in China tech. Rui talks about the upcoming initial public offering of Xiaomi, which will be the world's largest since Alibaba's debut in 2014, and Ying-Ying shares the news of Baidu's new financial services spinoff, called Du Xiaoman Financial, which is already valued at $4 billion. Rui and Ying-Ying take you back through the history of Xiaomi, and in for a close-up look at its legendary founder and CEO, Le...
May 08, 2018•17 min
This week on TechBuzz China, our hosts tackle two ambitious stories. First, Rui talks about the seven-year ban the U.S. government announced on sales of American components to Chinese telecom equipment and systems company ZTE, and the overwhelming response from Chinese tech media, which has called the ban a "very rude awakening." China has earmarked billions of dollars for semiconductor R&D and investment, but what impact do these funds have? What is going wrong, and what does this all mean ...
May 01, 2018•19 min
Pinduoduo is the fastest growing ecommerce platform that you have never heard of. It is behind only Taobao and JD.com in the number of users, exceeding JD.com in their monthly gross merchandise volume, and even surpassing Taobao in the penetration rate of users from lower tiered cities. To understand this phenomenon, Rui not only downloaded the app to give us a sense of why it is so popular, but also shared comments by Kathy Xu of Capital Today, an early investor in JD.com, on why she chose not ...
Apr 24, 2018•19 min
TechBuzz China is a short weekly podcast that talks all about China’s innovation, co-hosted by Rui Ma, who is an angel investor and entrepreneur, and Ying-Ying Lu, who is also an entrepreneur. The two hosts are both China experts who lived and worked in the technology space in China for many years. This week on TechBuzz China, Rui and Ying-Ying talk about the recent news involving three Chinese unicorns: Toutiao, Didi, and Meituan. Toutiao was recently under fire for posting fake ads on their fl...
Apr 17, 2018•12 min