Tag: coronavirus

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China Roundup: Amid coronavirus, tech firms offer ways to maintain China’s lifeblood

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China Roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world. The coronavirus outbreak is posing a devastating impact on people’s life and the economy in China, but there’s a silver lining that the epidemic might have benefited a few players in the technology industry as the population remains indoors.

The SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus that infected thousands and killed hundreds in China back in 2002 is widely seen as a catalyst for the country’s fledgling e-commerce industry. People staying indoors to avoid contracting the deadly virus flocked to shop online. Alibaba’s Taobao, an eBay-like digital marketplace, notably launched at the height of the SARS outbreak.

“Although it sickened thousands and killed almost eight hundred people, the outbreak had a curiously beneficial impact on the Chinese internet sector, including Alibaba,” wrote China internet expert Duncan Clark in his biography of Alibaba founder Jack Ma.

Nearly two decades later, as the coronavirus outbreak sends dozens of Chinese cities into various kinds of lockdown, tech giants are again responding to fill consumers’ needs amid the crisis. Others are providing digital tools to help citizens and the government battle the disease.

According to data from analytics company QuestMobile, Chinese people’s average time spent on the mobile internet climbed from 6.1 hours a day in January, to 6.8 hours a day during Chinese New Year, to an astounding daily usage of 7.3 hours post-holiday as businesses delay returning to the office or resuming on-premises operation.

Here’s a look at what some of them are offering.

Remote work apps: Boom and crash

China’s enterprise software industry has been slow to take off in comparison to the West, though it’s slowly picking up steam as the country’s consumer-facing industry becomes crowded, prompting investors and tech behemoths to bet on more business-oriented services. Now remote work apps are witnessing a boom as millions are confined to working from home.

The online education sector is experiencing a similar uptick as schools nationwide are suspended, according to data from research firm Sensor Tower.

The main players trying to tap the nationwide work-from-home practice are Alibaba’s DingTalk, Tencent’s WeChat Work, and ByteDance’s Lark. App rankings compiled  by Sensor Tower show that all three apps experienced significant year-over-year growth in downloads from January 22 through February 20, though their user bases vary greatly:

DingTalk: 1,446%

Lark: 6,085%

WeChat Work: 572%

DingTalk, launched in 2014 by an Alibaba team after its failed attempt to take on WeChat, shot up to the most-downloaded free iOS app in China in early February. The app claimed in August that more than 10 million enterprises and over 200 million individual users had registered on its platform.

Dingtalk became China’s most-downloaded free iOS app mid the coronavirus outbreak. Data: Sensor Tower

WeChat’s enterprise version WeChat Work, born in 2016, trailed closely behind DingTalk, rising to second place among free iOS apps in the same period. In December, WeChat Work announced it had logged more than 2.5 million enterprises and some 60 million active users.

Lark, launched only in 2019, pales in comparison to its two predecessors, hovering around the 300th mark in early February. Nonetheless, Lark appears to be making a big user acquisition push recently by placing ads on its sibling Douyin, TikTok’s China version. Douyin has emerged as a marketing darling as advertisers rush to embrace vertical, short videos, and Lark can certainly benefit from exposure on the red-hot app. WeChat, despite its colossal one-billion monthly user base, has remained restrained in ad monetization.

The question is whether the sudden boom will develop into a sustainable growth trend for these apps. System crashes on DingTalk and WeChat Work due to user influx at the start of the remote working regime might suggest that neither had projected such traffic volumes on its growth curve. After all, most businesses are expected to resume in-person communication when safety conditions are ensured.

Indeed, the work-from-home model has been widely ill-received by employees who are frustrated with intrusive company rules like “keep your webcam on while working from home.” In a more unexpected turn, DingTalk suffered from a backlash after it added tools to host online classes for students. Resentful that the app had spoiled their extended holiday, young users flooded to give DingTalk one-star ratings.

Face mask algorithms

To curb the spread of the virus, local governments in China have mandated people to wear masks in public, posing a potential challenge to the country’s omnipresent facial recognition-powered identity checks. But the technologies necessary to handle the situation is already in place, such as iris scanning.

Travelers whom I spoke to reported they are now able to pass through train station security without taking their masks off — which could sound an alarm to privacy-conscious individuals. But it’s unclear whether the change is due to more advanced forms of biometrics technologies or that the authority had temporarily loosened security on low-risk individuals. People still have to scan their ID cards before getting their biometrics verified and travelers whose identities have been flagged could trigger stricter screening, people familiar with China’s AI industry told me. They added that the latter case is more probable, for it will take time to implement a nationwide infrastructure upgrade.

