Testimonial: How I "fled" India

The news that Vivo's Chinese employees were arrested by India's financial crime agency has pushed the topic of "fleeing India" back to the hot spot. On October 11, a number of foreign media reported that India's financial crime agency arrested four related persons, one of whom was an employee of Chinese smartphone manufacturer Vivo, and relevant Indian departments raided Vivo's office and accused it of money laundering.

From 2017 to 2018, India was a hot spot for Chinese companies to go to sea:

In the past two years, Xiaomi has become the number one smartphone brand in India, with a market share of more than 50% of Chinese smartphone brands, and among the top five smartphone brands shipped in 2018, Chinese mobile phone brands occupied four seats. Since then, shipments of Chinese smartphone brands in India have climbed, accounting for 77% of total shipments in 2020.

In 2018, 5 of the top 10 Android apps in India were from China, with TikTok and WhatsApp occupying the top two, and 44 of the top 100 Android apps were developed by Chinese companies.

According to data from market research and analysis platform Tracxn, China's overall venture capital in India rose from US$668 million in 2016 to US$5.6 billion in 2018, of which Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance were the main investors, Xiaomi also invested in Indian companies in areas other than mobile phones, and Chinese companies laid out retail e-commerce, logistics, medical and health, artificial intelligence, entertainment, payment, Travel and other fields.

With a population of 1.4 billion and huge market potential, India once became the first choice for China's large and small enterprises to go overseas.

However, in 2020, everything came to an abrupt end.

In April 2020, India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry abruptly revised its FDI policy to change all investments directly or indirectly from India's land neighbors from the "automatic approval path" previously applied to most industries. The move is seen as a targeted move to restrict Chinese companies' investment in India.

In June, the Indian government banned 59 Chinese-backed mobile apps, including WeChat; In September, India's Ministry of Information Technology announced a ban on 118 Chinese mobile apps. In January 2021, the ban escalated and the Indian government announced that it would permanently ban 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok.

The once hot soil of the sea has dropped to freezing.

In 2021, the black fog continued to spread, and Chinese mobile phone companies represented by Xiaomi were frequently suppressed, facing the Indian government's censorship, freezing funds and other difficulties from time to time. In June this year, the Indian government required Chinese mobile phone manufacturers to introduce Indian equity partners in their local businesses, and Indian capital held 51% of the joint venture; Key positions such as CEO, CFO, COO and CTO are held by Indian nationals.

Chinese companies go to India and enter hellish hard mode.

Behind this huge turning point, the fate of individuals who once entered the Indian market is inevitably affected.

Recently, Zhixiang went overseas to chat with three people with senior experience in India, who have been engaged in mobile phones, smart watches, Internet of Vehicles video, Internet tools and other popular industries in India, and their personal experiences represent the Indian memories of that wave of overseas people, and also outline a picture of Chinese enterprises going overseas in India in recent years.

They had invested their most precious youth with great enthusiasm, and in 2020, a sudden turning point came and they "passively fled". Today, some of them are eager to return, and some are no longer hopeful.

Here's their self-statement.

Jason, head of sales in India for a smart brand, 30 years old, 3 years of experience in India

I went to India in 2017, when India was still a relatively open country with a hot market, and various Chinese Internet companies and mobile phone companies had entered India, and the investment was quite large. Especially in the mobile phone industry, the demand is very large, but the unit price is low, and it cannot sell too high-end products, so it can only take the cost-effective route, and the competition among domestic peers is fierce.

My first job was in a mobile phone company, responsible for the sales business related to large chains around Delhi, the capital of India, which is equivalent to the channels of Suning and Gome. Because of the high cost performance, the profit margin is very small, and the marketing budget in hand is not sufficient.

Everyone does business in India, any category, in fact, after three or five years, will basically fall into a price war. Indian consumers are too sensitive to price, per capita consumption power is not very good, basically have no brand loyalty, whoever is cheap will buy. Mobile phones and smartwatches for more than 1,000 bucks are most popular in India.

But after all, India is a populous country, sales are very large, brands that do well in India, basically take the route of small profits and quick turnover, the most typical is Xiaomi, which is living well in India.

