Asia | China | Technology

She’s Connected: China’s Female Internet Users Top 300 Mil

The number of Chinese female Internet users has exceeded 300 million for the first time, according to a report released by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) on January 22. By December 2015, China had 688 million people using the Internet, representing around half of the country's population, the report said. Some 90 percent of them surf the net through mobile phones. Female Internet users accounted for some 46 percent of the total, compared with the ratio of nearly 44 percent in 2014. The online population is seeing huge rises in growth overall. In December 2015, Ch

Asia | China | Business

Jack Ma Says Women Executives Are Alibaba’s ‘Special Sauce’

Source: Huffington Post

While Silicon Valley grapples with a major gender gap in its workforce, Jack Ma, the founder of Chinese e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba, said Wednesday that women are the "secret sauce" behind his company’s success. The proclamation came during Alibaba’s first-ever Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship. The two-day event in Hangzhou, China, included speeches from women as varied as Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, actress and entrepreneur Jessica Alba and Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post’s founder and editor-in-chief.

Asia | China | Business

China’s richest woman made watches in a factory – now she makes the glass for the Apple Watch

Source: Silicon Republic

Born poor, Zhou Qunfei worked in a factory that made the glass for watches. Today she is China’s richest woman with a fortune of US$7.4bn and her business makes the glass for the Apple Watch. The 44-year-old started her working life as a factory girl on the floor of a watch factory after leaving her home in China’s central Hunan Province to work in the industrial southern city of Shenzhen. According to Xinhua and Tech in Asia, Qunfei has been named the richest woman in China with a fortune estimated to be worth more than US$7.4bn, ousting Chan Laiwa, founder of Beijing Red Sandal

Asia | China | Culture

China’s upper middle class women are driving ecommerce and social media in China

Source: Business Insider

“Women hold up half the sky,” Chairman Mao once said. In the Chinese digital economy the same is true, with a newly empowered middle class of wealthy, well educated women who live and breathe social media and online shopping, spending $3tn annually in China alone. The average Chinese ‘wired woman’, according to research presented by Evelina Lye, SapientNitro’s head of marketing for Asia Pacific told SXSW on Sunday, typically own as many as five devices each.