Digital passes

Local governments have also introduced tools for people to attain digital records of their travel history, which has become some sort of permit to go about their daily life, be it returning to work, their apartment, or even the city they live in.

One example is web-based app Close Contact Detector developed by a state-owned company. Users can obtain a record of their travel history by opting to submit their names, ID numbers and phone numbers. So far the app has drawn more scorn than praise for containing the virus, bringing people to the questions: If the government already has a grip on people’s travel history, why didn’t it react earlier to restrict the free flow of travelers? Why did it only introduce the service a few weeks after the first big outbreak?

All of this could point to the challenge of collecting and consolidating citizen data across departments and regions, despite China’s ongoing efforts to encourage the use of social credits nationwide through the use of real-name registration and big data. The health crisis appears to have accelerated this data-unification process. The pressing question is how the government will utilize these data following the outbreak.

Many of these digital permits are powered by WeChat on the merit of the messenger’s ubiquity and broad-ranging functions in Chinese society. In Shenzhen, where WeChat’s parent Tencent is headquartered, cars can only enter the city after the drivers use WeChat to scan a QR code hung by a drone — for the obvious reason to avoid contact with checkpoint officers — and digitally file their travel history.

Photo: Xinhua News

Citizen reporting

As the fast-spreading virus fuels rumors, individual citizens are playing an active role in combating misinformation. Dxy.cn (丁香园), an online community targeting medical professionals, responded swiftly with a fact-checking feature dedicated to the coronavirus and a national map tracking the development of the outbreak in real time.

Yikuang, the brainchild of several independent developers and app review site Sspai.com, is one of the first WeChat-based services to map neighborhoods with confirmed cases using official data from local governments.

Young citizens have also joined in. A Shanghai-based high school senior and his peers launched a blog that provides Chinese summaries of coronavirus coverage from news organizations around the world.

Dining and entertainment

The nationwide lockdown is almost guaranteed a boon to online entertainment. The short video sector recorded 569 million daily active users in the post-holiday period, far exceeding 492 million on a regular daily basis, shows QuestMobile. Video streaming sites are gathering musicians to virtually perform and movies are premiering online as the virus forces live venues and cinemas to shut.

Many Chinese cities have gone as far as to ban eating in restaurants during the epidemic, putting the burden on food and grocery delivery services. To ensure safety, delivery companies have devised ways to avoid human interaction, such as Meituan Dianping’s “contactless” solution, which is in effect a self-served cabinet to temporarily store food orders awaiting customer pickup.

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Do trade shows still matter in the age of online business?

The death of Mobile World Congress 2020 started as a trickle.

First, it was an understandably nervous ZTE. As a Chinese company, it was undoubtedly going to receive extra scrutiny — never mind that ZTE’s Shenzhen headquarters are a two-hour flight from Wuhan. Soon enough, South Korea’s LG backed out, followed by Nvidia and Ericsson.

By the weekend, as deaths from the coronavirus rose to more than 800 (surpassing SARS in the process), event organizers GSMA put strict guidelines in place for approximately 100,000 expected attendees:

  • No travelers from the Hubei province would be permitted access.
  • Attendees were required to prove that they were outside China for 14 days prior to the event (passport stamp, health certificate).
  • Temperature screening was to be implemented.
  • Attendees needed to self-certify they had not been in contact with anyone infected.

Ultimately, it was too late. Soon enough, Amazon was out and the list ballooned to dozens of companies, including AT&T, Intel, Nokia, Sony and Vodafone. Each offered a similar boilerplate response, noting the cost-benefit analysis for sending staff to a large international show amid concerns of a global epidemic.

PCMag’s Sascha Segan wrote a piece worth reading on “snowballing hysteria” around a trade show killed in a country that only had two reported cases at the time of cancellation. It’s a valid point, though speaking purely pragmatically, I can understand why companies felt obligated to back out.

If you want to give them the benefit of the doubt, there are some valid concerns about sending employees into the petri dish of colds and flus that is basically every trade show, coupled with the novelty of a new and still not completely understood virus. It can be difficult to balance concerns for employee safety with the need to resist panicking over media reports that tend to overemphasize threats.

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Daily Crunch: Apple blames coronavirus for revenue miss

Apple says the coronavirus outbreak will hurt its manufacturing and sales, Jeff Bezos makes a big commitment to fighting climate change and SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites. Here’s your Daily Crunch for February 18, 2020.

