businesstraveller.com JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
SHENZHEN
electronics market, the largest of its kind, with around 20
different shopping malls dedicated to parts.
Thisenvironmenthasgivenbirthtoanumberoftech
giants including Tencent, Huawei and ZTE. Other major
tech players have also relocated and set up shop in the
city, including Alibaba and Baidu, along with droves
of start-up entrepreneurs eager to jump on the wave.
According to aFinancial Timesreport, Shenzhen is home
to more than 180 start-up incubators and has exploded in
terms of online services and new IoT (Internet of Things)
applications. One of the most successful home-grown
start-ups is drone manufacturer DJI, one of China’s top
ten “unicorns” – so called for receiving a billion-dollar
valuation out of the starting blocks.
“Shanghai is a financial centre. Beijing is politics and
finance. And Shenzhen is the technological hub of China,”
agrees 30-year resident Raymond Su, resident manager
at Kempinski Hotel Shenzhen.
In addition to its tech legacy, Su
believes another reason the city
has f lourished with respect to new
technolog y is its relative youth.
“Shenzhen is a young city, not
even 40 years old. So there’s no
entrenched position of mindsets.
Youngpeoplecansetupanew
system and figure out how to do it
efficiently. The local government
is also more efficient and there’s less red tape.”The “factory floor
of the world” has
proven a fertile
breeding ground for
tech innovationSHUTTERSTOCK31