Source: Duke Internet Society (ID: wlyxs888)

Visiting this year's CIFTIS, one striking impression stands out: exhibitor booths are becoming less "flashy."

Meituan's booth drew significant crowds, but its core displays weren't flashy AI demos—instead, they showcased AI-powered business tools for merchants. These tools analyze reviews, diagnose operations, optimize menus, and assist in site selection. Next door, Moji Weather's booth was even more "understated." The popular weather app didn't highlight new consumer features but instead promoted its "ElectroMetis" energy meteorology SaaS platform and decision-making systems for aviation and rail sectors.

Two booths, two industries, yet both signal a unified trend: Chinese tech companies are reframing their global narratives from "how powerful our products are" to "how we can help your business thrive." This isn't just exhibition theming—it reflects a genuine industrial evolution.

【Quick Profits vs. Sustainable Value: Two Distinct Business Models】

For two decades, Chinese tech globalization largely relied on one-off transactions.

Hardware, software, and APIs were standardized deliverables. R&D occurred domestically, products shipped overseas, and transactions ended upon delivery. Post-sale maintenance, adaptation, and upgrades? Clients handled those themselves or paid for customization. This model prioritized cost and efficiency—scaling to dilute R&D expenses and undercutting competitors on price.

The value curve peaked at delivery: maximum value realized upon product handover, followed by rapid decline due to technological commoditization and rising competition. This explains why many tech products faced shrinking margins overseas, eventually reducing to supply chain arbitrage.

The CIFTIS exhibits this year reveal a different logic: signing contracts marks the start of service, not the end.

Clients purchase not fixed-function products but adaptable, evolving capability systems. Service providers deliver not just technology but also implementation methodologies, operational workflows, and long-term support. The value curve now begins at delivery: product handover grants entry, while sustained service adaptation and client business growth drive continuous value appreciation.

In essence, Chinese tech companies are transitioning from manufacturing's quick profits—"build, sell, cash out"—to service industry's sustainable returns: "systematize experience, grow alongside clients."

This shift isn't ideological but inevitable as industries mature. When products homogenize and price wars reach breaking points, extending into services and monetizing long-term operations becomes the universal upgrade path for tech sectors.

【Meituan Keeta: Selling Not Just a Delivery App, But an Entire Operational Ecosystem】

Many still perceive Meituan's global expansion as replicating its food delivery app abroad. Yet Keeta's true competitive edge lies not in frontend interfaces but in backend operational capabilities refined through billions of domestic orders.

This replicability has been proven. Launched in Hong Kong in May 2023, Keeta achieved positive unit economics within 29 months, capturing 44% market share by order volume—topping the region. In September 2024, it entered Saudi Arabia, covering 20+ cities including Riyadh, Jeddah, and Mecca, achieving profitability in just 22 months—seven months faster than Hong Kong—with 150 million+ cumulative orders and MAU ranking second locally. In Kuwait, Keeta's MAU surpassed incumbent leader Talabat.

This rapid growth stems not from subsidies but localized capability exports:

- **Intelligent Dispatch Infrastructure**: Meituan deployed its proprietary AI dispatch system overseas, optimizing rider routes, dynamic pricing, and path planning in real time. In Hong Kong, average delivery times dropped to 27 minutes; in Riyadh, 1km deliveries take just 25 minutes. A sandstorm early-warning system boosted order fulfillment during extreme weather by 40%.

- **Merchant Empowerment Framework**: Keeta's "Founding Merchant Program" in Saudi Arabia offers zero-commission phases, priority traffic support, AI menu optimization tools, and data insights. This helped local merchants create budget single-person meals priced 15% below competitors, rapidly expanding supply.

- **Rider Management Mechanisms**: Targeting Middle East's expatriate workforce, Keetu designed efficiency-first incentives—on-time bonuses, tiered rewards, mandatory rest periods—while respecting cultural preferences with options for hand-delivery or designated drop-off locations.

Meituan CEO Wang Xing stated bluntly in August 2024's earnings call: "Across markets, consumers and merchants share core needs—consumers want richer choices, competitive pricing, and reliable delivery; merchants want more orders, fair commissions, and fulfillment guarantees."

Meituan's strategy essentially packages its decade of refined domestic operational expertise into exportable service products. Revenues now derive not from software licensing but ongoing operational service fees and capability empowerment value.

Yet this path is far from smooth. Meituan admitted Keeta faced exclusionary agreements with Brazil's dominant iFood, forcing suspension of Rio de Janeiro expansion and staff reductions from ~236 to 36. Service-based expansion inherently lags product replication. Consequently, Meituan halted all new country launches from 2026, shifting focus from scale to refined operations and profitability.

【Moji Weather: C-End for Experience, B-End for Decision-Making】

Moji Weather pursues a dual globalization track—concurrent C-end and B-end capability exports.

Its C-end MojiWeather app launched international versions in 2024, supporting 30+ countries with multilingual services. Rather than direct translations, it adapts to regional climates: Southeast Asia gets enhanced flood warnings, the Middle East focuses on heatwave/sandstorm advisories, while Europe/Americas emphasize outdoor meteorology. Users download a weather app but receive continuously updated, locally adapted services.

The real story lies in B-end services.

