Some may be amazed by the scale of the market at Huaqiang Bei intersection today, but it is just a pale afterimage of what it was 10 years ago, when the market was effectively filling 2 to 3 city blocks. It has been gentrified to death since then.
And to people thinking of Shenzhen as a manufacturing city teeming with garage entrepreneurs, They fared no better. There are close to no factories remaining within the city centre today, except the special customs zone on the southern tip of Futian.
All of this is thanks to the witless mayor Wang Rong that took over the city in 2009. Some oh his first orders were to bulldoze factories and build glossy shopping malls, "weekend rest" hotels, and coffee shops with $10 a pop cappuccinos, so "we can live like in civilised Western countries"
I visited Huaqiangbei about a month ago. Was actually a bit disappointed. The YouTubers definitely oversell it.
Yes, it's highly "gentrified" now, with big electronics chains having huge stores (yes, more than one).
Other than that most stall owners just want to jump on the newest bandwagon (drones, VR, Bitcoin miners) or just sell iPhone accessories.
Maybe the most amazing thing are the ground floors of most buildings were the "raw" electronic components are actually sold. Or better word would be marketed. You are suppose to "window shop" there and place an order for bulk purchase afterwards.
It also seems 90% of these stalls are just for the marketing purpose. They sell mostly on Taobao. There's a never ending noise of yellow packing tape being wrapped around carton boxes.
OTOH I really liked their logistics services, ZTO in particular. They're cheap, reliable and have proper package tracking.
Never ben to Shenzen but from watching the video it looks an awful lot like Pantip Plaza in Bangkok. Probably less high tech in Bangkok but they definitely have all the androids that look like iPhones and that kind of stuff.
Heh, people living in a city prefer malls to factories, who could have guessed?
BTW, according to their five-years plans, China now considers that industry-wise, it is set and is planning to develop more its tertiary sector and R&D.
Wages will rise, so will cost of components. The race to the cheapest will now increasingly rely on automation rather than poor labor.
There's still plenty of manufacturing going on, it's just mostly all moving outside the built up parts of the city, or to Dongguan.
It's the same dynamic you'd expect in America or elsewhere. A combination of gentrification, government policies encouraging factories to move their pollution away, rising salaries in the city...
I run a little design + CM about an hour out of town. There's still ton's of manufacturing going on out here. We are right next to a big Foxconn and if you go out at the shift change in the morning it's like watching a wildebeest migration except everybody is wearing a embroidered Foxconn jacket. So both large and small scale going on.
I think the aspirations to live better here is great. There has been a big push to clean up pollution and the air is noticeably better than 3 years ago. We've had some rough patches dealing with painting suppliers closing down or having to relocate, but it's totally worth it to breathe easier.
Our situation is even somewhat similar to Silicon Valley/SF right now in that the younger professionals want to live downtown and it's sometimes challenging to recruit them from a boring place outside of town.
I don't think anywhere else is a "realer deal" for consumer grade manufacturing. Some stuff gets moved into the interior of China, but that's usually larger scale stuff that can justify planning out a complete campus. Other things move out to countries like Vietnam. But this area is still where you want to be if it's a new product or need access to prototyping capabilities you can't find elsewhere.
I think there really isn't much of a scene in the sense the GP is probably thinking. Most everyone here concentrates directly on work and family. Activities that are indirectly linked to work/technology like the typical networking-event-disguised-as-a-party just don't happen that much here. There are a few. It's much more about finding a selection of partner businesses that you can work with reliably.
Even the younger crowd I mentioned above who like the city center often amaze me... it's like they don't really understand how to just have fun. When they do go out for fun it's often to a canned experience of some sort that promises a good photo op and not much else.
There is, however, a "foreigner who has come here and wants to build something" scene. Those guys mostly hang out near the Huaqiangbei market and sort of replicate the Silicon Valley vibe. Many of them are from there.
I don't think there will be another Huaqiangbei. HQB's big driver was factory storefronts. Before the internet it let people set up their sourcing/manufacturing chain without having to travel all over China to find it. Now that's mostly unnecessary and everyone uses Taobao or other online manufacturing marketplaces to connect with vendors. Especially if you've moved out of the city center it's not efficient to waste a day traveling into town and visiting the market when you can have the sample you need show up tomorrow morning (for $1.50 shipping) if you order it online. I'll swing through HQB about once a year for fun, but never just go there for parts.
Thanks for the insight! The city center sure is a weird place, I don't think those mega-bars will ever make sense to me. I'd take Houhai in Beijing anyday.
Makes sense that Taobao/Alibaba have been able to fill the gap and get product shipped quickly.
I'd say nowhere. Contract manufacturing has been a declining industry since its peak 10 years ago. The fewer small factories there are, the less refuse goes to street market.
You best bet is to go to the few remaining factory districts in Shajing, north to the airport and look what garage factories are selling. Also try going to districts north to S3 if you are a try-hard. Stuff there is mostly generic light industry goods, and not electronics per se.
It may worth going further north to Dongguan, but I myself rarely ventured there.
People order on Taobao now, so physical presence in a market is of dubious utility for many factories. The factories are mostly in Dongguan where they have their own component markets. The Baoshan area east and north of the airport also has industrial components markets (more process-line stuff). Huaqiangbei (HQB) is mostly consumer electronics with some components. There's more in Longhua / Longgang, northeast of town. China Post is super cheap for bulk shipping if you choose surface (ie. sea freight) but it takes three months.
And to people thinking of Shenzhen as a manufacturing city teeming with garage entrepreneurs, They fared no better. There are close to no factories remaining within the city centre today, except the special customs zone on the southern tip of Futian.
All of this is thanks to the witless mayor Wang Rong that took over the city in 2009. Some oh his first orders were to bulldoze factories and build glossy shopping malls, "weekend rest" hotels, and coffee shops with $10 a pop cappuccinos, so "we can live like in civilised Western countries"