1. Apple will miss revenue forecast as coronavirus impacts its manufacturing and sales

In a letter to investors, Apple said that it “do[es] not expect to meet the revenue guidance we provided for the March quarter” due to impacts stemming from the coronavirus that has shuttered large parts of China, and is reverberating through the global economy.

As China’s return to work has proved halting, and the coronavirus itself more intractable than some anticipated, the company’s change in guidance is almost unsurprising — but that hasn’t stopped Apple’s stock price from falling this morning.

2. Jeff Bezos announced a $10 billion fund to fight climate change

Jeff Bezos announced on Instagram that he’s creating a $10 billion fund to combat climate change. He said the Bezos Earth Fund will finance “scientists, activists, NGOs — any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world.”

3. SpaceX successfully launches 60 more Starlink satellites but misses booster landing

SpaceX has launched a batch of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit, marking its fifth overall launch of a group of 60 of the small spacecraft, and its third this year alone. This launch brings the total Starlink constellation to 300 satellites in orbit, extending SpaceX’s lead as the largest commercial satellite operator in the world.

4. Redbox enters the free, ad-supported streaming market

Oddly, Redbox Free Live TV isn’t live at all — at least, not in the way that you’d get with a TV streaming service like YouTube TV or Hulu with Live TV. Instead, it offers a curated set of ad-supported movies and TV shows, similar to The Roku Channel, IMDb TV or TiVo Plus.

5. How TikTok decides who to make famous

The co-founders of video startup Trash take a deep dive into the TikTok ecosystem, particularly its extensive content moderation. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

6. Atomico raises new $820M fund to back ‘mission-driven’ European founders at Series A and beyond

The London-headquartered VC firm’s previous fund closed at $765 million, so this is an increase over three years ago. However, the remit remains largely the same. Atomico says it plans to double down on its strategy of backing “mission-driven” European founders at Series A, but with the ability to invest in what it calls “breakout” companies at the Series B and C stage.

7. Black haircare startup Naza Beauty just raised $1 million from Alexis Ohanian’s Initialized Capital

At its most basic level, it’s like Drybar — with a menu of styles — but for women of color. On the tech side, Naza’s software functions as a booking and payments platform, which also learns the styles of each customer and then makes product recommendations.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

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GMSA cancels Mobile World Congress due to coronavirus concerns

The GSMA, the organization behind MWC, the world’s largest mobile trade show, has announced that it is officially canceling the show. MWC usually attracts over 100,000 attendees from 200 countries to Barcelona. This year’s show was supposed to take place on February 24-27.

Several publications received a statement about the cancellation. “The GSMA has cancelled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern and other circumstances, make it impossible for the GSMA to hold the event,” GSMA CEO John Hoffman told Bloomberg and the Financial Times. El Diario, El País and La Vanguardia also report that the show has been canceled.

The GSMA has now published a statement confirming its decision to cancel — writing:

Since the first edition of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2006, the GSMA has convened the industry, governments, ministers, policymakers, operators and industry leaders across the broader ecosystem.

With due regard to the safe and healthy environment in Barcelona and the host country today, the GSMA has cancelled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern and other circumstances, make it impossible for the GSMA to hold the event.

The Host City Parties respect and understand this decision.

The GSMA and the Host City Parties will continue to be working in unison and supporting each other for MWC Barcelona 2021 and future editions.

Our sympathies at this time are with those affected in China, and all around the world.

Further updates from the GSMA, are on our website and can be found on www.mwcbarcelona.com.

Over the past few days, dozens of big names announced that they would skip this year’s show. LG first announced that it wouldn’t attend the trade show, citing safety concerns related to the coronavirus outbreak. Nvidia and Ericsson followed suit.

On Sunday, the GSMA sent a long coronavirus-related email to registered attendees. The association wanted to reassure attendees by demonstrating that it would implement tough restrictions.

Here’s what GSMA CEO John Hoffman wrote:

  • All travellers from the Hubai province will not be permitted access to the event
  • MWC Barcelona, Four Years From Now (4YFN), xside and YoMo
  • All travellers who have been in China will need to demonstrate proof they have been outside of China 14 days prior to the event (passport stamp, health certificate)
  • Temperature screening will be implemented
  • Attendees will need to self-certify they have not been in contact with anyone infected.

But that email made things even worse.

Dozens of companies pulled out of the trade show. In other words, some of the top consumer electronics and telecom companies got scared. And those who thought that GSMA had things under control started to cancel their attendance as well — it wasn’t worth going to Barcelona if many important partners had already canceled.

