bodyType

customContents

entityId

printArticlePageQuery

filter

article

body

urlAlias

articleSectionsContent

articleSeoArticle

articleSourceHeaderArticle

contentSchemaRenderContent

contentSubHeadlineContent

contentHeadlineContent

mainImagePrintArticleArticle

authorBlockPrintArticleArticle

contentSponsorTagContent

articlePianoPaywallContent

scmpYoutubeContent

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

query printArticlePageQuery(
  $entityId: String!
  $customContents: [CustomContentInput]
  $bodyType: BodyFormatTypeEnum
) {
  article(filter: {entityId: $entityId}) {
    entityId
    body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
      json
    }
    urlAlias
    ...articleSectionsContent
    ...articleSeoArticle_3o8td4
    ...articleSourceHeaderArticle
    ...contentSchemaRenderContent
    ...contentSubHeadlineContent
    ...contentHeadlineContent
    ...mainImagePrintArticleArticle
    ...authorBlockPrintArticleArticle
    ...contentSponsorTagContent
    ...articlePianoPaywallContent
    ...scmpYoutubeContent
    ...hooksTrackPageViewArticle
    id
  }
}

fragment articlePianoPaywallContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksPaywallPromiseContent
}

fragment articleSectionsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      ...helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection
      ...entityLink
      name
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment articleSeoArticle_3o8td4 on Article {
  ...hooksArticleSeoArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersGetArticleTypeArticle
  entityId
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
  summary {
    text
  }
  subHeadline {
    text
  }
  body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
    text
  }
  keywords
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  topics {
    name
    entityId
    id
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  images {
    style(filter: {style: "768x768"}) {
      url
    }
  }
  readingTime
}

fragment articleSourceHeaderArticle on Article {
  urlAlias
  ...entityLink
}

fragment authorBlockPrintArticleArticle on Article {
  ...defaultArticleDateContent
  ...authorNamesArticle
}

fragment authorNameAuthor on Author {
  ...entityLink
  name
  entityUuid
}

fragment authorNamesArticle on Article {
  authorLocations
  authors {
    entityId
    location
    ...authorNameAuthor
    id
  }
}

fragment blockquoteQuoteContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment contentHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  socialHeadline
  ...contentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
}

fragment contentNewsletterWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
    id
  }
  sections {
    value {
      relatedNewsletters {
        ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
        id
      }
      id
    }
  }
  ... on Article {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment contentSchemaRenderContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...blockquoteQuoteContent
  ...imageContent
  ...inlineWidgetContent
  ...photoGalleryWidgetContent
  ...scmpYoutubeContent
}

fragment contentShareWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  shortUrl
  socialHeadline
  headline
}

fragment contentSponsorTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentSubHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  subHeadline {
    json
  }
  summary {
    json
  }
  ...contentSchemaRenderContent
}

fragment defaultArticleDateContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksArticleDateUtilsContent
}

fragment entityLink on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  __typename
  entityId
  entityUuid
  urlAlias
  urlRedirect {
    toUrl
    id
  }
  application {
    entityId
    id
  }
  ... on Section {
    fullSectionPath {
      entityId
      id
    }
    parentSection
  }
  ...helpersAppBarVariantBase
  ...helpersApplicationBase
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersAppBarVariantBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsLiveArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...helpersSectionContent
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersApplicationBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
}

fragment helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection on Section {
  name
}

fragment helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle on Article {
  entityId
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  disableOffPlatformContent
  sponsorType
  published
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment helpersCheckIsLiveArticle on Article {
  flattenTypeIds
  liveArticle {
    status
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    paywallTypes {
      entityUuid
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsStyleArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersGetArticleTypeArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        entityId
        id
      }
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter on Newsletter {
  entityId
  name
  alternativeName
  description {
    text
  }
  summary {
    text
  }
  homepageDescription {
    text
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle on Article {
  authors {
    types
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersStyleSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersUseContentSponsorContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    sponsor {
      ...sponsorTagSponsor
      name
      type
      id
    }
    id
  }
  ... on Article {
    sponsorType
  }
  ...helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent
}

