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Since Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed the Metaverse era, there has been more movement in XR. Shanghai attracts innovative companies with tax savings.
According to Hong Kong’s largest English-language daily, the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the metaverse can be translated into Chinese as “Yuanyuzhou”, a term that is vigorously trademarked in various contexts.
Meta displaces Chinese tech companies
More than 1,360 companies in mainland China have already registered a trademark related to Metaverse. Three months ago, before Facebook’s meta transformation and the large-scale announcement of the metaverse strategy, that number was 130 companies.
The total number of applications for individual brands is around 8,500, and tech giant Tencent alone reportedly registered around 100 Metaverse brands in September. This shows how influential Meta is in China as well, although Oculus products are not officially sold there. Chinese virtual reality and augmented reality companies that are better known in the West when it comes to hardware include ByteDance (Pico), HTC, Pimax and Nreal.
Several companies involved in games and online communities such as MiHoYo and Netease (mobile and online games), Bilibili (video streaming) and the start-up Soul (AI-supported social networks) co-financed by Tencent are already in building their own metaverses. Soul announced Metaverse plans earlier this year, among other things, users can create avatars here. However, the interface is still fully 2D. The app reportedly has around 33 million monthly active users.
Established technology companies such as e-commerce giant Alibaba, Huawei and Hisense are already planning the Metaverse: among others, Huawei has requested the rights to a “Meta OS”, Alibaba for the “Ali Metaverse”, Hisense for the advertising of Metaverse services or social services.
Shanghai wants to promote the digital economy
The SCMP further reports that in the coming year, the city of Shanghai intends to promote enterprises that create platforms for interaction between the virtual society and the real society. The city government calls on enterprises to actively promote the digital economy and the transformation of the city. Large companies in these regions could expect tax cuts.
“Shanghai and other Yangtze River Delta governments are actively investing in the future, focusing on computer chips, biotechnology and artificial intelligence,” said Wang Zhen, vice president of the Academy of Social Sciences. from Shanghai. “These technologies have the potential to develop into multiple industrial clusters and increase economy and consumption.”
The Chinese government warns against the Metaverse
According to the SCMP, the state media “People’s Daily” would have alerted in early December on the Metaverse: The sale of virtual goods in particular “carries risks of volatility, fraud, illegal fundraising and money laundering”. In the case of NFTs, there were no clear legal requirements for transactions, either in China or in other countries. In November, People’s Daily explicitly warned against the metaverse hype: people need to “stay rational to understand the current metaverse mania.”
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