At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week there were so many exhibitors from China — a third of the 4,500 total — some delegates joked that CES now stands for “China Electronics Show”.
Through its upstream position in the supply chain, the country has a long-established role in global tech. But it is no longer a mere supplier of components or assembler of the devices on display at shows like CES. Chinese tech companies are increasingly winning with their own products. Shenzhen-based DJI is the dominant global producer of drones. GoPro, which relied on contract manufacturers in China, has just grounded its last drone model, the unfortunately named Karma.
Yet the value in tech these days is increasingly in services and content, not devices themselves. Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon have a combined market value of $2.8tn, far exceeding any pure hardware seller.