The reason why I chose to go to India at that time was mainly because of the development prospects of the Indian market, and many people at that time said that India was equivalent to China twenty or thirty years ago, and there were many business opportunities. Staying in India, I think it is still quite hard, food, clothing, housing and travel are very uncomfortable, very simple, there is no entertainment, I rarely go out in India, many friends want to return to China after staying for three months at most. There wasn't much Chinese there in 2017, and even less after 2020. The salary will not be much better than at home, but there will be more expatriate subsidies.

After I came out of the mobile phone company, I went to a smartwatch company and later joined the current company, all three jobs in charge of India-related business. Like me in the Indian market for so long, both offline and online, there are actually very few young people who understand marketing and have Indian connections, originally this is my biggest personal advantage, there have been many brands to find me, let me help them do the Indian market, but now in this case, the future career prospects have to put a question mark.

Our company does not have a presence in India now, our model is to send the goods to India from the country, and then find an agent in India to be responsible for customs clearance and local sales.

The company has not completely abandoned the Indian market. As an emerging market, India's current consumption power is also slowly rising, although it is not large, but it is a steadily growing market. As a global brand, we still have to make an advance layout for such an emerging large market as India, if we plan at a strategic level.

In fact, there are many brands that have not given up the Indian market, such as Honor and SHEIN. In any case, this market is so large and blank market, companies must pursue growth, it is impossible not to do it. It's just that the business environment in India is really not very good now, and there will be some differences between the model for brands entering the Indian market and when they entered the Indian market in the early days.

As long as you are an international brand, you need to lay out the Indian market, and the Indian market is indeed developing rapidly, now its total GDP has ranked fifth in the world, the next 3-5 years may become the world's third largest economy, the development prospects are quite attractive.

If India becomes the third largest economy in the world in 3-5 years, I will only be 35 years old. I hope that by that time, everything will be fine and usher in my chance. Now you can only comfort yourself in this way, and then stick to it.

Simon, manager of South Asia of a well-known Internet of Vehicles company, aged 35, has 10 years of experience in India

In 2010, I joined a security company after graduating, responsible for the India business. From 2011 to 2014, it was the golden age of the security industry going to sea, when the Indian market was one of the four major security markets in the world, with huge opportunities of the times. When I first arrived in India, I was not very comfortable with language, food and other aspects, but in the process of promoting the market, I slowly found that the market opportunity was still very large, so I continued to cultivate.

India is a very special country, it is very conflicting on both sides, and there will be many opportunities that you will not expect. What attracted me the most was India's population base and market demand. To be honest, compared to other small language markets, India is the most suitable base for Chinese companies to debut to the sea. It's also fun to do business with Indians, and once he builds trust with you, I think it's still very profitable.

In 2015, I joined my current company, doing telematics video, and still in charge of the Indian market. At that time, the overall business environment for Chinese enterprises there was still very good compared to now.

At that time, we investigated a commercial vehicle operation company in India and collected information on Internet of Vehicles products. During that time, I spent a large part of the year in India, basically visiting first-, second-, and third-tier cities in India. Once I took a long-distance bus, and after getting off the bus, I was asked for extra luggage fees by the driver, and then a young Indian helped me, which can be regarded as a reflection of the two sides of India.

India is a multi-dimensional federal country, and the ethnic groups of each state have great linguistic and cultural differences, so to do the Indian market, layout in different regions, need to have different strategies and partners. After collecting the information and having a preliminary understanding of the major players in the current market, we will contact these companies, promote our products, and then talk about cooperation. When entering the market early, it is very difficult to find the right partner. After the market opened up step by step, we also began to cooperate with the government and participate in the bidding of government projects.

In the field of Internet of Vehicles video, India has no local technology for the time being, and there are no local companies to do this industry, so our products have a very good market in India. Those connected vehicles products on commercial vehicles in India are all from our company. In 2017, the company achieved mass sales, and the whole momentum is relatively good. We also made a planned localization deployment in the local area, hired a lot of local staff, did brand promotion, and wanted to build the brand.

However, in 2020, changes in India's China policy have had a great impact on our localization operations and brand promotion. In April 2020, the Indian government revised its FDI policy, stating that countries bordering India must invest in India under the government's path.

We were honestly panicked at the time, worried that several projects that were being followed up might immediately prevent us from directly participating in it, or directly ban the import of Chinese products. We brought all our partners together to come up with a solution, and the envisioned solution was to do entrepot trade, go to other countries for assembly, and then export to India.

