I. Report Summary
- Chinese enterprises are leveraging digital technologies to enhance their competitiveness, while some overseas market demands have yet to be fully explored, providing opportunities and space for Chinese companies to go global. At present, Chinese overseas enterprises have formed a relatively complete ecosystem, including globalized overseas brands and various upstream and downstream service providers.
- Chinese overseas enterprises are expanding from mature fields to tracks such as cultural entertainment, pharmaceuticals, and new technologies, mainly choosing three overseas paths: overseas mergers and acquisitions, investment in self-construction, and supplier cooperation. In the future, Chinese overseas enterprises will face challenges such as economic, legal, and cultural differences, supply chain stability, and talent management. They need to enhance their competitiveness from new technologies, new products, and new management, and accelerate their overseas expansion to seek new growth.
II. Overview of China's Industrial Overseas Development
1. Driving Force Analysis
- Technology: Digital technologies such as AI, blockchain, and IoT empower Chinese enterprises throughout the entire overseas chain, from pre-expansion research to manufacturing, distribution, and marketing, driving intelligent upgrades of the supply chain, providing high-value products to consumers, lowering the threshold and operational difficulty for going global, and establishing their own competitive advantages.
- Market: The domestic market is becoming saturated, while some overseas markets present development opportunities, attracting Chinese enterprises to go global in search of high-profit spaces. Developed countries and emerging economies are the main destinations for Chinese enterprises going global. Emerging economies are mostly in a period of accelerated economic development, with increasing internet penetration, a good consumption base, low labor and land costs, and a series of policies to attract foreign investment; consumers in developed regions have higher purchasing power and good consumption habits, and the market system is mature.
2. Overseas Industrial Ecosystem Analysis
- Industrial Ecosystem Map: The Chinese overseas industrial ecosystem mainly includes overseas brands and various upstream and downstream service providers. Overseas enterprises choose three overseas development paths—overseas mergers and acquisitions, investment in self-construction, and supplier cooperation—based on their industry, development status, and target market characteristics. The Chinese overseas industry is gradually diversifying, transforming from labor-intensive industries to high-end, intelligent, and both soft and hard strengths, with the popularity of technology-intensive tracks continuing to rise and the overseas ecosystem gradually improving.
- Overseas Paths: Investment in self-construction requires higher operational and personnel standards, but companies can choose suitable construction methods according to their own situation; supplier cooperation allows for faster market entry and lower capital requirements, but core resources such as traffic are controlled by suppliers, reducing enterprise profitability; overseas mergers and acquisitions can quickly enter overseas markets but require higher capital, and subsequent team and business integration and effective control of the acquired company are more difficult.
- Overseas Industries: Chinese overseas industries are gradually expanding from games, manufacturing, and e-commerce to tracks such as cultural entertainment, pharmaceuticals, and new technologies. Information technology, advanced manufacturing, and healthcare are the three industries with the highest enthusiasm for going global, with healthcare ranking first in the number of overseas enterprises at 29.45%.
- Service Providers: Overseas service providers offer various services such as marketing, technology, payment, and logistics to overseas enterprises, mainly divided into two development paths: going overseas with clients and directly serving overseas markets. The former already has client resources and understands client situations better, improving the overseas industrial ecosystem, but has fewer clients; the latter has more complete localization transformation, broader market space, and greater brand influence, but it is more difficult to enter the local market.
III. Current Status of Key Chinese Industries Going Global
1. New Energy Vehicles
- Development Stage: China's new energy vehicle industry is shifting from product export to "capacity + industrial chain" export, going through three stages: product export, capacity export, and industrial chain export.
- Overseas Markets: The export volume of new energy vehicles has increased year by year, becoming a new main force in automotive exports. Western Europe and Southeast Asia are the core export markets, while penetration in Northern and Southern Europe is relatively low.
- Overseas Modes: Due to trade protection measures in some developed countries in Europe and America, China's new energy vehicle exports face challenges. At the same time, some developing countries and Central and Eastern European countries have introduced tax reduction or subsidy policies for overseas investment. Chinese new energy vehicle manufacturers choose localized production and autonomous transportation models according to the policies of different overseas destinations to avoid trade barriers and enhance international competitiveness.
2. AI Applications
- Application Scenarios: B-end AI applications are mainly concentrated in enterprise-level SaaS, cross-border e-commerce, and AI education, focusing on "AI + industry"; C-end AI applications are mainly implemented in multimodal content generation, chatbots, etc.
- Participants: The main forces in Chinese AI applications going global include internet giants, established overseas enterprises, startups, and independent developers.
- Commercialization Progress: The market penetration rate of AI applications is low, commercialization is still in its early stages, and mature business models have not yet formed. Vendors need to make localized adjustments according to actual conditions, avoid homogeneous competition, and establish stable and sustainable business models as soon as possible.
3. Medical Devices
- Development History: The overseas expansion of domestic medical devices is divided into three stages: OEM export, trade export, and independent brand export. Currently, the accumulation and overseas expansion of independent brands is accelerating.
- Market Status: Global demand for medical devices continues to grow. After a surge in China's medical device exports in 2020, there was a slight decline, but excluding the impact of epidemic prevention materials, there was still significant growth from 2019 to 2023. The proportion of overseas revenue from high-value consumables and IVD has increased the most, with high-value consumables highly recognized by overseas markets.
