ASSESSMENTS

China's Tech Giants Are Racing the West Into Southeast Asia

Mar 20, 2018 | 15:16 GMT

China's tech giants see Southeast Asia as a market ready for development.

Tencent Chairman and CEO Pony Ma Huateng speaks during a big data expo in Guiyang, China, during May 2017. Tencent is the largest Chinese web portal in China. Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma speaks during a technology trade fair in Hannover, Germany, during March 2015.

(LINTAO ZHANG and SEAN GALLUP/Getty Images)

Highlights

  • Chinese tech and internet giants have charged into the dynamic Southeast Asian market as they seek to globalize and challenge U.S. and Western dominance overseas.
  • Southeast Asia is neither a purely Western nor a purely Chinese market, making it a level playing field and one that China will not easily give up.
  • The region's growing e-commerce, digital economies and smartphone penetration rate will drive interest there as it undergoes a substantial economic transition.

China's tech giants are drawing a line in the sand in Southeast Asia. From internet heavyweight Alibaba to smartphone maker Xiaomi, Chinese companies have singled out the region as a critical market to push back against their Japanese, South Korean and U.S. rivals. The 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have a population of more than 620 million. And whoever can cultivate the region through smartphone adoption, internet commerce and other spreading technologies will have prime access to one of the world's most important generators of growth over the next two decades....

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