After the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, India imposed visa restrictions on China. After consideration, the company completely gave up promoting the brand in India and directly participating in local projects in India, and turned to OEM business and cooperated with local agents. We still have 10 local employees in India, but the Chinese employees still can't get by, mainly through local employees to do the maintenance of large customers and the development of new markets, and the old customers directly connect with the Chinese side remotely.

After adjusting its strategy, the company's India business is still in a growth phase.

At the security company I was in, they also made a strategic shift. Most companies now either do local syndication or co-branding, or do private label business. We had actually submitted an application to set up a company entity, but it was terminated due to the black swan event.

For the Indian market, the company will not give up. We believe that there is still a lot of room for growth in the entire Asia-Pacific market in the future, especially ASEAN and India.

As for my personal future career plan, India is rated by the World Bank as the most difficult market to do business in, I can survive in the Indian market, go to any other country, I don't think there is any problem in survival. This year I also started to go to some other countries' markets, compared to the business environment in India, I don't think any other country is too difficult.

Li Er, head of Indian operations of an Internet company, aged 32, has 4 years of experience in India

I studied information management, in 2016, a friend recommended me to India to start a business to do technology media, at that time was in the domestic Internet entrepreneurship boom, and India is an emerging market, they want to transmit domestic investment information, entrepreneurial experience to India, and then reverse the Indian information back to the country, to do a media bridge between China and India, I just graduated for a year or two, did not think too much, felt that India is already the world's second most populous country, very attractive and imagination, went to India.

When I came to India, there were only Chinese companies such as OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, and Huawei, and Huawei at the beginning, Huawei had an Asian R&D center in India, with about 5,000 people, and ByteDance was preparing to land, in addition to some manufacturing companies and traditional trading companies. After I came to India, I have been living in Bangalore, where the climate is good, lukewarm, comfortable all year round, as a city where European and American IT companies gather, Bangalore as a whole feels very good, which is different from our established impression of India.

After half a year of working in the technology media, I resigned, and then I have been engaged in Internet-related work, and I have done a treasure capture product, which is similar to the domestic 1 yuan treasure capture project, but at that time, India's payment environment and user consumption habits were not particularly mature, and the project was shelved after less than half a year.

Later, I went to help a domestic platform advertise overseas, set up a team in India, and took advantage of the good English of Indians to connect and cooperate with upstream and downstream companies of European and American advertising. We connect with more than 200 upstream and downstream companies.

I can say that I watched the entire Internet infrastructure in India slowly build up, which is a result of the combined efforts of local and overseas entrepreneurs. In those years, the Indian market has been in a state of growth, and the propensity of capital is also very high. Compared with other countries, India is a blue ocean market with more opportunities. From the perspective of Internet operations, India's traffic is relatively cheap, and it is easier to make some large-traffic products, but when it comes to monetization, efficiency and income are not so ideal.

In 2019, I joined the current company and is responsible for content operations. We have our own tool product through which mobile phones can exchange music, photos, games, etc. Because the tool products were made relatively early, with some of the original Android smartphones exported to India, they were pre-installed and accumulated many users.

In addition to tools, we also do some content derivative services, cooperate with some news organizations and creators, and provide short and medium videos to local users. India is a diverse country, and we mainly deploy content in small languages, which is more invested. India is a market with a relatively large number of users, and at its peak, there may be nearly 10 million daily active.

In 2020, after the Sino-Indian border conflict, the Indian government began to block a number of Chinese apps, and we were one of them. As an Internet company with a Chinese background whose number of users in India has reached a certain level, the goal is very large, the government requires us to provide server information, user data privacy, etc., we actively cooperate with the government to assist in the investigation, but the App is still forced to be removed, and then slowly the government's PR can not get through, so we can only slowly withdraw from the market.

At that time, the team had almost dozens of employees, hundreds of outsourced contract workers, and several Chinese employees, and after the incident, all the Chinese employees had to be withdrawn, and I was the only one left. Then the epidemic broke out again, and I was blocked there for three or four months, and I finally bought a plane ticket and hurried back to China.

Now the company's business in India has been suspended, millions of daily active users are gradually lost, and the initial investment has been lost. I'm still in this company, but I changed to a different country and moved to the Indonesian market. In fact, to make a sea, no matter which country you do, you need to have super adaptability and patience.

Whether the company will return to India in the future has to put a question mark, after all, this market has already hurt everyone once, and it is necessary to think carefully about going back again.