Tag: Jack Ma

China Rich List: 49 Years Old Ma Huateng owner of WeChat Push Jack Ma to 3rd

49-year-old Ma Huateng is currently the richest man in the most populous country in the world. Ma Huateng who is also called “Pony Ma” by fans, is the Chairman and Founder of Tencent Holdings, China’s biggest Internet enterprise.

 

 

 

Ma Huateng is currently worth $64.6bn surpassing Zhong Shanshan who is currently at $62.5bn according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s index

 

 

Ma Huateng is also the youngest amongst the first 15 multi-billionaires in the world.

 

 

At 49 years old, he is the Chairman of Tencent, a company listed amongst the biggest companies in the world by the sheer size of its market capitalization.

 

 

Ma Huateng founded Tencent 5 years after graduating from the University of Shenzhen where he studied Computer science. He teamed up with 4 of his colleagues in school to found the business. Tencent is the internet company behind the social media giant WeChat with over 1 billion users.

Tencent’s first product (QQ) was an instant messaging app that connected early adopters of desktop computers and mobile phones. It quickly became China’s largest instant-messaging platform according to the Wall Street Journal.

The company enjoyed early success with QQ. In the coming years, it raised over $32 million in investment and went public in 2004.

In 2011, it launched its most successful product to date – the giant social media platform, wechat.com with over a billion users. In the massive Chinese online market where Facebook and WhatsApp are banned, WeChat enjoys a large share of the market. It also offers its users additional features like shopping, gaming etc.

Tencent primarily makes money from advertisement and premium subscribers.

Ma Huateng of Tencent is obviously a fan of diversified investment. The company has spread its tentacles to various areas and markets, mostly in the United States.

According To CNBC, Tencent has invested in the following companies:

1. It has a 5% stake in Tesla
2. A 10% stock swap with Spotify
3. A 10% stake in Snap

Ma Huateng is referred to as Pony Ma by his large and youthful fan base. He is not related to Alibaba founder Jack Ma; both billionaires, however, share mutual respect.

Ma Huateng is currently worth $63.4bn and is the biggest success story from the streets of Shenzhen which is often referred to as China’s Silicon Valley.

He is the latest richest man in China.

Ma Huateng and his colleagues did one simple thing. They founded a social media platform for their home country.

Ma Huateng is a strong beneficiary of the long-standing ‘China First’ policy of the Chinese Communist Party.

In a world where other countries are relying on US tech companies like Facebook and Apple for their tech products, the Chinese have always insisted on building their own and Ma Huateng is a product of such ideology.

Meet the bottled water billionaire who dethroned Jack Ma to become the richest man in China

Jack Ma, the Ant and Alibaba founder is no longer the richest man in China and neither is he the second richest. He has been surpassed by two businessmen and currently sits in the third position. Jack Ma’s position was snatched by a man who at age 30, was working as a local reporter in the Zhejiang Province of China.

 

 

 

His name is still largely unheard, unlike his counterparts. Zhong Shanshan is the current richest man in China and was recently the richest man in Asia. He is currently worth $62.3 billion, according to Bloomberg. This means that he is $10bn richer than the famous Jack Ma of Alibaba Group.

 

 

Zhong Shanshan is also in a rare class of modern-day billionaires. He belongs to the very few multi-billionaires in today’s world with no ties to the technology sector. 

The story of Zhong Shanshan is your typical grass to grace story. Zhong was born into a poor family and had to drop out of school during the Cultural Revolution. He worked in construction sites and even sold prawns in the streets as a teenager.

 

 

After failing to pass the exams of a proper school, he enrolled into the Zhejiang Radio & TV University where he completed his degree and worked at the same time. At age 30, he was working as a local reporter in Zhejiang Radio and TV Station. He attributed his business drive and success to his work here as a reporter, where he interviewed over 500 self-made millionaires.

He went on to work as a beverage salesman before starting his own company.

 

According to fortune, 1n 1996 Zhong launched a bottling water business in his hometown Hangzhou. His business sold water bottled from a nearby reservoir to local vendors.

Zhong Shanshan’s water product came at a time when China had a serious drinking water challenge. Most of the country’s tap water was undrinkable and the Ministry of Water Resources confirmed that 80% of the country’s tap water was unsafe for drinking.

Zhong Shanshan was able to convince the Chinese people that natural water, which still contained minerals, was safe and better than traditional distilled water. His bottled water was known to have a little bit of taste from the natural minerals that were not removed from it. The Chinese people bought the idea. Zhong Shanshan also deployed brilliant marketing tactics with a product slogan that said, “Nongfu tastes a bit sweet.”

The idea struck gold!

Zhong Shanshan’s Nongfu Springs went on to become the leading bottled water product in the massive Chinese market. His company controls 28% of the Chinese bottled water market. It added energy drinks and vitamins to its catalogue and went public at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Zhong Shanshan’s Nongfu Springs was listed at a market valuation of $48bn. The number now stands at $95bn according to fortune. 

Zhong Shansan’s second-largest company, Beijing Wantai Biological, a vaccine maker went public in 2020 with a market capitalization of $17bn.

Zhong Shanshan is currently the richest man in China with a net worth of $62.3b according to Bloomberg.

Jack Ma’s financial woes began when he openly criticized the Chinese Communist Party for its overbearing regulations on Chinese businesses. This led to the suspension of his Ant Group’s $37 billion IPO according to Reuters.

Zhong Shanshan is succeeded by Ma Huateng, the multi-billionaire founder of Tencent, a Chinese multinational conglomerate holding company. Ma Huateng is worth $61.5bn according to

Bloomberg index. He is the second richest man in China.

Zhong Shanshan is nicknamed, “The Lone Wolf” because of his very low-key lifestyle and alienation from business circles.

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