China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Spring Festival collections bring joy to film producers, distributors
Film companies in China are anticipating better box-office fortunes for the remainder of the year, after most of the movies released during the seven-day Spring Festival holiday drew record crowds and revenue, industry experts said on Wednesday.
Total box-office collections for the seven-day period to Feb 17 stood at 7.8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion), according to data tracking app Maoyan. This year, 10 Chinese films were released over the holiday.
More importantly, box-office receipts from Jan 1 to Feb 16 were more than 50 percent of full-year box-office earnings in 2020, according to Maoyan data.
Beijing Jingxi Culture and Tourism Co Ltd, one of the producers of Hi, Mom, the second-highest grossing film during the sevenday period, earned revenue of 60 million yuan to 65 million yuan as of Feb 17.
Huayi Brothers, which has also invested in Hi, Mom, reported revenue of 8.6 million yuan to 10.31 million yuan from the film.
Wanda Film, one of the leading film companies in China and one of the producers and distributors of Detective Chinatown 3, the highest grossing film during the Spring Festival period, is said to have earned 550 million yuan, according to a report by
Guosheng Securities.
Experts said the healthy earnings of film companies and the Spring Festival box-office collections are an indication that China’s film industry is recovering gradually from the COVID-19 impact. Last year, cinemas across China did not resume business until July. A report from Qianzhan said that Chinese film companies may have incurred losses of over 30 billion yuan last year.
“Tens of millions of Chinese people chose to stay in cities where they work instead of going back to their hometown for family reunions during this year’s Spring Festival holiday as part of the country’s efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This drove up demand for entertainment, particularly for watching films at cinemas. It was also the reason for the higher-than-expected film ticket prices and strong box-office performance,” said Zhi Feina, a professor at the film and television research institute of the Chinese National Academy of Arts.
“Another major reason for the better show has been the steady improvement in film content, which further boosted the overall film viewing experience for consumers,” Zhi said.
“The box-office boom and its contribution to film companies’ revenue growth will provide new impetus to the movie market and drive its recovery after the COVID19 pandemic,” said Zhi.
“The healthy performance will also boost the recovery of the industry chain and sustain the growth trend in the long term.”
The box office boom and its contribution to film companies’ revenue growth will provide new impetus for the movie market.”
Zhi Feina, a professor at the film and television research institute of China National Academy of Arts
The growth rate of China’s sharing economy sector is expected to be between 10 and 15 percent this year, and maintain an average annual growth rate of over 10 percent in the coming five years, thanks to an expected strong recovery in the macroeconomy, a recent report said.
The State Information Center said that in 2020, amid challenges brought by COVID-19, new business modes featuring the sharing economy demonstrated tremendous resilience and development potential. The trade volume of the sharing economy for the year surged 2.9 percent year-on-year to 3.38 trillion yuan ($523.6 billion).
The pandemic’s influence on different areas of the sharing economy varied. The market volume of the sharing healthcare sector grew rapidly, with year-on-year growth of 27.8 percent. In contrast, the market volume of sharing accommodation, office-space and transportation dropped by 29.8 percent, 26 percent and 15.7 percent, respectively, because the areas required offline activities to complete a closed transaction loop.
“Sharing services and new consumption modes had been playing a critical role in boosting national economic resilience and vitality. Meanwhile, sharing economy platforms were constantly innovating business strategies and marketing modes, thus demonstrating various advantages,” said the report.
It said that in 2020, one major change for the country’s sharing economy sector was that more and more enterprises, which mainly served the consumer-end, expanded their businesses to the businessend.
Xiaozhu, a Beijing-based sharing accommodation website/app, signed a strategic partnership with Bytedance’s enterprise service platform Feishu last year, offering accommodation solutions, such as accommodation for business trips, corporate teambuilding exercises and training conferences for registered enterprises on Feishu.
Ziyouxin, a flexible employment platform under Tencent’s finance and taxation technology arm GoldenTec, actively responded to surging hiring requirements of enterprises during the pandemic period. In February of last year, it launched an emergency recruitment service called “shared employees”, offering more than 10,000 workers to enterprises, including Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech Co Ltd, Bluemoon, Wumart Group, iShansong and Yaofangwang.
Another new feature highlighted in the report was that the sharing economy was further integrated with internet-based marketing approaches, creating more platform-user interaction and user stickiness.
For example, in July, Xiaozhu teamed up with Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), an Instagram-like Chinese fashion and lifestyle sharing platform, inviting key opinion leaders and key opinion consumers on the platform to share their accommodation experiences.
Huang Wei, an official from Xiaozhu’s public affairs department, said: “KOLs and KOCs share their living experiences on Xiaohongshu, and interact with users on the online community, encouraging them to pay a visit to the recommended accommodations. In this way, a circulation running from online to offline is formed.”
Data from Xiaozhu showed that between July and November, transaction volume brought by Xiaohongshu’s channels surpassed 10 million yuan, and the monthly growth rate of gross merchandise volume stood at 350 percent. By Nov 25, 1,610 sharing accommodation brands were registered on Xiaohongshu, and the charge-off rate of presale accommodations reached 60 percent.
“Online marketing communities such as Xiaohongshu conform to the rules of contemporary consumption communication. Through image and video-sharing, more potential users can be reached, creating more travel and accommodation demand. Meanwhile, content platforms are further integrating with the tourism industry, bringing new traffic and growth opportunities,” Huang said.
As pointed out in the SIC report, looking ahead, as sharing economy platforms increase their resource inputs and expand business, industry competition will intensify.