- Overseas Path: "AI + medical devices" is an important path for Chinese medical enterprises to transform and upgrade overseas. The US is the world's largest AI medical device market, and Chinese AI medical companies can leverage technological innovation barriers to enter the high-end medical device market.
4. Cross-border E-commerce
- Market Size: Driven by consumer demand, new technologies, and policies, China's cross-border e-commerce scale continues to grow, with import and export volume reaching 1.22 trillion yuan in the first half of 2024.
- Business Model: Cross-border e-commerce mainly relies on third-party platforms or self-built independent sites. Brand sellers tend to prefer the DTC model, while factory sellers mainly adopt the full-hosting model.
- Platform Competition: Well-known e-commerce platforms have launched different strategies to seize the market, with full-hosting and semi-hosting service models innovating and upgrading, overseas warehouse demand continues to grow, and the industry still has ample space for integration.
5. Games
- Overseas Destinations: The main destinations for Chinese games going global are mature markets such as the US, Japan, and South Korea, with different focuses for each destination. The Middle East market is increasingly becoming a hot spot for Chinese game companies going global.
- Market Status: In 2023, overseas revenue from self-developed Chinese games declined for two consecutive years, mainly due to shorter home time, intensified market competition, rising customer acquisition costs, lack of localized talent, and poor overseas operations.
- New Trends: The Middle East and Latin America have become new destinations for game companies going global. The casual game track is booming, social platforms may become new distribution channels, and the native app model provides a better user experience and is more conducive to user retention.
6. Marketing Services
- Marketing Status: Overseas marketing is shifting from blind buying to refined, high-conversion efficiency, creating comprehensive marketing strategies based on enterprise stage and industry type.
- Market Size: The scale of China's overseas marketing service market continues to grow, with e-commerce and games as the main sub-tracks.
- Technological Impact: AI technology will comprehensively optimize the efficiency of all marketing links and improve targeting accuracy, leading industry transformation.
7. Financial Payment
- Market Size: With the maturity and expansion of China's cross-border trade and the improvement of underlying financial technologies, the scale of China's cross-border financial payment service market continues to grow. The "Belt and Road" initiative will further expand the market size of the cross-border payment industry.
- Service Model: Financial payment enterprises will provide cross-border payment services covering marketing, logistics, finance and taxation, production, and other links, connecting upstream and downstream of the overseas industrial ecosystem and building a complete overseas payment service ecosystem.
8. SaaS Services
- Overseas Regions: The destinations and service industries of Chinese SaaS enterprises going global are gradually expanding. Southeast Asia is the preferred destination, while Europe and the US have large market space but fierce competition and high requirements for data security and privacy protection.
- Product Strategy: SaaS enterprises should provide more suitable customized products for merchants at different development stages and destinations, paying attention to product-market fit.
IV. Typical Case Analysis of Overseas Ecosystem
1. Overseas Service Provider Case 1 - Stripe: Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform company for enterprises, providing one-stop financial payment products for global companies through a rich product matrix. Its core competitiveness includes optimizing products and user experience with artificial intelligence technology, multiple payment options to help customers quickly embed payment functions, and global coverage to meet market demand.
2. Overseas Enterprise Case 1 - Pinduoduo Temu (Cross-border E-commerce): Temu's revenue growth in the US market is rapid, but facing policy changes, it chooses to expand into the European market. To enhance market adaptability and risk diversification, Temu introduced a semi-hosting model, suitable for merchants with existing overseas warehousing and logistics capabilities, enabling more flexible cost control, inventory optimization, and improved operational efficiency.
3. Overseas Enterprise Case 2 - BYD (New Energy Vehicles): BYD's overseas business maintains strong growth momentum, with ideal revenue growth, continuously increasing investment in overseas markets, accelerating its globalization strategy, establishing production bases worldwide, expanding overseas destinations, innovating globally leading technologies, and maintaining its world-leading position.
4. Overseas Enterprise Case 3 - Wondershare Technology (AI Applications): Wondershare Technology has been deeply engaged in overseas business for 20 years, going through three stages: brand marketing and ecosystem building, localized operation and global expansion, and brand establishment and product iteration. Advanced AIGC capabilities and AI algorithms help Wondershare accelerate the expansion of its overseas footprint, with its products performing excellently in international markets.
V. Overseas Summary and New Opportunities
1. Overseas Summary: The tracks for Chinese enterprises going global are increasingly diverse, destinations are more widespread, and gradually cover the industrial ecosystem. Overseas enterprises have built an ecosystem covering the entire industry, with more exports of high value-added industries and a gradually improving industrial ecosystem. Overseas destinations have expanded from mature markets in Europe and the US to countries along the "Belt and Road" and emerging economies.
2. Challenge Analysis: Chinese enterprises going global face challenges such as changing macro environments, differences in legal systems, cultural differences, supply chain stability, and talent management.
3. New Opportunities Outlook: Chinese overseas enterprises should actively integrate digital technologies such as AI with their own industries, improve digital capabilities, transform production efficiency, carry out localized operations, avoid simply copying domestic models, fully consider local political, cultural, and legal environments, and carry out targeted localization transformation.
