Shein, the online fast fashion retailer founded in China, has more than doubled its profits to more than $2bn (£1.6bn) as it awaits approval for a stock market listing in New York or London. The company, which is growing rapidly around the world by using social media to promote its goods, recorded sales of about $45bn last year, according to a report in the Financial Times based on information from sources close to the company. Shein, which has moved its headquarters to Singapore, is among the most profitable fashion companies…
Tag: Singapore
Big American Tech Profits From Chinese Ad Spending Spree
The trade relationship between China and the United States has plenty of friction. But at least one area is booming: Chinese start-ups looking to establish a presence in the West are spending billions of dollars for advertisements on services owned by some of Silicon Valley’s biggest technology companies. Temu, the international arm of the Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, is flooding Google with ads for absurdly inexpensive goods. With an initial public offering looming, the fast-fashion merchant Shein is inundating Instagram with ads for clothes and accessories at rock-bottom prices. Developers…
South-east Asia’s quirky, sweary shopping stars cashing in on livestream selling
There are times when other customers browsing the malls in Gifu city, Japan, seem to wonder why Kenneth Gongon Watanabe is buying so many items, and why he is talking so energetically on his phone. But the goods in his trolleys – which can range from hoards of shoes and anime socks, to stacks of Japanese sweets and matcha latte powders – are not for him. They’re actually being bought by dozens of customers in Watanabe’s home country, the Philippines, who follow live on Facebook as he browses the shops.…
Li Shangfu: China’s defence minister at Shangri-La Dialogue warns of ‘cold war mentality’ in digs at US
China’s defence minister, Li Shangfu, has said a cold war mentality is resurgent in the Asia-Pacific region, but Beijing seeks dialogue over confrontation. The remarks came after Li refused to formally meet the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Speaking at the dialogue, Asia’s top security summit, on Sunday, Li took thinly veiled digs at the US, repeating familiar grievances and accusing “some countries” of intensifying an arms race and interfering in the internal affairs of others. “A cold war mentality is now resurgent, greatly…
Washington won’t stand for China ‘bullying’ US allies, Lloyd Austin tells security summit
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has vowed that Washington will not stand for any “coercion and bullying” of its allies and partners by China, while assuring Beijing that the US remains committed to maintaining the status quo on Taiwan and would prefer dialogue over conflict. Speaking in Singapore at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s top security summit, Austin lobbied for support for Washington’s vision of a “free, open and secure Indo-Pacific within a world of rules and rights” as the best course to counter increasing Chinese assertiveness in the region.…
China Wants to Set the Terms of Any ‘Thaw’ With the U.S.
For a few weeks, a flurry of meetings between American and Chinese officials seemed to signal that the two countries were trying to reduce tensions, after months of rancor and frozen high-level contacts raised concerns about the risk of a conflict, accidental or otherwise. First the U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, in Vienna, in May. Then the two countries’ top commerce officials held talks, the first bilateral cabinet-level meeting in Washington in months. China’s ambassador also arrived in Washington last week, finally…
From Facebook intern to the crosshairs of Congress: TikTok chief’s stellar rise
Shou Zi Chew has said the most gruelling experience of his life was a five-day survival course in the jungles of Borneo when he was serving as a conscript in Singapore’s armed forces. The TikTok chief executive, whose trans-global academic and business career has rapidly propelled him to the top job at one of the world’s biggest tech companies, will need to display some of that mettle as he battles to ensure the corporate survival of the controversial but immensely popular social video app. The 40-year-old Singaporean, who faces questioning…
Entrepreneurs Flee China’s Heavy Hand: ‘You Don’t Have to Stay There’
“Singapore will not crack down on a company or an industry outside its legal framework,” said Chen Yong, founder of Pionex, a cryptocurrency exchange, who moved there from Beijing in 2021. “Its policies have more continuity.” Mr. Chen and others I met in Singapore said they had no intention of moving to Hong Kong, despite that city’s enthusiastic attempts to woo people like them in recent months. For decades, Hong Kong played the role of safe haven for mainland entrepreneurs because of its autonomy from China. That crumbled after Beijing…
As China Reopens Its Borders, Mixed Feelings at Home and Abroad
HONG KONG — Over the past three years, Zhou Wanhui, a Hong Kong resident, has visited her parents in China just three times. Though they live only two hours away by train, Covid restrictions made it so difficult to cross the Hong Kong border into mainland China that one of Ms. Zhou’s trips included a three-hour flight to Shanghai and nearly a month of quarantine in two cities. Families like Ms. Zhou’s — kept apart for weddings and funerals, birthdays and graduations — are finally preparing for less arduous reunions.…
As China Lifts Pandemic Border Controls, Mixed Feelings at Home and Abroad
HONG KONG — Over the past three years, Zhou Wanhui, a Hong Kong resident, has visited her parents in China just three times. Though they live only two hours away by train, Covid restrictions made it so difficult to cross the Hong Kong border into mainland China that one of Ms. Zhou’s trips included a three-hour flight to Shanghai and nearly a month of quarantine in two cities. Families like Ms. Zhou’s — kept apart for weddings and funerals, birthdays and graduations — are finally preparing for less arduous reunions.…