Tmall, JD, Amazon are well known online retailers in Chinese market, but who else? Here is the inforgraphic of the top 30:

Recently, MIIT released a report on the telecommunications industry in China from January to May 2014. It shows that the total number of mobile internet users have reached 857 million which accounts for 68.2% of total mobile phone users (1.256 billion). Influenced by smartphone adoptions, the monthly average SMS sent has dropped to 40 per user.

Total number of 3G & 4G users in China has increased to 472 million, 37.6% of total mobile users.

MIIT pointed out that, mobile internet business such as Wechat and Weibo affected and is replacing traditional text messages (SMS) and MMS. Only 314.62 billion SMS were sent over the 5 months period. It fell 18.4% year-on-year. At the mean time, MMS business fell by 30.6% YoY, with 26 billion sent.

Photos are important to make your message appealing, especially in social media. There’s no exception in Chinese social media. But what type of images and photos are most appealing on Weibo. Let’s take a look what iResearch data reveal.

Landscape photos are the most popular in all categories of Weibo images in year 2013, according to iResearch. 45.9% users are attracted to landscape photos, followed by food photos (39.2%) and product photos (27.9%).

In various photos, the first three types which male users pay more attention to are sports photos, car photos and pretty girl photos. The first three types of photos which female users pay more attention to are delicacy food photos , celebrity photos and anime photos.

What does this mean for marketers? For all users, marketing promotion can combine advertisement with landscape images. For male users, it can use more images related to sports, cars and beauty. And for female users, photos of delicacy, food and celebrity could be used. In doing so, companies can attract users’ engagement at best, in order to achieve better marketing result.

Alibaba announced a new 2D code strategy called ‘Ma Shang Tao’ last week. It will become a significant part of company’s “cloud+ terminal” strategy.

Alibaba chief operating officer Zhang Yong said, “Any code would become a terminal and it is no longer just a simple business card but more services and content.”. This 2D code strategy will achieve seamless connections between any people, people and information, and people and objects. The first 5 apps released are ‘product code’, ‘service code’, ‘interaction code’, ‘media code’ and ‘shop on the code’.

Product code. Every product has its own product code, like a unique ID card. The product code can access Alibaba’s billion commodities library. Using this product code, customers can know accurate details about this product quickly and can also complete purchase online.

Service code. Service code is for delivery packages. Scan the service code when signing off for receipt of packages, then they can enjoy the personalized services provided by sellers, including service manual and post-sale services. Meanwhile, through the service code, more sellers can reduce the cost of maintaining the relationship with customers and open up the online to offline (O2O) transactions.

Interaction code. Interaction code provides a channel between merchants and users. Users can participate in cloud games and events by scanning the interaction code. So far Alibaba has collaborated with Pepsi and Tsingtao Beer. Consumers will see the interaction code on each product this summer.

Media code. The media code is to help traditional media’s transformation. Once customers see the promotion on the media, they can scan the media code and purchase online immediately.

Shop on the code. This type of 2D codes will change the current operation status of offline shops. In the future, as long as there is a code, there is a shop behind it. Besides that, the shop on the code will soon become a necessary element for physical stores and shopping malls. Customers can acquire promotion and discount information through this code.

Alibaba’s 2D strategy for e-commerce is not about payment but connection, a connection between online and offline as e-commerce transaction is not objective yet. Alibaba wants to develop users’ habits of scanning code via 5 new apps above.