{"id":110,"date":"2018-12-27T09:00:02","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T09:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/surfshields.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/27\/alibaba-just-gave-chinese-youth-another-reason-to-never-leave-their-desk\/"},"modified":"2018-12-27T09:00:02","modified_gmt":"2018-12-27T09:00:02","slug":"alibaba-just-gave-chinese-youth-another-reason-to-never-leave-their-desk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surfshields.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/27\/alibaba-just-gave-chinese-youth-another-reason-to-never-leave-their-desk\/","title":{"rendered":"Alibaba just gave Chinese youth another reason to never leave their desk"},"content":{"rendered":"
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People in China have a host of reasons not to go outdoors these days. They may be too busy to leave their office, wary of air pollution or have chosen to live isolated lives. Among them is an expanding young consumer base who prefers to dwell in the virtual world of video games, animes and comics over the tangible reality. More important, there\u2019s an endless list of startups pandering to their impulse to stay indoors with services from online shopping to food delivery.<\/p>\n

Two Chinese internet giants are chasing after this indoorsy crowd. Last week, food delivery giant Ele.me announced that it\u2019s teamed up with youth entertainment site Bilibili on a one-off\u00a0joint membership<\/a>\u00a0that will further keep young consumers at their desk.<\/p>\n

Ele.me, which means \u201care you hungry?\u201d in Chinese, was sold to <\/a>ecommerce behemoth Alibaba in April. Bilibili, which went public in the U.S. this year, started as a video streaming service focused on animes and has evolved into a one-stop destination for all things related to youth cultures: Animes, comics, cosplay, video games and other niches that you and I may fail to name.<\/p>\n

Their marriage gives subscribers the best of both worlds: Unlimited streaming of animes and deep discounts on food delivery orders. Bilibili has been doubling down on content investments in recent months, which saw it agree to buy out most of the comics assets of Netease,<\/a>\u00a0one of China\u2019s largest internet companies. What\u2019s better than binging on one\u2019s favorite anime series and not having to leave home when the stomach growls? (Whether this is a healthy lifestyle is another topic.)<\/p>\n

The promotion, which runs from December 23 to December 30, allows people to purchase the memberships of Bilibili and Ele.me at 25 yuan, or $3.63, a month. That\u2019s a 15 yuan discount from what users would have to pay were they to subscribe to the two services separately. The rationality behind the tie-up is an overlapping Generation Z user base. By 2017, about 82 percent of Bilibili\u2019s users are 8 to 28 years old<\/a>, according to a report by QuestMobile. Meanwhile, more than 60 percent of the users<\/a> who order food online in China are under 24 years old.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s food delivery market is set to top 243 billion yuan<\/a>, or $35 billion, by the end of 2018, according to\u00a0iiMedia. By then, China will have 355 million users of food delivery apps \u2014 or about 40 percent of its national population. Five years ago, there were just over 100 million users for this market.<\/p>\n

The boom\u00a0has\u00a0jacked up the price tags of market leaders Ele.me, which was valued at $9.5 billion<\/a> in the Alibaba deal, and Tencent-backed Meituan Dianping, which had a spectacular initial public offering<\/a>\u00a0in Hong Kong in September.<\/p>\n

Alibaba and Bilibili call their joint membership \u201cZhai E Kuai,\u201d a wordplay on \u201cbe otaku together.\u201d The Japanese word \u201cotaku\u201d originally means \u201csomeone else\u2019s venerable home\u201d and later took on a new life to describe someone who is so obsessed with a subject or hobby to the point of not leaving home. Bilibili\u2019s core users are often stereotypically described as otakus of animes or video games, though certainly not all of them shun the outside world.<\/p>\n

Aside from Bilibili, Alibaba has also been pally with Starbucks<\/a> as the two began integrating their rewards systems<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Memberships similar to Amazon Prime have become an increasingly popular tactic for China\u2019s tech giants to drive revenue growth. Alibaba, for instance, has lumped services of its portfolio companies under 88 Membership that spans\u00a0ecommerce (Tmall), fresh produce (Tmall), food delivery (Ele.me), video streaming (Youku), music streaming (Xiami), movie tickets (Taopiaopiao) among others. Tencent has taken a different approach to membership with its King Card mobile internet plan, a partnership with China\u2019s major telco that gives users unlimited data usage on apps in Tencent\u2019s ecosystem \u2014 from social networks, video streaming to games.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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