fragment hooksArticleDateUtilsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  createdDate
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
}

fragment hooksArticleSeoArticle on Article {
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle
  entityId
  headline
  socialHeadline
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
  images {
    generic_og: style(filter: {style: "og_image_scmp_generic"}) {
      url
    }
    styles(filter: {styles: ["og_image_posties_article", "og_postmag", "og_image_style", "og_image_scmp_analysis", "og_image_scmp_explainer", "og_image_scmp_editorial", "og_image_scmp_fact_check", "og_image_scmp_debate", "og_image_scmp_live", "og_image_scmp_obituary", "og_image_scmp_opinion", "og_image_scmp_review", "og_image_scmp_series", "og_image_scmp_generic"]}) {
      url
      style
    }
    type
  }
  urlAlias
}

fragment hooksContentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        name
        entityId
        description {
          text
        }
        id
      }
    }
    ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  }
  flag
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  ...hooksContentHelperContent
}

fragment hooksContentHelperContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle
  ...helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle
  ...helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle
  flag
}

fragment hooksPaywallPromiseContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment hooksTrackPageViewArticle on Article {
  entityId
  publishedDate
  headline
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  entityUuid
}

fragment imageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  ...checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent
}

fragment inlineWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentNewsletterWidgetContent
}

fragment mainImagePrintArticleArticle on Article {
  images {
    title
    url
    isSlideshow
    size_652x446: style(filter: {style: "652x446"}) {
      url
    }
  }
}

fragment photoGalleryDialogContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment photoGalleryWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...photoGalleryDialogContent
}

fragment scmpYoutubeContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  publishedDate
}

