Can China’s Tech Giants Do Without Consumers?
Slashing prices and launching aggressive campaigns isn’t opening pocketbooks. Beijing must spur spending.
Bringing back consumers.
Photographer: NurPhoto/Getty Images
Earnings reports from Chinese tech companies last week should be a wake-up call for Beijing.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and JD.com Inc. pulled out all the stops to attract customers to spend during their 618 shopping festival, a Black Friday-like extravaganza that took place during the quarter ending in June. They offered steeper-than-ever discounts on everything from iPhones to loungewear, enlisted A-list celebrities like Rihanna to promote products, and even experimented with a digital avatar of an executive to hawk goods over livestream. But Alibaba’s revenue from its core e-commerce platforms fell by some 1.4%, and retail revenue at JD.com, which offered some of the most cut-throat markdowns, ticked up by 1.5%.