When we first started TheLowDown, we posted an article on “Global internet giants – Only American, Chinese, and maybe Indian” (In Part 1 and Part 2). In our opinion, China and US dominated global tech giants because of the following reasons:
- Large population with numerous metropolitan areas,
- big middle class, with disposable income and big consumption power
- single market,
- homogenous language,
- relatively homogenous consumption habits
Tech majors from other regions have to overcome a lot more challenges to become global (we are glad, and optimistic, that Singapore-headquartered SEA Group is making such an attempt).
A new set of statistics from the Chinese government probably shed some lights on this: 7 cities in China have (each) an urban population of more than 10 million; while 14 other cities boast (each) an urban population of between 5 million and 10 million.
The total urban population of these 21 cities is 205 million. There are only 7 countries with a total population of more than 200 million in this world, including China – let alone total urban population.
Now imagine the scale of nation-wide consumer tech businesses that manage to overcome all the domestic competition to reach the top in China.