Enterprise
Alibaba’s Jack Ma hasn’t been seen in two months, what’s happening?
China is also clamping down on big tech
Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba and Ant Group, hasn’t been seen in public for the last two months. Since October, he hasn’t made a public appearance or posted anything on social media.
He was also supposed to appear on a TV show as a judge, but even that didn’t materialize. The last Ma was seen publicly was in Shanghai, where he criticized China’s regulatory system amid Ant’s IPO. Soon after the speech, Chinese regulators blocked the world’s largest IPO that was valued at a whopping US$ 37 billion.
Ant is a financial company that leverages Alipay’s reach to offer loans and investment options to the average user. Lending in China is a cumbersome process, and Ant was able to find a middle-way by using technology and user data to ease automated lending. However, it’s now ordered to overhaul large swaths of its business to prevent monopolistic behavior.
A CNBC report says that Ma is lying low, but not missing. The revelation comes after the internet was abuzz with Ma’s disappearance, and many thought China’s opaque law had gobbled him. Even though it sounds like an exaggeration, incidents like these are commonly reported in China, and the disappearances are usually state-backed.
While American lawmakers are trying to curb the growth of big tech companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook, Chinese authorities are also pursuing their own big tech companies like Alibaba and Tencent.
The crackdown on Ma’s businesses has wiped more than US$ 10B from his net worth and knocked him into second place on the list of China’s richest people.
While Ma has been out of the spotlight, his companies have made it clear that they are listening to Beijing. Both Alibaba and Ant are cooperating with the regulator, and a few steps have already been taken, like closing down music streaming app Xiami. We expect more announcements in the coming months.
Read Also: Everything you need to know about the congressional big tech hearing
Apps
foodpanda relaunches cult-favorite roast chicken brand after 8 years of persistent search queries
Heritage chain Andok’s returns to the platform, driven entirely by long-term user analytics.
In the world of e-commerce and food delivery, platform algorithms usually dictate what consumers see. But occasionally, consumer behavior is so relentless that it shapes the platform’s strategy.
In a move driven entirely by long-term user analytics, foodpanda has officially relaunched Andok’s, one of the Philippines’ most iconic heritage rotisserie chains, back onto its platform after an eight-year absence.
The search bar as a digital wishlist
The decision to ink the partnership wasn’t just a marketing play. It was a response to an ongoing data anomaly. Despite being offline from the foodpanda platform for eight years, Andok’s consistently ranked as one of the most-searched merchants on the app.
Year after year, users treated the empty search results page as an unofficial wishlist. This persistent search intent gave foodpanda a clear, data-backed signal of pent-up demand.
Prior to the official digital rollout, teaser campaigns on social media validated this demand, generating thousands of organic interactions from users anticipating the return.
Bridging heritage flavor with digital infrastructure
For foodpanda, onboarding a merchant with this level of built-in demand fits its broader strategy of marketplace optimization and hyper-local network expansion, turning a heritage brand into another data point for how legacy retail plugs into delivery infrastructure.
For Andok’s, the integration works as a fast track to digital scale. A legacy quick-service chain skips years of independent app development and reaches customers already using foodpanda’s existing logistics network, on a platform they already check daily.
Andok’s built its following on charcoal spit-roasted chicken, a slow-cooked technique that’s stayed largely unchanged since the brand’s early days, alongside seasoned grilled pork belly.
More recently, the Dokito line extended that following into crispy fried chicken and chicken burgers, broadening the brand’s appeal beyond its original rotisserie format and giving foodpanda a menu with both heritage pull and everyday fast-food convenience.
Enterprise
Global Connect Show Shenzhen empowers Chinese enterprises
Opportune time for new Chinese enterprises to go global
The Global Connect Show Shenzhen 2026 (GCS SZ 2026) was successfully held on June 1 at China’s innovation hub.
More than 100 Chinese enterprises joined the event, encouraged to expand into international markets.
The program focused on three core pillars:
- Chinese brand going global
- Global channel connection
- Dedicated “Into the Enterprise” series
China has developed a new generation of internationally competitive companies across various sectors, including:
- consumer electronics
- smart hardware
- artificial intelligence
- robotics
As these companies enter a new phase of going global, demand is growing for global communications, brand building, market trust, and localized business networks.
As such, the Global Connect Show is one of the platforms to be able to strengthen the relationship across enterprises, partners, business associations, and even media and influencers.
It is a significant window for innovative brands to enter global retail channels by building compelling brand narratives and developing strong localized operations.
This year’s GCS is the third staging of the show, which consistently aims to match Chinese brands with partners through a results-first approach. Such an approach includes hands-on product experiences, presentations, and one-on-one meetings.
Enterprise
New US-China ban might affect 75% of phones, laptops
Companies can no longer use Chinese labs to test their products.
The United States is continuing its crusade against Chinese technology today. However, the target now isn’t a company from China but a method important to a lot of non-Chinese brands.
Today, via Reuters, the Federal Communications Commission (or FCC) has unanimously voted to prohibit companies from using Chinese labs to test their electronic devices if they are to be sold for use in the United States. Naturally, this includes smartphones and computers.
Notably, the prohibition doesn’t directly target Chinese brands. However, it will still affect a huge swath of the industry. The FCC estimates that around 75 percent of the entire market are devices tested in labs based in China.
This means that companies who wish to sell future products in the country must move their testing to labs in the United States or other countries that it deems secure. At its current iteration, the prohibition will not affect devices that already earned their certification prior. However, it might prevent them from getting recertified once their current one expires.
Now, the prohibition isn’t an absolute lock just yet. The FCC will allow the industry to submit comments about the proposal. But, with a unanimous vote from the FCC, companies might have to start looking for alternative testing sites if they want to stay operation in the United States.
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