can MaaS survive in China

the difference of US and China: citizenship vs relationship

the first class cities, e.g. Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, are not different from Chicago, New York, in normal people’s lifestyle: they share the same luxurious brands, Starbucks, Texas beaf Steak, city public services, and the same international popular elements in eletronic consumers, clothing, vehicles, and even the office env.

However, down to the third class, or forth class cities in China and US, there are a huge difference.

the bottom difference is citizenship（公民意识） vs relationship（关系文化). in US and most developed countries, citizenship is a common sense, no matter in small towns or big cities. in China, the residents in big cities are similar to residents in developed countries; but the normal people in third cities value more about relationship, rather than citizenship, so basically the rules how to live a high-qualitied/successful life in these cities is not universal, which means if a resident from big cities jumping to these small cities, his experince about what is a good career/life choice has to be changed, and further which has a great influence about consuming habit and the acceptance of emerging market.

the Chinese goverment is pushing urbanization in most uncitizenlized areas, hopefully this process can be achieved in a few generations, which can be affected by both goverment policy and the external forces, e.g. trade war. any way, there is no short way.

Chinese subside markets

in China, one kind of the most profit business is e-trade, e.g. Alibaba, JD, Pinduoduo, e.t.c. they are sinking to the third/forth cities in China in recent years, which is a special phenomenon in China, the reason as I see, is due to the division between citizenship in top class cities and relationship in most small cities in China.

for most developed countries, e.g. US, the market is so flat that once one product/service is matured in big cities, there is no additional cost to expand to small towns in national wide. But here in China, the market, the society structure, the resident’s consuming habit are not flat due to the division as mentioned previously. so they need different bussniess strategy for product/service in big cities and most small towns.

for the emerging market, the investors and service/product providers need input from top consulting teams, e.g. PWC, Deloitte, BCG, but the research paper from these teams try to ignore the value gap in Chinese large cities and small cities.

Of course I can understand the consulting strategy, as emerging market is looking for new services in near future, and it should looks promising. taking mobility as a service (MaaS) as an example, from sharing cars to MaaS is likely happened in urban areas in next 10 years, and expand to most areas in west European and NA countries, but in the most small towns of China, it may never happen.

MaaS is a promising service if the society and resident’s value are similar (or plat). for developing countries, e.g. China, India, these emerging market wouldn’t be a great success in national wide.