“When the pandemic is over, the focus of enterprise competition lies in how they realize user retention and profit mode innovation. Efforts are needed in product innovation and service quality enhancement,” said the report.
Fan Jiping, head of WeDoctor Digital Medical Consortium, said that in the post-pandemic era, there will be increasing market demand for high-quality services integrating online and offline modes of business.
“For WeDoctor, digitalization and ‘intelligentization’ will be the focus of the whole healthcare industry in the near future. How to take advantage of digital technologies to build a service system that satisfies healthcare needs of various patient groups and raises the efficiency and level of the industry — that remains a key issue for us,” Fan said.
Chinese healthcare startup Zdeer is tapping into rising demand from young consumers by launching technology-driven moxibustion products, as more internet companies are jumping onto the wellness bandwagon amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Moxibustion is a type of traditional Chinese therapy that burns dried moxa — a cone or stick made of ground mugwort leaves — on particular areas of the body. The main function of moxibustion is to relieve pain or illness via the application of heat.
“Gone are the days when health maintenance is only conducted by the middle-aged and the elderly. Today’s young people, especially those working in the internet sector, face health problems earlier than expected,” said Zhu Jiangtao, founder of Zdeer.
“It is also why we want to enter the healthtech industry. Through technology and innovation, people of all ages can keep in good health anywhere and anytime,” Zhu said.
Zhu explained that “healthtech” refers to the use of leading technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data in the healthcare sector including daily healthcare and protection, as well as disease diagnosis and treatment.
To tap into such demand, the Wuhan, Hubei province-based company has developed a slew of smart electronic devices related to healthcare, including smart moxibustion devices and smart steam foot baths.
The smart moxibustion device, priced at 299 yuan ($46), allows users to undergo treatments simply by placing the device on different parts of the body. The device is about the size of a mobile phone.
“Compared with the traditional way of moxibustion, the smart moxibustion device leverages modern heat treatment technology and is able to achieve moxibustion with no smoke,” Zhu said.
“It also incorporates more modern smart technologies, such as wireless portability, Bluetooth control and other functions. Young consumers carry out treatments on their own at anytime and anywhere,” he said.
Zhu added that all of Zdeer’s products use tech giant Xiaomi Corp applications so that customers can easily operate the process through smartphones.
As some consumers doubt whether the effect of smart moxibustion would be the same as that of traditional moxibustion, Zhu said that the company discovered through significant scientific research that the three core functions of moxibustion — the medicinal benefits of wormwood, warming effects and optical effects — can all be achieved via the smart device.
“The research and development expenditure accounts for around 20 percent of the company’s revenue every year, which is a big sum for a startup,” Zhu said.
In June, the five-year-old healthtech brand secured tens of million yuan in a series A round of fundraising led by Tiantu Capital. It has also raised funds from Hillhouse Capital’s GL Ventures.
“We are optimistic about the continued growth of the healthcare sector. In line with the current health rejuvenation and consumption upgrade, more and more young consumers are starting to pay attention to healthcare products,” said Pan Pan, managing partner of Tiantu Capital.
Therefore, healthcare products on various platforms are seeing explosive growth, Pan said, but the overall products on the supply side are mostly for the elderly.
“It is difficult to effectively meet the needs of young consumers. Only products with innovative capabilities and with aesthetics appealing to young people can quickly stand out in the market,” he said.
A report conducted by CBN Data showed that online shopping now constitutes a key feature of the behavior of young consumers, with the post-80s being the nucleus and the post-90s catching up in being the primary drivers of this transition.
“The Zdeer team has verified its innovation ability and potential consumer demand through the smart moxibustion box product. In the future, we believe it will continue to develop new products and upgrade the sector with more technological and intelligent products,” Pan added.
Bitcoin on Tuesday tumbled 12.57 percent from its record-breaking run after US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the “highly speculative” unit was an “extremely inefficient” way of conducting transactions and could be used for “illegal” activities.
On Sunday, the virtual currency blazed a record-breaking trail to peak at $58,350. A day later, Yellen said: “I don’t think that bitcoin ... is widely used as a transaction mechanism. To the extent it’s used, I fear it’s often for illicit finance.”
The amount of energy that’s consumed in processing bitcoin transactions is staggering.
Bitcoin’s fortunes began soaring following endorsement from Wall Street and thanks also to the Federal Reserve’s long-term quantitative easing policies and its stimulus package to help the country cope with the novel coronavirus pandemic, prompting large amounts of capital to look for assets to maintain their value.
However, when large tech corporations’ stock prices are inflated, investors begin putting staple commodities and bitcoin in their crosshair in a bid to hedge against the risks of the dollar’s fluctuations.
As such, the attention bitcoin has attracted speaks volumes of the failure of the US monetary policy and financial system. That investors regard bitcoin as a kind of asset they can use to hedge against risks demonstrates the US financial system’s increasing instability. The higher the price of bitcoin is, the more rampant the dollar’s liquidity becomes.
China should stay alert to the spillover effects from an excessively loose dollar that might trigger global inflation.
The prices of some staple commodities, such as oil and metals, are fast increasing, importing inflation to China and other countries. The fluctuation of US Treasury bonds and the dollar can also expose the global financial system to systemic uncertainties.
China should continue its prudent monetary policy and avoid the inflow of cheap liquidity into the domestic market, which might not only seriously affect the real economy, but also brew financial risks. The bubble that has been made larger and larger by the US since 2008 is now a pressing challenge to the world.