Beijing (PingWest)- TikTok rival Kuaishou announced on Wednesday that it will invest CNY 3 billion to build its live streaming e-commerce headquarters in Chengdu, a move that signal Kuaishou’s determination to make big bet on the sector that has flourished during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Located in the Chengdu Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone, Kuaishou aims to build a livestreaming e-commerce ecosystem in Chengdu that consists of a 5G short video industry base and a short video incubator, which will attract multi-channel networks (MCN), online celebrities and brand owners to participate in the project , Kuaishou’s senior vice president Yu Haibo said in a statement.
The announcement comes a month after Kuaishou signed a cooperation deal with JD.com that allow consumers to make purchases for selected products directly from Kuaishou without being redirected back to JD.com.
Under the partnership, JD.com will provide delivery and after-sale service for the customers while Kuaishou will provide an analysis of the live-streaming e-commerce to improve the sales performance.
On June 16 alone, sales generated from live streaming on the Kuaishou platform reached 1.4 billion yuan.
Tapping into live streaming has become a hot trend in China this year as more enterprises in traditional sectors, including smartphones and home appliances, found ways to reach out to customers through online channel amid the lockdowns and quarantine measures imposed nationwide to contain the spread of the virus.
Corporate CEO, celebrities, government officials all present their sales pitches to live audiences. Gree Electric Appliances chairwoman Dong Mingzhu sold CNY310 million of goods in her second-commerce livestream event on short video platform Kuaishou on May 10, while Ding Lei, founder and chief executive of gaming giant NetEase, generated CNY72 million in sales after a live-streaming show on Kuaishou this month.
Prior to Ding Lei and Dong Mingzhu , Qian Jinbo, the president of the Chinese footwear giant Red Dragonfly; Liu Minghui, the CEO of China Gas have all participated in e-commerce livestream to sell their companies’ products.