China's emerging businesses: The next generation of global corporations?

• Date: 01 March 2021
• Published date: 01 March 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/tie.22183
• Author: Andrew Atherton

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China's emerging businesses: The next generation

of global corporations?

Andrew Atherton

1,2,3

1

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS,

University of London, London, United

Kingdom

2

University of Cumbria, Cumbria, United

Kingdom

3

Navitas, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Correspondence

Andrew Atherton, School of Oriental and

African Studies SOAS, University of London,

London, United Kingdom.

Email: aa188@soas.ac.uk

Abstract

A growing number of Chinese businesses that are not well known outside China are

going global, taking market share from incumbents worldwide. These businesses sus-

tain rapid to hyper-growth over considerable periods, allowing them to scale up

quickly. They have strong market share in the domestic Chinese market, which serves

as a platform for internationalization. Their strategies for entering new markets

derive from their domestic business models, which they have been able to adapt to

conditions in other countries. These businesses represent a fast-growing cohort of

emerging global corporations that will be major international competitors in the near

future. This article helps businesses and analysts to identify China's emerging

businesses. It offers insight into their strategies for growth and emergence.

KEYWORDS

China, emerging businesses, global businesses, growth, internationalization

1|INTRODUCTION

More and more Chinese businesses are going global, taking market

share worldwide(Alon, Anderson, & Munim, 2018).The largest of these

companies are well known. Alibaba is a global player in online e-trade

(Clark, 2018). Lenovo is the biggest producer of laptop computers

worldwide, with morethan 25% market share (Techradar, 2019). Haier

is the world's largest white goods manufacturer (Frynus, Mol, &

Mellahi, 2018).Tencent has around a billion users of WeChat, its social

media app, and is acquiring tech companies in Asia, Europe, and North

America (Financial Times, 2019). Baidu, China's Google, has 60%

domestic share,and over 5% of all searches worldwide, and is develop-

ing driverless carsand their enabling technologies in the United States

and China (Techcrunch, 2019). Goldwind is the world's second largest

wind turbinemanufacturer, behind Danishcompany Vestas. Companies

such as Jinko Solar have come to dominate the world market for solar

electric panelsin less than 10 years.

In mobile communication technologies, Xiaomi became the world's

third largest producer of smartphones in 2014, only 3 years after

starting up in 2011. Now, sixof the world's top 10 smartphone manu-

facturers are Chinese, and three—Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo—have circa

37% of global marketshare in smartphones (IDC, 2020).Within 7 years,

the Chinese smartphone industryhas shifted from dominance by a sin-

gle large enterprise, Huawei, to a dynamic, entrepreneurial industry full

of innovativebusinesses.

These well-publicized examples are onlya small proportion of Chi-

nese businesses that are going global. Many currently less well-known

Chinese businesses have built dominant domestic presences and are

emergingrapidly as global players.These businesses are wellestablished

in their home market and are expanding internationally at rates that

look likely to establish them as major competitors in other markets.

They can be found in almostall sectors and their emergence is likely to

influencecompetitive dynamics forincumbent businesses worldwide.

The businesses share four salient features. Firstly, they sustain

high to hyper growth over considerable periods. Secondly, they are

major players in their domestic markets. Thirdly, they have adopted a

wide range of approaches to internationalization, rather than there

being a standard route to overseas expansion. And, fourthly, their suc-

cess is based on well-developed business models that work in China

and are adapted to new markets as these businesses internationalize.

Combined, these four features enable these businesses to become

increasingly competitive globally as well as within China.

DOI: 10.1002/tie.22183

Thunderbird Int. Bus. Rev. 2021;63:103–113. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tie © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC. 103