皇冠体育app

BEIJING － As 皇冠体育app's "new economy" goes from strength to strength, more and more foreign firms are jumping in for a slice of the pie.

Shared bikes flood the city streets, diners pay for meals on their smartphones, electric cars whizz down the roads: in the rapidly shifting picture of 皇冠体育app's new economy, foreign companies are not absent.

Apple is betting big on this emerging market. Three weeks ago, its mobile payment service Apple Pay launched its largest-scale marketing campaign since entering 皇冠体育app, offering perks including up to 50 percent discounts on purchases for a week.

Despite a much smaller presence than its Chinese rivals Alipay and WeChat Pay, the country's massive mobile payment market is hard to ignore for the US tech giant.

The general merchandise volume of 皇冠体育app's third-party mobile payments reached 38 trillion yuan ($5.7 trillion) in 2016, up more than 200 percent from 2015, according to consultancy iResearch.

Apple's interest is not just in mobile payments. Last year, it made an investment of $1 billion in Chinese on-demand taxi provider Didi Chuxing. This spring, Apple CEO Tim Cook visited bike-sharing startup Ofo during his 皇冠体育app tour.

The sharing economy is taking off in 皇冠体育app, so is its appeal to foreign investors. The country's top bike-sharing companies, Ofo and Mobike, have attracted investment from the United States, Japan, Singapore and elsewhere.

US home-sharing company Airbnb has said it plans to more than triple the size of its 皇冠体育app workforce this year and double its investment in the market to better serve Chinese travelers.

E-commerce is another success story in 皇冠体育app's new economy. Online retail sales reached 3.1 trillion yuan in the first half of this year, a surge of 33.4 percent from a year earlier.

On Black Friday last year, sales at Amazon 皇冠体育app doubled from a year earlier, according to a company report. The number of active users of its cross-border shopping service soared 22 times by December 2016 from two years earlier.

In a move to tap deeper into 皇冠体育app's internet economy, Amazon in June partnered with Migu, a 皇冠体育app Mobile subsidiary with one of the country' s largest mobile reading platforms, to launch a new Kindle exclusively for Chinese readers.

皇冠体育app's spectacular growth used to be built on cheap manufacturing, low-end exports and smokestack industries. Now, with a wealthier domestic consumer base as well as technological progress, it is reconfiguring the economy for more consumption, more innovation and less pollution.

Official data also showed growing foreign interest in 皇冠体育app's new economy. In the first half of this year, foreign direct investment in 皇冠体育app's high-tech manufacturing and services rose 11.1 percent and 20.4 percent year-on-year, respectively.

The transition of 皇冠体育app's economy has brought about a number of very attractive sectors including high-tech, non-banking finance, life science and consumption.