China's gay app Blued taps into pink economy

[lonelywombat]

I have argued that local gay businesses should tap into the gay Chinese market to attract tourists.
I believe this is important for all Gay Thailand businesses to survive. I wonder if any will?
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Blued, China's most popular gay social-networking app, said on Wednesday it has completed Series C and C+ rounds of financing, and netted several hundred millions of yuan in those two rounds, without disclosing details.
Its valuation has reached more than $300 million, according to the company.
The news was announced in June, because it was declared LGBT Pride Month in the United States by President Obama.
The C+ round of funding was led by Vision Knight Capital (China) Fund and other investors including China Mobile Games and Entertainment Group Ltd. The earlier Series C round of financing was led by leading venture capital organization Ventech China, and Hong Kong's New World Development Co Ltd participated.
Founded in 2012, Blued has more than 27 million registered users globally as of February, with overseas users accounting for more than 20 percent of the total.
It has become the Chinese gay social-networking app with the largest number of users, and one of the top social-networking apps on the App Store.
Geng Le, CEO of Blued, said the company has seen significant revenue growth, and it started to make a profit in the first half of 2016. The app mainly makes money from advertising and live streaming, where audiences can watch live-streaming video broadcast and audiences can send virtual gifts to the broadcasters.
"With the funding, we plan to speed up our international expansion, and localize our products overseas. We will promote the marketing and branding, and set up more offices overseas," the Blued chief said.
"We also plan to hire more competitive staff, and we will pay them a considerable salary."
Currently, Blued has overseas offices in the United States and Thailand. The app provides different versions inh nine languages, and its users come from more than 190 countries and regions.
This year, Blued aims to net revenues of several hundred million yuan, the company said. Getting listed on the stock exchange is one of its goals in the next one to two years, although the location of listing is undecided yet.
China's gay market is worth a reported $300 billion annually, according to Euromonitor International, a market research firm.
"The gay business is a piece of virgin territory in China, and we hope to become a leader of this lucrative market," Blued's Geng said.
"The substantial spending ability of gays and the funding support we got indicate the strong power of the so-called pink economy (gay economy)," Geng said.
During the first half of 2015, gay social-networking apps have been downloaded at least 40 million times in China, according to a report by Coolchuan, an app tracking platform.
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[arsenal]

It's a very good app. Extremely simple to use and with a quite brilliant translation facility. Wechat is the big one for China and that too is fantastic. Much more user friendly than facebook. You won't need to talk to a Chinese gay on Blued for long before he asks to see your willy. Oh yes, one other thing. If you're a bear and into twinks you'll do very very well in China. The twinks love bears in China.

[catawampuscat]

i was recently talking with a Thai guy I've know for quite a while. He's on gayromeo and
just joined Hornet. He had changed his age on GR from the early thirties to late twenties as he
believed farangs were looking for younger guys.
He liked blued and met many Chinese guys. He said they all wanted massage plus. He said they
averaged 30-40 years younger than the farangs he met elsewhere and admitted younger, firmer
bodies much better than hairy old farangs and the money about the same. He likes blued.
He'd still like a farang boyfriend..

[lonelywombat]

He liked blued and met many Chinese guys. He said they all wanted massage plus. He said they
averaged 30-40 years younger than the farangs he met elsewhere and admitted younger, firmer
bodies much better than hairy old farangs and the money about the same. He likes blued...

I hope the Chinese gays are actually visiting Pattaya and this was not Bangkok. Once again it appears if people go out to look for Gay Chinese they will succeed.
The Sunee bars are just a few hundred yards from the New Boutique Hotel which is exclusively for Chinese. Maybe I have the wrong name but it was the old DayNight hotel
For gay saunas surely it would make sense to advertise in Chinese gay papers

[arsenal]

The Chinese are beautiful when they're young but age appallingly. A Chinese guy over thirty is very likely to be repulsive. If you target your business to cater for Chinese you will alienate everyone else.

[lonelywombat]

A Chinese guy over thirty is very likely to be repulsive. If you target your business to cater for Chinese you will alienate everyone else.

I think you will find just as many farang over 30 that are also appalling

[arsenal]

I was being generous at thirty really. And farang are repulsive in a different way.

[fountainhall]

The Chinese are beautiful when they're young but age appallingly. A Chinese guy over thirty is very likely to be repulsive.
I agree with you as a generality. Few Chinese guys used to take care of their bodies and lost their looks pretty quickly. But now hoards of young gay men hit the huge number of gyms and health clubs that have sprung up. The new gay generations in the cities have both disposable income and many of the same aspirations as their counterparts in the west - designer clothes, clubbing, travel, lots more sex - and the restrictions of the past are increasingly being loosened. Spend a week-end in Hong Kong and you'll see loads of handsome mainland Chinese gays in the up-market shops and some in the bars and saunas - and many of these guys are well into their 30s.