Some of the companies that announced they wouldn’t be attending include Amazon, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Facebook, HMD, Intel, LG, Nokia, NTT Docomo, Sony and Sprint.

GSMA’s lawyers wanted to make sure that the association wouldn’t be held accountable if there was a single case of coronavirus at the show. But they started another virus — companies pulling out one by one.

A list of MWC coronavirus cancellations so far: Nokia, Facebook, AT&T, Sprint, Intel now also staying away

As companies usually spend millions of dollars to secure exhibit space and send large teams, canceling MWC altogether is going to be an unexpected financial blow for the GSMA.

According to a report from El País, the GSMA originally planned to meet on Friday and consider the next steps. The association held an emergency meeting earlier today in order to take a decision more quickly.

MWC originally started as a trade show for carriers. Big telecom companies would meet up with hardware vendors and discuss the evolution of telecommunications networks. More recently, phone manufacturers started attending the show to talk with telecom companies and unveil their latest products. Big tech companies, such as Facebook and Amazon, have also had a formal presence in recent years as they have developed important ties with the mobile industry.

According to the World Health Organization, there are over 43,000 cases of coronavirus around the world. Over 1,000 people have died.

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A list of MWC coronavirus cancellations so far

The world’s biggest mobile tradeshow, Mobile World Congress (MWC), is due to take place in Barcelona just under two weeks’ time, on February 24-27.

The annual international telco industry event typically attracts more than 100,000 delegates from around 200 countries across the conference’s four days — with every major telco and tech giant exhibiting (with the exception of Apple which prefers its own events).

But with international concern now focused on the novel coronavirus outbreak, which was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization late last month, a growing number of companies have announced they are pulling out of attending. Others, such as Telenor, TCL and ZTE, have cancelled press events or said they will scale back their presence though are still planning to attend.

MWC’s organizer, the GSMA, has announced a series of restrictions intended to reduce the risk of the coronavirus infections at the conference, including a ban on travellers coming from the province in China where the virus was first identified. It has also said it will implement temperature screening of attendees; require conference-goers self-certify they have not come into contact with an infected person; and is suggesting delegates adopt a ‘no hand shake’ policy in a bid to limit contact.

See below for a list of companies that have cancelled their attendance at the conference — we’ll update with any additions as we get them

Companies that have cancelled their attendance at MWC 2020

Accedian

Amazon

Amdocs

CommScope

Ericsson

Intel

LG

Mediatek

NTT Docomo

Nvidia

Sony

Vivo

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Sony latest phone maker to pull out of MWC over coronavirus outbreak

Japanese electronics firm Sony is the latest phone maker to announce it’s withdrawing from the Mobile World Congress (MWC) tradeshow — citing concerns about the coronavirus outbreak.

“As we place the utmost importance on the safety and wellbeing of our customers, partners, media and employees, we have taken the difficult decision to withdraw from exhibiting and participating at MWC 2020 in Barcelona, Spain,” Sony wrote in a press release.

MWC is due to take place in Barcelona between February 24-27.

Sony said it will now run a press conference planned for the event remotely, via its official Xperia YouTube channel, at the scheduled time of 8:30am (CET) on February 24.

“Sony would like to thank everyone for their understanding and ongoing support during these challenging times,” it added.

In recent days a number of companies have announced they’re pulling out or scaling back their presence at the conference as a result of concerns about the spread of the virus — including Amazon, Ericsson, LG, NVIDIA and ZTE.

The World Health Organization dubbed the emergence and spread of the novel coronavirus a global emergency late last month.

At the time of writing the majority of infections and deaths from the virus remain in China, where the virus was first identified — in the town of Wuhan in the Hubei province.

Several Chinese tech companies, including ZTE and Xiaomi, have said they will make changes to their participation in MWC related to coronavirus concerns, such as placing limits on staff travelling from China or requiring they self isolate in the period before attending.

[Updated] LG withdraws from MWC due to coronavirus-related concerns

Yesterday the organizers of MWC, the GSMA, also announced stringent rules to try to safeguard attendees, including a ban on travellers from Hubei and a requirement that all travellers who have been in China must be able to prove they have been outside the country 14 days prior to the event.

Attendees will also be required to self-certify they have not been in contact with anyone affected, the GSMA said. Temperature screening will also be implemented at the event.

Last year the annual mobile tech conference drew almost 110,000 attendees, from 198 countries.

“While further planning is underway, we will continue to monitor the situation and will adapt our plans according to developments and advice we receive. We are contending with a constantly evolving situation, that will require fast adaptability,” the GSMA also said.

