Month: February 2013

LinkedIn Finds It Hard to Get Into Chinese Market

Many businesses have their sights set on China – but they are finding it to be a challenge to break into the most populated country in the world. Social networking websites including California’s LinkedIn and France’s Viadeo are trying to crack into china’s 564 million web users.

Business networking sites are actually facing a large obstacle from China’s system of personal relationships which allows businesses to offer mutual favors. As Wei Wuhui, a professor at Jiaotong University in Shanghai said, “I don’t think the Chinese middle class has the same needs in terms of professional networks as people in the West, because of the concept of guanxi.” As he continued, “In China people do not want to meet with people they don’t know. The Chinese have a culture based on relationships among family members and close friends.”

Only 1% of LinkedIn’s 200 million worldwide users come from China. As LinkedIn spokesman Roger Pua said, “Entry into China is complicated and not something that we take lightly. We’re focused on getting it right.”

China’s Wind Market Keeps Winning

According to recent figures compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, China was the world largest wind market in 2012. They installed 15.9W of onshore turbines, which is more than a third of all new capacity throughout the world. 2012 was actually the fourth successive year that China led in this field, overtaking the US efforts in 2009.

Wind energy is now China’s third-largest energy source, only behind coal and hydropower. In 2012, China actually showed an 18% decline in annual installations from their record in 2011 of 19.3W. Many projects were delayed because of grid connection issues. Interestingly, new financial investments in wind in China fell in 2012 as well, to $27.2b, according to the Bloomberg New Energy Finance data. However, with the falling cost of wind energy, this means that the same dollar amount of investment will finance 10% more megawatts than it did during 2011.

When looking at the wind turbine suppliers in China, it is interesting to note that all of their leading suppliers were homegrown. These included Goldwind, Guodian United Power and Sinovel. As China wind analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance Demi Zhu said,

“2012 was a good year for the Chinese wind industry, considering how tough the environment was. The industry faced many problems including a reluctance by the grid operator to buy all the intermittent electricity produced by wind farms, plus stricter permitting requirements, unpaid subsidies and vigorous government efforts to cool down the industry’s rate of expansion.”