What I find strange is that there are not nearly so many to be seen in Bangkok, despite it being much easier for them to get into Thailand than it is to Hong Kong. I'm told by Hong Kong friends that many of these guys are young executives for whom Thailand's gay scene does not hold much attraction. They prefer to be with westerners or other Chinese - and of course up-market shopping in Hong Kong is cheaper. It they are going to travel further afield, Europe is the preferred destination.

[arsenal]

Fountainhall: It's not just their lifestyle of excess with too much smoking, alcohol and food that does for their looks. By thirty their brains are functioning in a strange way. A clash between still being dependent on their parents and the terror they have of them while enjoying the material benefits it brings. Very few rich young Chinese have made the money themselves. This lack of development starts to take it's toll on their soul and this is reflected in their bodies and behaviour.

[fountainhall]

Fountainhall: It's not just their lifestyle of excess with too much smoking, alcohol and food that does for their looks. By thirty their brains are functioning in a strange way. A clash between still being dependent on their parents and the terror they have of them while enjoying the material benefits it brings. Very few rich young Chinese have made the money themselves. This lack of development starts to take it's toll on their soul and this is reflected in their bodies and behaviour.
I really haven't the faintest idea where you get all this nonsense from! It sounds like you are talking about China a good 25 to 30 years ago! How many times have you been to China recently, by the way? And on what do you base these assertions?

I have met no gay guy anywhere in China - and I have met many in quite a few cities over the last 30 years - who now either lives with his parents or is in any way dependent on them! I also have quite a few gay friends, most of whom are in what we'd call the emerging middle class. Not one has a rich parent. These guys don't binge drink. They prefer wine to beer and many do not smoke.

Seems you forget there is an enormous number of international companies operating in China, all with junior and middle management executives recruited from within the country, most of whom are university graduates. These are the guys who are at the forefront of changing habits and lifestyles. They rent their own flats or share with like-minded guys. They still feel an obligation to help their parents, but that is a cultural issue and in no way a drag on their own personal ambitions.

[arsenal]

Fountainhall: I've lived in China for the past 5 1/2 years. OK, So let's agree to disagree.

[fountainhall]

Fountainhall: I've lived in China for the past 5 1/2 years. OK, So let's agree to disagree.
My comments re your experience are therefore out of order and I apologise. But I have to stick by my own observations from visiting various parts of China, Beijing and Shanghai quite regularly, as well as those of my friends in those cities and Hong Kong. That said, I'll agree to disagree.

[arsenal]

Fountainhall. You can't include Hong Kong as China because it just isn't. I know ex-pats who would happily nuke the mainland but adore Hong Kong. Whatever your experience I have to tell you it is very much at odds from that of the four cities I have lived in and the ex-pats I have met. Perhaps the next time you visit anywhere in Asia that isn't China you might like to ask the people there what they think about the Chinese. But if you do, brace yourself because you won't like what you hear.

[fountainhall]

Fountainhall. You can't include Hong Kong as China because it just isn't.
With respect I never suggested such an inclusion. I lived in Hong Kong for 21 years. I still run a company there and am there every couple of months. I am well aware of many Hong Kong people's views about the mainland. I was referring to my earlier comment re the views of my gay friends who live in Hong Kong. Sure there are hoards of Chinese package tourists whom Hong Kong would be very glad to see the back of - except they want their cash! Thailand also now suffers from this phenomenon. That does not negate my comments and those of my friends in Hong Kong that there is now a substantial number of handsome Chinese gays in their 20s and 30s who visit, often on week-end shopping trips, who pack the bars and saunas, and have nothing to do with the cheap tourist groups. I myself have met quite a few there.

[arsenal]

OK we're coming to a meeting point here although you did mention Shanghai and Beijing. With regards to exclusively the gay Chinese. In my experience they range more dramatically than anywhere I've visited. From camper than a row of tents in Great Yarmouth (think a dozen twinks running around a bar having a balloon fight, true} to many who are very straight acting often married (unhappily) with a child.

[fountainhall]

I'm glad our views are closer. You will certainly have far more experience of the unhappily married gays than I. I can fully understand that these guys let themselves go to seed pretty quickly as they have almost no route to any form of personal happiness and sexual satisfaction. I can't help comparing their plight with that of a really nice 32 year old Japanese I met in the 24 sauna in Shinjuku 3 years ago. Although not as slim as some, he looked younger than his age. But he, too, had felt forced to marry at a young age and lived with his wife and 2 kids. But he was either at work or commuting all week. Sunday he attended to family duties but Saturday was his day and he spent it in various gay hangouts. We had a great, extended time together. China just does not offer gay and bisexual men these kind of facilities.

[arsenal]

I get a couple of offers weekly (I really do) from Chinese gay men. I turn down 90% (I really do) because they are simply not my type. And if the guy is over 30 I often don't even bother to reply because I have yet to meet a Chinese person of that age who I like the look of, sexually that is.