With the theme of “Digital Employment for A Better Future, Building A Community With A Shared Future in Cyber”, the 2020 World Internet Conference·Internet Development Forum wrapped up on November 24th. As the digital economy continues to play an important role during the pandemic, and as the development of the digital economy continues to improve meeting people’s growing needs, the Digital Economy was a hot topic discussed in-depth during the forum.

With the development and fusion of the global digital economy, many Chinese Internet enterprises have introduced their products to the overseas market. Meitu’s flagship product, BeautyCam, released New Chinese Style Looks recently, providing looks with Han, Tang, Song and Qing dynasty elements, which became a trend on social media in Japan and attracted numerous KOLs to introduce their followers to BeautyCam on social media.

Wu Xinhong, Meitu founder and CEO, shared Meitu’s experience and insights on their global layout since 2014 during the forum, saying, “I believe most Chinese Internet technology enterprises, including Meitu, want to improve their technological capabilities through their own efforts to enhance global digital applications so that more users can enjoy the convenience of life that low-cost Internet technology brings.”

Respecting local laws and customs, localizing products according to local conditions

As Wu Xinhong stated, “Meitu always respects the local laws and regulations of the regions we operate in, and deeply studies the local culture, beauty trends and taboos, so we can create trending products for our overseas users, enhance our localization operations, and be warmly welcomed by users.

BeautyPlus, as Meitu’s first overseas flagship product, aims to satisfy the needs of different groups of people around the world with a broad range of functions and in-depth localization operations. BeautyPlus has garnered numerous users from Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Indonesia and more. Another Meitu overseas product, AirBrush, has focused on creating natural editing tools. It provides users with natural editing effects, high-quality filters, personalized makeup looks and more, and has received a lot of love from Western users since its launch. In addition, Meitu’s targeted layout for video shooting apps brought about the launch of VCUS, the first app to apply slow-motion special effects with just one tap, allowing ordinary people to easily create professional movie-grade videos. The app has since been recommended by Apple on the App Store in many countries, including Brazil and the Philippines.

Meitu has developed different products for different target countries. Combining the information and the languages supported by these three products, we see BeautyPlus as a general product with in-depth localization in the target countries, while AirBrush and VCUS are mainly targeted at countries and regions in South America and Southeast Asia.

Meitu’s in-depth localization efforts have helped make our products popular with many overseas users. According to Wu Xinhong, Meitu's products are popular in many countries along the Belt and Road Initiative, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, and other countries. While in Europe and the United States, Meitu products have become an important platform for local users to edit photos or videos and share beauty trends. In Japan, South Korea, Thailand and other Eastern countries, the latest Chinese style make-up products launched by Meitu have been very popular among users.

Cross-cultural communication, exploring beauty together

Meitu's overseas expansion is not only about localizing and learning the culture of overseas markets, but also about exporting Chinese traditional culture overseas by including Chinese-style elements in the apps.

With the development of the digital economy, the fascinating culture of every country in the world can be shown and loved using digital platforms. As far as exporting Chinese culture, Ziqi Li and other KOLs or artists have been warmly welcomed in overseas countries and brought about discussion around exporting Chinese culture. Now, Meitu is able to share traditional Chinese culture with our overseas users, showing China's cultural confidence on the platforms of local Internet companies.

Wu Xinhong said that Meitu hopes to actively display and spread Chinese culture through Meitu’s global products, enhancing cross-cultural communication and study. 

Meitu has launched the New Chinese Style Makeup and Classic of Mountain and Sea Makeup on its apps overseas. The New Chinese Style Makeup has been embraced by Japanese, Korean and Thai female users, and the Classic of Mountain and Sea Makeup, which comes from the mythology of Shan-hai Ching, has allowed for a crossover of Chinese and the Western tradition of Halloween, realizing cultural integration and export.

Enhancing product power to gain more users

Product power not only refers to a product’s technological ability and system stability, but also includes the insights of people’s feeling and the trends of beauty. It is the most basic element to gaining stable users in an atmosphere of fierce competition.

People have not only an individual pursuit of beautiful things but also have a common set of preferences. One advantage for Meitu is that it has focused on Beauty for more than a decade, exploring the common preferences in beauty. Based on this, Meitu has improved its own product power to let users choose what they want, knowing that Meitu will provide it.

While Meitu does not have a business layout in the Netherlands, Meitu products have become very popular in the Dutch-speaking region and Meitu has even received an invitation to be interviewed by a wildly popular documentary program in the Dutch-speaking region. In this regard, Xinhong Wu said, "This makes me feel that everyone shares the same desire to pursue a better life, and that good products can be recognized universally."

For products that help users become more beautiful, whoever understands beauty and the beauty that users pursue, and whoever can guide and lead the beauty trends of users, has the product power and the competitiveness needed to lead the way. So Meitu took “to let everyone become beautiful easily” as its mission, understanding the needs of our 295 million monthly active users across our platforms, and has continuously innovated product features to enhance user experience.

Open technologies, supporting the digitalization of brands around the world

Apart from product innovation, Meitu also provides solutions to the industry using its AI technology.

According to Wu Xinhong, Meitu has provided contactless online services including virtual makeup trials and skin detection services based on AI technology and image processing, to help brands maintain and grow their user base.

The pandemic indirectly promoted the digitalization process of Meitu, enabling Meitu to help more users and brands.

China is leading the way in the era of mobile Internet, with e-commerce, 5G, mobile payments and other Internet technology applications all at the forefront. Meitu hopes to equip itself with better products and digitalized services and become a better known International technology company.

"We look forward to working together with countries around the world to build and maintain a fair, open, cooperative and win-win International business environment, which will truly benefit both globalized and developing enterprises and global users," Wu Xinhong said at the forum. Under the ever-competitive international business environment, Meitu will also continue to explore people's needs for beauty in different countries, improve its technology and products, hoping “to let everyone easily become more beautiful”.