Jin Ruichao, General Manager of Moji Weather's Government & Enterprise Division, told Xinhua at CIFTIS: "Participating in CIFTIS lets us declare our transformation from a consumer weather app to an industrial service provider."

What does this industrial servitization entail?

- **Energy Sector**: The "ElectroMetis" SaaS platform integrates multi-source observational data with deep learning AI correction models, covering the entire power value chain (generation, transmission, distribution, transformation, consumption). It provides 15-day, 15-minute, 1km-grid wind/solar power forecasts, helping renewable plants reduce deviation penalties. During CIFTIS's Meteorological Economy Forum, Moji Weather showcased this solution, now in trial operation with leading generators like Huadian and Huaneng.

- **Aviation**: The AeroMetis SaaS platform partners with Spring Airlines, Sichuan Airlines, Tibet Airlines, and Juneyao Airlines. Addressing high-altitude airports' weather-related diversion rates, it created minute-level thunderstorm simulation for Lhasa Airport. During 2025's monsoon season, the system safeguarded 127 flights affected by Lhasa thunderstorms, reducing diversions by 32. Tibet Airlines' overall diversion rate hit a historic low of 0.36%, with Lhasa Airport's rate dropping 48% YoY. Spring Airlines leveraged the platform for flight planning and crew allocation, maintaining top punctuality among major domestic carriers for years.

- **Rail Transit**: Moji Weather partnered with Zhengzhou Metro to build a weather disaster warning and prevention platform, now piloted across multiple rail operators. Data disclosed at CIFTIS shows it cut emergency response times from 30 to under 3 minutes, improving efficiency by 40%+.

By 2026, Moji Weather's B-end meteorological services spanned 20+ industries including aviation, rail, energy, agriculture, logistics, and insurance, serving 200+ clients.

This creates a virtuous cycle: C-end products gather global user data to refine algorithms and build brand awareness, while B-end services monetize validated predictive capabilities through industry solutions.

However, challenges remain. Moji Weather's B-end revenue still focuses on China, with overseas enterprise clients in early exploration stages. Large-scale industry clients demand long development cycles and high customization costs, leaving significant ground to cover before achieving Large scale revenue (scalable overseas revenue).

【Why Now? A Confluence of Three Forces】

Meituan's offline operational focus and Moji Weather's data-driven services occupy different tracks but converge at the same industrial inflection point. This product-to-capability shift results from three overlapping drivers:

**1. Domestic Hyper-Competition Cultivates "Excess" Refinement**

China hosts one of the world's most fiercely competitive tech markets. Decades of battle in food delivery, meteorology, and local services have pushed operational efficiency, scenario granularity, and user experience to extremes. Meituan's dispatch system matches riders and orders in milliseconds while balancing speed, cost, and rider experience. Moji Weather's algorithms provide kilometer-level, minute-level precision across hundreds of extreme weather scenarios.

These capabilities, now "standard" or even "excessive" domestically, represent scarce mature expertise in emerging markets like the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Domestic hyper-competition has essentially created capabilities that constitute "dimensionality reduction strikes" overseas. Conversely, saturation in China compels firms to export these "excess" capabilities—mirroring how manufacturing overcapacity once drove export surges.

**2. Overseas Demand Upgrades from "Tools" to "Playbooks"**

Early-stage emerging markets had simple digital needs: lacking software, hardware, and basic tools, they prioritized affordability and functionality. But as digital infrastructure spreads, client pain points shift. Tools became commodities; the new challenge is operationalizing them to drive efficiency and cost reductions—a knowledge gap.

This demand evolution varies by market tier: Mature markets like Europe seek cost-effective capability supplementation, using Chinese standardized services to replace expensive local labor. Emerging markets in the Middle East and Southeast Asia crave replicated mature experiences, willing to adopt validated Chinese systems to bypass trial-and-error phases.

**3. Global Compliance Tightening Ends Product-Only Models**

Stricter cross-border data regulations raise barriers for data localization and on-the-ground operations. The old model—selling products with domestic servers—increasingly fails.

This compels Chinese firms to evolve: delivering not just products but also localized deployment, ongoing maintenance, and scenario adaptation. Service is no longer optional but a prerequisite for market entry. In this context, capability-based service exports become not a choice but a survival imperative.

【Epilogue】

The evolving CIFTIS booths mirror an industrial phase shift.

From hardware to software, and now to operational capabilities and industry expertise, Chinese tech globalization is ascending the value chain. The past relied on cost advantages for manufacturing-driven profits; the future depends on experience-based services for operational and temporal gains.

A clear divergence will emerge among Chinese tech globalizers over the next three years:

- **Cost-Driven Product Firms**: These will slash costs to dominate mid-to-low-end markets with standardized offerings. Quick profits but shrinking margins and weak risk resistance ensure struggles during industry downturns.

- **Value-Driven Service Firms**: These export expertise through long-term services, building client stickiness (stickiness). Slower but stable earnings will gradually secure market pricing power.

The latter represents China's tech industry upgrade path. Firms that first systematize domestic market experiences into tradable services will likely dominate the next wave of globalization, securing fatter margins and firmer market positions. Meanwhile, those persisting with standardized product price wars may fade from mainstream visibility within three years, much like today's generic phone brands.

Industrial evolution follows an unforgiving logic: The market never waits for preparedness.