fragment sponsorTagSponsor on Sponsor {
  name
  type
  images {
    url
  }
}


sections

types

disableOffPlatformContent

sponsorType

published

headline

socialHeadline

authors

images

publishedDate

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

keywords

topics

readingTime

authorLocations

entityUuid

Zen Soo

China’s e-commerce giants are sharpening their focus on consumers in the country’s smaller cities to help boost consumption, amid slowing growth and an uncertain economic climate.
Shanghai-based Pinduoduo (PDD), which announced its earnings for the quarter ended December on Wednesday, said a majority of its users already come from lower-tier cities – a classification for small government units in China based on population, gross domestic product and administrative hierarchy – that are “starting to explore a more diverse selection of products, such as small luxuries”, according to Xu Tian, vice-president of finance for the country’s third-largest e-commerce company.
“Such demand may have been unformed or unmatched in the past, but now they are crystallising and being fulfilled on our platform,” Xu said.
That development provides a welcome relief for the country’s e-commerce services providers, following a marked slowdown in business generated from consumers in first-tier cities – including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen – and those in second-tier cities, such as Xiamen, Zhuhai and Harbin.
New Chinese tech billionaire Colin Huang drops US$2.8 billion as Pinduoduo shares tumble
Efforts to expand online retail initiatives in lower-tier cities come as Beijing set a lower economic growth target range of 6 to 6.5 per cent this year, after factoring in a variety of headwinds, including the trade war with the United States, a high debt level and financing bottlenecks for private enterprises.
Lower-tier cities are expected to fuel two-thirds of national consumption increase from 2017 to 2030, according to estimates by Morgan Stanley.
“While investors perceive larger cities as offering the most important consumer base, we believe that lower-tier cities will be bigger, wealthier and more eager to spend,” said Robin Xing, Morgan Stanley’s chief China economist, in a research article.
About five per cent of consumers in China’s 400 emerging lower-tier cities already have the same income as that of an average American consumer, according to a report by Shanghai-based marketing firm AgencyChina.
Alibaba extends New Retail push with US$693 million investment in STO Express
“Taking advantage of lower cost of living in lower-tier cities, this group – which we call Lower Tier Living Large (LTLL) – is able to live very comfortably and have all the trappings of an upper-middle class lifestyle: imported cars, expensive electronics and trips to big cities to buy up on luxury goods,” said Michael Norris, research and strategy manager at AgencyChina.
“The LTLL group aren’t afraid to splurge to have the same kind of lifestyle they see on TV dramas, and they’re still very much in the conspicuous consumption phase.”
For PDD, the time was ripe to tap into the potential of this market segment. Consumers in China’s lower-tier have not only been deprived of products readily available to those in the higher tier, they also accessed a limited selection of inconsistent quality, according to PDD founder, chairman and chief executive Colin Huang Zheng. He said PDD has been actively bringing more major brands to lower-tier cities.
We believe that lower-tier cities will be bigger, wealthier and more eager to spend
Robin Xing, Morgan Stanley economist
Nasdaq-listed PDD pioneered the so-called team-buying business model, which encourages users to share products with their friends on social media and team up with them to buy the same item at a discount.
The average annual spending of its 418.5 million active buyers nearly doubled to 1,127 yuan (US$167.70) per buyer, the company said. Gross merchandise volume (GMV) – a metric of the value of products and services sold on the platform – has tripled to 471.6 billion yuan from a year ago.
The increase in e-commerce spending on the PDD platform and its strong GMV suggest that buyers in lower-tier cities are still in the middle of a “consumption upgrade”, where rising salaries and affluence in these cities in recent years have led consumers to seek better quality goods.
Still, PDD has not been the only e-commerce player in China to identify the massive potential of those consumers.
China faces social media crackdown as fake accounts threaten e-commerce credibility
Alibaba Group Holding’s Tmall and Taobao Marketplace, as well as Tencent Holdings-backed Vipshop have separately acknowledged that most their user growth has come from lower-tier cities.
New York-traded Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce player and parent company of the South China Morning Post, said in its latest quarterly earnings call that more than 70 per cent of the increase in its annual active users came from those cities.
While sales of big-ticket items like home appliances and smartphones have slowed in Alibaba’s online shopping platforms, consumer staples such as apparel, home furnishings and beauty equipment exhibited resilient growth.
Vipshop’s chief executive Eric Shen said in the firm’s quarterly earnings call in February that its “strongest growth” have come from second- and third-tier cities.
JD.com sets strategy to expand into China’s smaller cities, offline businesses
JD.com, China’s second-largest e-commerce services provider, has launched its Pingo group-buying initiative modelled after PDD’s business model. Pingo has “proved itself to be very inducive to help reach lower-tier cities and markets”, said Xu Lei, JD.com’s chief marketing officer, in the company’s quarterly earnings call in February.
“As a mainstream e-commerce player, we haven’t actually leveraged our competitive advantage in those lower-tier markets,” Xu said. “With Pingo, now we are positioned to do that.”
Richard Liu Qiangdong, the founder and chief executive of JD.com, said the company plans to bring more products to lower-tier cities this year to attract more users.
The strategy of its rivals has not gone unnoticed, according to PDD’s Huang. “More players are looking at lower-tier cities and they’re also trying to mimic what PDD is currently doing,” he said.
“I think the greater emphasis given to the lower-tier cities by our peers is also helping awaken the underlying demand for consumption that has been dormant in these cities.”


China’s e-commerce players look to smaller cities to help drive consumption, growth

Employees work at a distribution centre of a delivery company in eastern China's Jiangsu province. The country’s major e-commerce companies are sharpening their focus on consumers in smaller cities to help boost consumption amid slowing growth. Photo: Xinhua

Tech

Big Tech

Business

China Business

Alibaba, JD.com, Pinduoduo and Vipshop pursue expansion outside China’s leading metropolises


Alibaba, JD.com, Pinduoduo and Vipshop pursue expansion outside China’s leading metropolises.
