Welcome to Abacus
We begin with an introduction to Abacus and our mission: Why we're focusing on technology in China, and how we plan to cover it.
The world has changed so much over the last decade that it’s almost quaint to remember when China’s only role in the tech industry was to make things for everyone else.
Things are different now.
China’s tech giants aren’t just local titans, they’re global. They stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the world.
But thanks to local culture, the sheer size of its population -- and of course, regulations restricting foreign competitors -- China’s tech scene has evolved in very different ways.
WeChat is not just the WhatsApp of China; it’s so much more. The vast spread of mobile payment has no parallel anywhere else. And the QR codes that power those payments? They’re an infrequent curio outside the country, rather than the element that allows everyone from department stores to street vendors to accept money from a phone.
Gone are the days when every Chinese trend had a simple Western equivalent. And that’s where we come in.
