Windows Marketplace was blocked. But the bigger story is how no one cares.

Okay, so I'm not too surprised as the iPhone is officially available in China while Windows Phone (WP) is not. WP can be purchased in some computer markets but not officially through a phone carrier.

In fact, I just realized while writing this post that I have never seen one in public. And why would I? There is not yet Chinese character input (which is supposedly on its way). It is unfortunate that those few people (I mean very, very few people) with Windows Phones did have access partically blocked to their app marketplace. But that is not the important story. The important story is how Microsoft is a complete non-player in what I, and I'm sure others, consider the world's most important mobile market. 

Apple certainly understands China's importance, with China becoming the fastest growing iPhone market in the world (all while beating Lenovo on their home soil). I know I keep mentioning this but it needs merits further mentioning: you see iPhones and iPads everyone in China's large cities, whether on buses, in coffee shops, on metros, in CEO offices, or by way of fake iOS GPS lookalike. Apple has complete brand awareness. And this explosion has all happened in the last 3 years. 

While every fifth person has an iPhone, the other four have one Android, one Nokia, and two simple candy bars. I really want to like WP and the new Nokia WP phone is very tempting, but how has it taken this long for WP to officially enter the Chinese market? From my daily experience, Chinese consumers are not waiting around for it or even know of it.

The only hope WP still has is Nokia. The company's image is still very strong (probably only second to Apple's) but their Windows Phone phone needs to come out in China before the end of this year. Almost every executive now has an iPhone or an Android phone and a new iPhone 5 is going to be huge for that market segment. But it seems there is 20% or so that still use and value Nokia. I was even tempted at one point to buy a WP but the lack of Asian character input made it impossible. Nokia and Microsoft need to get this phone out quickly, and it needs to have Chinese character input. If not, Apple has the high-end Chinese market won. 

P.S. I foresee a problem with WP ownership in China as the tightening integration of the platform with Facebook may be unusable here. Facebook is completely blocked and this integration would only be accessible by use of a VPN running in the background (I have a VPN on my iPhone but it drains the battery quickly). I cannot confirm if Facebook functionality is usable or not as there is not a single WP in public to test this theory. So it is currently just a theory. 

P.P.S. Another non-story is BlackBerry. I see so few, I actually felt compelled to sneak a photo of a Chinese military man next to me on the airplane using a BlackBerry. This is one of the scariest photos I have ever taken. Note the Rogers carrier branding. 

I knew it as soon as I saw their Superbowl ad: trouble for Groupon in China

Groupon has started closing offices and it seems their initial expansion plans were just too ambitious. The truth is, they were stumbling even before they officially entered the Chinese market. 

I was watching last season's Superbowl and luckily had access to the American TV feed (thank you Slingbox). There I was, sitting at my computer, watching the commercials, when the Groupon spot hit featuring a Tibetan restaurant and some mentions of topics that should probably not be discussed when in China. It was one of those moments when you're sitting alone, see something bewildering, turn to imaginary people in the room and say, "was I the only one who saw that?" 

Apparently I wasn't the only one, as a few days later I found an article from the Shanghaiist wondering with the same sense of astonishment as mine how a company planning such an ambition expansion program in China could make such a stupid mistake of a commercial. I was glad to know I wasn't alone. 

Groupon's China home page. I forgot to take a picture of their Shenzhen metro ads. Sorry.

Then in June, I read a great article on Gigaom comparing Groupon's China strategy with Ebay's, which is to say making the same mistake as other well intentioned tech brands and "treating China just like home." I thought the article brought up a great point about how large China's regional differences truly are and how this prohibits the type of central calling centers Groupon has replied upon in the US. 

China is not one country. Someone in the north doesn’t eat the same food as in the south. And a restaurant owner in another province won’t even understand what a salesperson from a call center in Beijing is saying, the accents are so different. It would be the equivalent of having someone in Paris call.

This is completely true. I previously had a Chinese friend that told me I shouldn't ask her to help me learn Chinese because her's was bad. I asked how that could be and apparently she grew up speaking a completely different dialect that sounds nothing like Mandarin. Throw in some very difficult-to-understand accents and widely varying cultures and you start to understand how complex of a job it is to market to the Chinese mainland as a whole. The only sure bet seems to be that everyone loves KFC, no matter the region. Everything else is hit and miss. 

Groupon, please be smart and start treating China like China, not like home. I'll be watching you. 

Surprisingly ku metro benches (if metro benches can be cool)

They are cool in Shenzhen. The benches are different at each Metro station and are like small art installations. The ones above are at the new Shenzhen Metro airport station. Not as artistic as at other stations, but they still caught my eye nonetheless.

New limits on government car buying

China has implemented a new law to reduce the cost the government spends on vehicles (and in the process hopefully limit future fraud). This new law limits the displacement of the engine (to 1.8 litres) and maximum cost ($27,950) of newly purchased government vehicles. There is also a limit on how many vehicles can be purchased. This new law will hopefully have the result of stopping police from buying Mercedes MLs and rebadging them as Honda CR-Vs. 

Pornography and the little black bag

Speaking of pornography in China, this reminded me of China's black bags. The numerous illegal DVD stands that would pop up at night had what they called "black bags." When you asked for the black bag, the person would first look around to see if any police were near, and would then go over to the nearest bush and pull out an actual black bag. This garbage bag would be full of porn DVDs (mostly Japanese). One of my friends when I was first in Shenzhen explained this trick to me but I'm not sure how he found out about it ; )

When walking by these DVD stands, my friends and I would always joke that one of us should go over and ask to see the secret black bag. That was a few years ago. Not sure if these little places still have the black bags, mostly because there are not many of these little stands left. Security guards and police are more and more refusing to let these stands be set up at night, especially in nicer areas.  

World's best-selling beer is Chinese, but it's not sold in a bag

What brand is it? Snow Beer. Although if you would ask most foreigners in China, I bet most would have guessed Tsingtao Beer. I would have guessed this also before I heard that Snow was the largest a few years ago.

I would usually then put a picture of people drinking Snow Beer below but I don't have a picture of people drinking Snow Beer because every single person I know in China, including me, doesn't really drink Snow Beer. So instead I have put a picture of someone buying Tsingtao Beer in a bag. It's a Qingdao thing. 

China's BYD carmaker has only sold 480 electric cars thus far

Some problems for BYD and its profit outlook. I have only seen two BYD e6 electric cars and both of them happened to be Shenzhen taxis (I haven't seen them for 6 months though). I rode in one of them and took the below pictures. Was very smooth and comfortable, but the batteries didn't seem to be as well integrated as other electric cars I have seen. You could clearly see the large rise in the back floor where the batteries were. There is also absolutely no electric charging infrastructure here (as far as I can tell). I have never seen any sort of electric charging station, although there must be at least one for these taxis to charge.