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Corruption is an inefficiency of China, but the Chinese market is much larger than the American one. Compare the 1350 million mainland Chinese to the 350 millio
by eric-hu 10y ago
Corruption is an inefficiency of China, but the Chinese market is much larger than the American one. Compare the 1350 million mainland Chinese to the 350 million English speaking north Americans. A Chinese startup has 4x the potential customers. There's a lot of room for inefficiency.
I'm currently in Singapore. Some entrepreneurs here lament the small market size. The population is 5 million. Though it's highly educated and affluent, national and cultural borders set upper bounds on software startups. Creative (of Soundblaster fame) was the last really big Singaporean tech company. Software startups here can't quite compete with big country startups because they don't have the population to grow their user base. Exporting their software means going through translation work, redoing their marketing for a different culture and adapting to new laws. Now when I consider a country in the reverse position like China...
- Retric 10y agoThis really depends on what you are selling. China is a huge market for soft drinks and fast food, but BMW really can't care less for people making under 20k/year. Singapore's total population size is less important to a restaurant than the number of people near your store.
- eric-hu 10y agoOkay, let's run with your counter argument. In 2015, BMW sold 463000 cars in China, and 346000 cars in the USA. This was not the first year that China was BMW's largest market. Last year was the first year that China was the largest market for Mercedes and Porsche. America was the second largest market for both companies. http://www.best-selling-cars.com/china/2015-full-year-german-luxury-car-sales-worldwide-and-in-china/ http://www.best-selling-cars.com/china/2015-full-year-german... http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bmw-group-us-reports-december-and-2015-sales-300199606.html http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bmw-group-us-reports...
- taobility 10y agoAmerica cowboys still live in the American Dream that USA still the only powerhouse of the world. Actually, USA and EU are declining dramatically in the past few years, and will faster in the coming years, considering about the political chaos, racial and religion conflicts, politic correction jokes.
- PopsiclePete 10y agoAnd who's gonna take over? China? Laughable. Let me know when Xu Jinping's daughter transfers from a US college to the Shanghai Polytechnical Institute. Let me know when the millions of rich Chinese stop parking their cash in San Francisco and Vancouver and instead "invest" in a smoggy Beijing suburb, please! Let me know when China stops destroying its environment and handles its "we-killed-so-many-female-fetuses-we-dont-know-what-to-do-with-these-young-men" problem, which usually means wide-scale unrest and violence. I'll believe you when the rich and successful Chinese start believing in China. And if the US and EU are so awful, how come everyone still wants to come over here and nobody is clamoring for the cushy, comfortable life-style of a Chinese factory worker ???
- Retric 10y ago1.3x sales with 4x the population proves my point. BMW is a mid+ brand (1 series is 25k) who does not care about total population just population with sufficient income.
- eric-hu 10y agoThat's interesting. It demonstrates my point that a large machine is not to be disregarded just because of its inefficiencies.