Attendance at MWC has regularly broken 100,000 in recent years but 2020’s conference seems likely to mark a break with business as usual as companies face pressure to rethink their travel priorities.

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Amazon withdraws from MWC over coronavirus-related concerns

Amazon is the latest company to cancel its plans for the Mobile World Congress, which will take place later this month in Barcelona, over coronavirus-related concerns.

In a statement emailed to TechCrunch, an Amazon spokesperson said “due to the outbreak and continued concerns about novel coronavirus, Amazon will withdraw from exhibiting and participating in Mobile World Congress 2020, scheduled for Feb. 24-27 in Barcelona, Spain.”

Other companies that have cancelled or scaled back their plans for MWC due to the outbreak include LG, NVIDIA and Ericsson. The event’s organizer, GSMA, recently issued a new statement about precautions it is taking, including a ban on visitors from Hubei province, where the epidemic is believed to have begun.

As top exhibitors pull out of MWC, organizers implement stringent safeguards

 

The vast majority of people affected by coronavirus are in China, where there have been 908 deaths and 40,171 confirmed infections, as of the time this article was posted. The outbreak has also led to a wave of anti-Asian racism and xenophobia across the world.

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As top exhibitors pull out of MWC, organizers implement stringent safeguards

A couple of weeks out, Mobile World Congress organizer, the GSMA, has issued some fairly sweeping safeguards over growing concerns around the coronavirus. After a number of high profile back outs, including ZTE, LG, NVIDIA and Ericsson, the company issued a new list, including a ban of visitors originating from the Hubei province, whose capital Wuhan is believed to be the origin of the epidemic.

Per GSMA CEO John Hoffman,

  • All travelers from the Hubei province will not be permitted access to the event

  • All travelers who have been in China will need to demonstrate proof they have been outside of China 14 days prior to the event (passport stamp, health certificate)

  • Temperature screening will be implemented

  • Attendees will need to self-certify they have not been in contact with anyone infected.

[Updated] LG withdraws from MWC due to coronavirus-related concerns

More than 800 people have died from the virus, surpassing the 774 people who were killed by SARS circa 2002-2003. Hoffman adds that the organizer will be increasing a disinfectant program around the site and promoting a “no handshake policy.” As the organization notes, some 5,000-6,000 people from China attend the show each year, accounting for around 5-6 percent of visitors.

The GSMA is clearly interested in addressing concerns over the virus, while limiting further attendee or exhibitor erosion. The release quotes Catalan health minister Alba Vergés, who notes, “The Catalan health system is prepared to detect and treat coronavirus, to give the most appropriate response, and this must be clear to those attending MWC Barcelona.”

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LG and ZTE withdraw from MWC due to coronavirus-related concerns

LG Electronics and ZTE said they have cancelled plans to participate in MWC later this month in Barcelona, Spain, because of coronavirus-related concerns. In a statement on its site, LG said it will skip MWC, the world’s largest mobile trade show, and launch this year’s releases at separate events “in the near future” instead.

“With the safety of its employees, partners and customers foremost in mind, LG has decided to withdraw from exhibiting and participating in MWC 2020 later this month in Barcelona, Spain,” the statement from LG, headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, read. “This decision removes the risk of exposing hundreds of LG employees to international travel which has already become more restrictive as the virus continues to spread across borders.”

Shenzhen, China-based ZTE also announced today it will skip MWC today, telling the Verge that it cancelled its press conference because of travel and visa delays, but also because “[we] tend to be an overly courteous company, and simply don’t want to make people uncomfortable.”

The coronavirus outbreak has disrupted travel and supply chains around the world. While the vast majority of cases reported have been inside China, the outbreak has also led to a wave of open racism and xenophobia targeted at people of Asian descent around the world.

In a statement posted on its site today, MWC organizers GSMA said it “continues to monitor and assess the potential impact of the coronavirus on its MWC20 events held annually in Barcelona, Shanghai and Los Angeles and as well as the Mobile 360 Series of regional conferences. The GSMA confirms that there is minimal impact on the event thus far.”

All Barcelona events taking place February 24 to 27 will go on as scheduled. GSMA previously announced the measures it is taking to prevent the spread of the virus, including increased cleaning and disinfection of high-traffic areas, including catering areas, handrails, bathrooms, entrances and exits and touchscreens and more onsite medical support. It also said it will have a “mic change protocol” for speakers, and advise all attendees to “adopt a ‘no-handshake policy.”