Mixue has surpassed Starbucks and McDonald's to become the world's largest fast food chain. As the details illustrate, it wasn't by accident. The company's record-breaking IPO looks set to fund its next round of expansion

In recent years, Shanghai's low-altitude economy has been rapidly commercializing, driven by successful developments in composite materials, a strong talent pool, and an expanding range of application scenarios presenting opportunities for travellers and brands alike.

Skinny readers who’ve been with us for a while may remember when we hypothesised how retailers would be able to tap into China’s facial recognition with consumer scenarios in 2019 and beyond. The anticipated opportunities were the result of China’s leadership in facial recognition tech, coupled with its liberal policies and consumer attitudes towards the privacy. While cities such as San Francisco and Portland have banned the use of facial recognition, the technology has flourished in China with numerous marketing applications. Unfortunately many have been unscrupulous.

Last time we looked, the end users in the bra category were almost always female. That’s why we were scratching our head, like many others, when we saw last week’s promotion from Chinese bra brand Ubras with the famous comedian Li Dan, a male.

On China's popular reality TV show, You Who Came From Mobile Phones (Láizì shǒujī de nǐ) livestreaming Diva Viya was asked how much she earned. Her reply was "less than ¥10 billion ($1.4 billion)." Anyone who has been following the renaissance of livestreaming in China over the past 18-months - and particularly since the coronavirus outbreak - is likely to have shaken their head if she'd said anything that wasn't in the billions.

China's economic data for January and February was released on Monday and it wasn't pretty. Retail sales were down 20.5% from a year earlier, following 8% growth in December. Fixed-asset investment dropped 24.5%, property development investment sunk 16.3%, government-driven infrastructure investment plunged 30.3% and value-added industrial output fell 13.5%.

It has now been over a month since the city of Wuhan was locked down and the world learned about the coronavirus COVID-19. As the extraordinary measures continue in Wuhan and other cities such as Harbin, and cases outside of China accelerate, the risk is far from over. Yet there are some positive signs that much of China is returning to relative normality - albeit wearing face masks.

Another Singles' Day and another dizzying array of records: Almost $70 billion worth of goods sold just on China's top two platforms including $38.4 billion on Alibaba and $29.2 billion over the 11-day sale on JD.com. It was a 27% rise across the board from 2018.

Britain’s lively capital, London: Arguably the world’s most international city, its cultural capital, the city with the second-highest private wealth after New York, home to four Unesco World Heritage Sites, more five-star hotels than any other city, and based on measurable and objective data, simply ‘the capital of the world’. It also has similar house prices to China’s tier-3 city of Xiamen.

One of the giveaways of a newbie to China is the bafflement about being unable to access Google, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and Twitter – unless they’re chewing through their data roaming quotas or have planned ahead with a VPN. It quickly becomes apparent that China’s digital ecosystem is unlike anywhere else in the world.

Finding a steaming plate of pad thai or a hearty massaman curry in China is infinitely easier today than it was five years ago. In Shanghai alone, there are now more than 225 Thai restaurants. The snowballing of Thai cuisine is representative of the overall growth of foreign cuisine in China – a product of rising discretionary income and increasingly adventurous diners, but also by the growth of tourism.

Chinese Valentine’s Day Qixi fell on Monday with the usual barrage of schmaltzy ads and online deals. Yet not everyone was out spending a month’s wages on heart-themed handbags or posting romantic dinner snaps on WeChat.

Chinese love property. 90% of families in the country own their home, giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. The majority of Chinese investors’ portfolios are dominated by property.

When a Chinese consumer makes a decision – from picking a bottle of water, to choosing which country will best educate their child – the influence of KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) can be dramatic. A feature of Chinese thought since the days of Chairman Mao, the KOL economy is set to boom; 2016’s value of ¥53 billion ($7.8 billion) is estimated to near double to ¥102 billion ($15.1 billion) next year. To bring some perspective, that is three times the forecasted value of China’s newspaper and magazine advertising in 2018.

Last week Alibaba hosted their first conference outside of China – Gateway 17 in Detroit. China Skinny was there.

In 1990, Greater China’s metro systems covered just three cities. By 2020, over 40 cities will sport modern, efficient underground commuter networks. In that same three decades, Beijing has gone from a couple of lines and Shanghai from nothing, to the two largest and busiest networks in the world.

Years ago, China’s sprawling network of street-noodle vendors began utilising the curious new commerce features of an app called WeChat.

Happy Year of the Rooster. Welcome back from what was a consumption-driven Lunar New Year break with spending up 48.1% from last year.