Nowadays, it is the West trying to catch up with China. Take for example, mobile tech. Most local Chinese hardly carry cash in their wallets anymore. The mobile phone is used for everything – cab fares, groceries, convenience stores. Same day delivery is the norm and one does not really need to leave your apartment to get supplies. You can even get a live fish delivered to your doorstep for tonight’s dinner. Chinese logistic companies use cutting edge tech to reach out to all parts of the country in the most effective way possible. 80-year-old grandmothers are already using their handsets to use apps to call and pay for taxi fares. The top drone companies are all Chinese. They have been using it for documentaries for years. Look for “A Bit of China” food porn on youtube to see the amazing shots. Almost everyone in China has an eWallet to effect payments seamlessly, epayments having started more than 14 years ago. The capabilities of WeChat and Alipay are astounding with the eco-systems that they have created. There are no comparable ones to be found outside of China. Facebook is only now trying to catch up.
With the push by China to urbanize its population quickly to create internal consumer demand, mobile tech has grown by leaps and bounds to help achieve this aim. The rest of the world slowly wakes up to this great social experiment and stares in awe. I have attended a number of fintech demo/graduation/bootcamp events over the last 12 months and most of what the new fintech companies are trying to do now have already been done on a large scale in China for years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/technology/china-mobile-tech-innovation-silicon-valley.html?_r=0
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