Red Ocean, Blue Ocean: 5 Insights into Chinese Companies Going Global

The book “Blue Ocean Strategy” captured the imagination of the world’s business community when it was first published back in 2005, and it’s still informing the way companies think about their plans today. Its lasting influence is particularly evident in China, where meetings on anything from new product launches, to marketing campaigns, to corporate-level strategy are peppered with the terms “蓝海” (blue ocean) and “红海” (red ocean) to quickly communicate the rationale behind a specific plan. At yesterday’s “Making the Breakthrough” DU Ad Platform conference, Baidu Global Business Unit’s Head of Monetization and BD Felix Li shed new light on this old concept as it applies to China’s tech scene. Here are 5 takeaways from his talk.

1) “The smartphone device market in China is reaching a plateau. It’s time to change our perspective and start looking globally.”

2) “Emerging markets with low smartphone penetration still hold a lot of opportunity for developers to create new niches.”

3) “Chinese developers are starting to take the global stage. Out of the top 100 most downloaded apps on Google Play, not including exclusive apps from Facebook and Google, a full 38% are now from Chinese developers.”

4) “Manufacturing and assembly are still at the core of China’s exports. But Internet services are evolving to take on a more prominent role.”

5) “We’re beginning to enter the ‘China-to-World’ (C2W) era, with Chinese companies moving beyond micro-innovations and starting to create new blue ocean markets with imaginative products and services.”