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December 18, 2012

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Home » City specials » Chengdu

Innovative Chengdu firms deliver top apps

By Zhu Shenshen | December 18, 2012, Tuesday | Print Edition

Editor's note:

Chengdu, capital of China's southwestern Sichuan Province, is renowned as being the home of the panda, plus much more besides. Next year, the city will host the prestigious Fortune Global Forum, acknowledging Chengdu's growing reputation as a major business center. Much of this success can be attributed to the city's fast growth "can-do" attitude, together with its relaxed lifestyle. It's a combination proving every bit as appealing as Chengdu's cute black and white natives.

Taking high-quality photos, booking hotel rooms, finding the nearest cinema, playing 3D games and even checking the safety of food on the shelves. There's not much nowadays that can't be done by smart phone.

The Chinese mobile Internet industry is booming, and the southwestern city of Chengdu is taking a leading position in its innovation.

Firms based in the capital of Sichuan Province have designed and developed many of the popular applications for smart phone users. Among the top 10 in China, two or three applications are from Chengdu-based firms, according to Apple's App Store, Google's Android stores and other third-party research firms.

"Mobile Internet is the new business card for Chengdu's high-tech industry, alongside advanced manufacturing and software sectors," said Tang Jiqiang, a spokesperson for the Chengdu High-Tech Industrial Development Zone. "It represents the future of the high-tech industry."

Camera 360, developed by Chengdu-based Pinguo Technology, still remains the most popular of photography applications in the Android store in China.

At present, Camera360 has had 60 million downloads globally. About 5 billion pictures are shot by Camera 360, which features 13 camera effects that creators say make mobile photos "charming, interesting and funny."

Pinguo received US$5 million in venture capital investment from Gobi just a year after the company started up in Chengdu. It's become the pin-up for the mobile Internet industry in this city of about 15 million people.

Chengdu's technology zone is home to about 200 mobile Internet firms - from application designers and mobile device providers to related technology service providers. In 2011, the output in the zone in that segment totaled 60 billion yuan (US$9.7 billion). There are no comparable year-earlier figures because the zone is so new.

"It's a wave," David Zhang, founding managing partner of Matrix Partners China, said on his Sina weibo account. "The IT elites are expanding from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to cities like Chengdu, Hangzhou and Wuhan."

Chengdu is a magnet for talent in the industry because of the presence of giants like Intel, Cisco and Tencent, and because of the comfortable living conditions in the city, according to Wang Rui, who is responsible for the software industry at the Chengdu Economic and Information Technology Commission.

Yang Cunfu, founder and chief executive of Calvi Games, is among the tech entrepreneurs going back to Chengdu.Yang lived for seven years in Shanghai, where he worked for Shanda Entertainment, a major online game firm in China.

"I feel the entrepreneurship buzz again when I return to Chengdu," said Yang. "The mobile game business is too small for giants like Shanda, but I believe the potential is there. So I am doing it myself."

Under Yang's leadership, a team of 30 people spent 1 million yuan and one year developing only one 3D game, called The Gods.

"I want to do games that are impressive on handsets," said Yang.

Calvi now has 4 million users in China, and Yang said he is planning to expand to overseas markets, where profit margins will be higher.

After receiving venture capital investment of "several million dollars" in June, the company acquired several firms in Chengdu as part of its expansion.

Another entrepreneur making waves in Chengdu is Liu Zhangbo, co-founder of iKamobile.

Liu's first product was Movie Find, which informed mobile users of films showing in nearby cinemas.

Then Liu developed applications dispensing information on hotels, rail connections, flights, car rentals, restaurants and other services. Finally, he integrated all the functions into one new app called Chumener, which works off the user's location.

The application became the most popular in the travel information segment on China's App Store.

Now Liu is expanding his business to provide users special coupons or discounts if they book two or more services in the application.

"User are going to be more and more dependant on smart phones, especially during trips," Liu said. "They will need a one-stop service like Chumener."

Chengdu's mobile Internet sector goes beyond catering to entertainment and leisure activities.

Liu Chuanjiang, vice president of the Chengdu Boyoi Technology Co, is in the business of providing devices and systems to help food security bureau officials check the sources and production dates of food, like pork, vegetables and wine, and even fireworks sold during the annual Spring Festival.

Based on RFID (radio frequency identification) technology, users can determine when and where foods are produced and can record inspection information after swiping tags on the products with special devices.

"It's a shield for consumers to have safe food and a weapon for officials to crack down on fake and unsafe products," said Liu.

At present, the company is developing services that will allow common consumers to check that information directly through smart phones installed with a mobile application, according to Liu.

Chengdu


 

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