Mainland pioneer navigates rough road in a young market
Ma Xiaowei's husband likes telling people she is a used-car dealer.
Even in the mainland, with less than a decade of widespread private car ownership, this profession ranks alongside journalism as among the least trusted and most ignoble.
But Ms Ma and her partners are not just any fast-talking rust-bucket hustlers. They are the founders of IAuto, an online second-hand car portal that analysts describe as the holy grail of the technology industry - a profitable traditional business that can be reinvented and made more efficient with the help of the internet.
In a strange reversal from most other countries, the internet is actually older than the mainland's second-hand car market. That translates into huge potential for companies that can set up shop at the crossroads between the two.
After a few short years of explosive growth, the land of bicycles has overtaken Japan to rank No2 after the United States in terms of number of cars sold.
