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We update you on the most essential news from Asia in tech, media, and business—the things you need to know that you probably haven’t heard in Western media.
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Jack Ma, Founder of Alibaba, Summoned to Indian Court 👩⚖️
A former Indian employee of Chinese company UC Browser has filed a lawsuit against Alibaba, UC Browser’s parent company. He claims that he was wrongfully fired after bringing up issues of censorship and fake news on the company’s apps. The employee, Pushpandra Singh Parmar, alleges that UC Browser censored content unfavorable to China and promoted fake news that caused “social and political turmoil.” As a result, an Indian court has summoned Alibaba and specifically founder Jack Ma to appear before an Indian judge.
UC Browser is a web browser that was the second most popular browser in India with over 130 million users. The Indian government banned UC Browser last month, along with 58 other Chinese mobile apps. The allegations made by the employee will add to the current political tensions between the two countries. While Jack Ma was the face of Alibaba for many years, he has been retired since 2018. At this point, summoning him to court is more a symbolic gesture.
Burberry + Tencent Launch World’s First ‘Social Retail’ Store in China 🧣
Luxury fashion brand Burberry has worked with Chinese tech giant Tencent to launch what they are calling the world’s first ‘social retail’ store in Shenzhen, China. What makes this store unique?
Every single product has an associated QR code you can scan with your mobile phone to learn more information about the product. When you enter the store, there’s an interactive window that mimics a runway and displays a shape resembling your body movement. Pretty much every element of the store is interactive, doubles as a social space, or is part art-installation. If you use Burberry’s WeChat mini-program, you can unlock exclusive content and receive personalised offers. This includes a type of Burberry special ‘social currency,’ a kind of next generation rewards program. The store delivers an exciting new way to look at physical + digital retail innovation in China. By testing this new concept, Burberry and Tencent should learn a lot about what works or what doesn’t work in the future of retail.
Bilibili’s Push for Exclusive League of Legends Rights 🥇
League of Legends (LoL) is one of the biggest e-sports on the globe. The 2019 LoL World Championship drew 100 million viewers and the 2020 World Championship is still scheduled to take place in Shanghai in September.
Riot Games, the developer behind League of Legends, just announced a three-year deal granting the exclusive streaming rights of LoL events to Chinese video platform Bilibili. Bilibili is one of these Chinese Youtube-ish equivalents, but it has the youngest audience out of all the major video platforms and is focused on the Anime-Comics-Gaming (ACG) sub-culture. In a press release, Bilibili COO Carly Lee said that the number of views of esports videos on Bilibili reached 44 Billion in 2019.
This is a really big move for Bilibili. It’s the equivalent of getting exclusive rights to broadcast the Super Bowl of E-Sports. In traditional sports, these rights deals are usually the most lucrative revenue for a league and the rights are usually granted for multiple years. With these rights, Bilibili is also creating more content around League of Legends like documentaries and other commentary videos. There are plenty of other ways they can monetise these rights. If there’s an industry that is growing, it’s E-sports. By buying the exclusive rights now, Bilibili is making a shrewd bet on what’s the fastest growing sports industry.
Update #42 - Jack Ma, Burberry's Store, and League of Legends