Dancing grannies targeted by web start-ups
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E-mail CRI, January 16, 2017
You don't have to travel too far to come face to face with a group of square dancers in China's cities.
Popular with an older crowd, they are often referred to as 'Dancing Grannies' and all too often hit the headlines because of the loud music they use to dance to.
This popular activity is part exercise and part social get-together and takes place anywhere where that people can find a patch of open space - in public squares, plazas, in parks or even by the side of roads.
It's estimated some 100 million people across China take part in the activity which is low cost and easy to get involved in.
No surprises then that China's success hungry entrepreneurs are beginning to consider ways of making money from the activity.
As night falls over a village in Beijing's Shunyi District, a group of about 20 people aged between 30 and 70 gather in a square to dance. For many it's become an indispensable part of their life. They say it keeps them young, is an opportunity to talk to friends, and stops them sitting for hours in front of the television and getting unfit.
It's also potentially a big money earner for companies.
"Every month, I spend 300-500 yuan on new clothes and shoes for dancing. I need a new costume with every form of dance," says one of the Shunyi dancers.
As with many things these days in China, the dancers often buy their costumes and shoes online, but also the music they play, loudspeaker systems, and even dancing lessons.
Fifty-eight year old Hong Zhu has been dancing for six years. Even so, she started taking dancing lessons at a training center three months ago, and now attends classes twice a week.
She has to pay 68 yuan, about US$10, each month for lessons and pays through a mobile app.
The popularity of square dancing has inevitably attracted the attention of many startups, and there are now a variety of apps available to meet the demand, providing dancing tutorials and communication platforms to contact fellow dancers.
Zhang Yuan founded a Square Dancing company in Beijing.
"Over 20 million users have downloaded our app so far. We serve over 40 million users every month and our daily active users are over three million."
Zhang said their revenues mainly come from fees collected in the form of payments made by app users to buy gifts, products and services.
The potential has also drawn attention from investors.
Over the past two years, six square dancing companies have received funding totaling over a hundred million yuan.
Analysts estimate, given the number of the participants and their monthly spending on the dancing, it can generate a market worth at least 50 billion RMB or over US$70 billion.
By the end of 2016, dozens of such companies had been set up in Beijing, and east China's Hangzhou and Suzhou cities. Over six square dancing companies have received funding totaling hundreds of millions of yuan in the past two years.
"I think there is still a long way for these companies that develop square dancing apps," said Shan Ying, deputy secretary general of the Promotion Center for National Choreography Sports under China's General Administration of Sports.
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