Welcome to Shenzhen! Last stop on our fact-finding mission to one of the top China’s innovation hubs.

On this 5th day, we’ll be visiting 2 giants: BYD and DJI. For the occasion, we were accompanied by Philippe Praz, Consul General of Switzerland in Guangzhou, and Kuno Gschwend 施万德, Deputy Head of the Swiss Business Hub China.

⚡🚗The first was founded in 1995 and is a global manufacturing conglomerate with a focus on #battery-driven products. Their portfolio today includes #automobiles, #rail systems and solar panels. BYD‘s automobile segment has been especially successful, overtaking #Tesla as the world’s largest #EV manufacturer last year.

Present in Europe (BYD EUROPE) since 1998, their passenger cars are already present in 20 European countries (70 worldwide). By October 2023, 5.7 million NEVs (= new energy vehicles) were produced. Not yet estblished in Switzerland, Vincent Subilia took the liberty of pointing out that “BYD has its space on the #Swiss #market!”.

The visit concluded with a test drive of 5 models currently sold in Europe, from small city cars to sports cars.

🚁🕹️We then visited DJI, by far the world’s largest manufacturer of consumer #drones. In addition to this well-known aspect, since 2020 the company has been developing a line of professional drones and cameras, in partnership with Hasselblad. Founded in 2006 with a staff of 20, DJI now employs 14,000 people, 20% of whom work in R&D.

For the occasion, we were lucky to have a focus on the #Swiss #market (distributed by Alltron AG), where the company is active in 5 segments:
1️⃣ 𝘗𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤 𝘴𝘢𝘧𝘦𝘵𝘺: DJI has saved 1,014 lives thanks to its technology.
2️⃣ 𝘈𝘌𝘊 & 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨: with Alpine hiking trails surveying, for example.
3️⃣ 𝘌𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘺: including Axpo Group dam inspection
4️⃣ 𝘈𝘯𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯: did you know that 14,221 fawns (often killed by mowing machines) were saved thanks to their drones?
5️⃣ 𝘈𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦: enabling reduced pesticide use and #environment #monitoring.

🍸For our final evening, we co-organized with the #Consulate General of #Switzerland in #Guangzhou, the Swiss Business Hub China and SwissCham China South China chapter a Sino-Swiss Business Afterwork in the SanYou bar, part of the Hope Group, founded by 2 EHL alumni Bastien Ciocca and Andrew Ho.

🍷Nearly 70 people joined in this magnificent evening, where participants had the opportunity to taste the wine of the only Swiss #winemaker established in China, Yves Roduit, founder of Château Roduit.

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11.11.2023 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐚 𝐰𝐚𝐬:
1️⃣ 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐬’ 𝐃𝐚𝐲
2️⃣ 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 2009, 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 Alibaba Group, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐗𝐗𝐋 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲
3️⃣ 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭-𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞 “(𝐑𝐞)𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐚: 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫?” 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 6 𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐡𝐚𝐢!

For this 6th day, we turned our attention to one of the world’s best-known Chinese companies: Huawei.

ℹ️Leading provider of #ICT infrastructure and smart devices, the company currently employs 207,000 people, is present in over 170 countries and has achieved sales of USD 92.4 bn in 2022, around 40% of which abroad.

💡Constantly investing in R&D (CNY 977.3 bn in the last decade), 25.1% of their revenue was dedicated to this in 2022. 55.4% of their employees work in R&D, and Huawei has the world’s largest #patent portfolio: 120,000 active patents! By way of comparison, an average of 10,000 patents/year are filed for the whole #Switzerland…

🇨🇭In Switzerland, Huawei has been present for 15 years and has 4 sites (Bern, Ville de Lausanne, Zurich and Dübendorf) where it employs more than 400 people. This geographical spread enables them to be as close as possible to their customers, who are Swisscom, Sunrise GmbH and Salt Mobile.

📍We had the chance to visit both their #HQ, where we visited their exhibition hall dedicated to their B2B solutions. Then, after an hour’s drive, the doors of their Songshan Lake #Campus opened up to us. A massive 1.4 km2 complex modeled after several European cities (including #Fribourg!) and sights. Even more Swiss, the train connecting the zones of the campus is imported from Switzerland! On this site, 25,000 employees are entirely dedicated to #research. A truly impressive and extraordinary visit in the truest sense of the word!

🙋‍♂️Finally, we were lucky enough to meet Nora Cao, Vice President Public Affairs. It was a privileged moment, as our delegation was able to talk freely about a wide range of subjects, including #innovation, corporate governance, the trade war with the #USA and Huawei’s image outside China.

➡️𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐚 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞, 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐚 𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤’𝐬 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 (𝐫𝐞)𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐚 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞, 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞!

🙏Finally, we would like to sincerely thank all the participants in this fact-finding mission for their presence, the many discussions and the excellent atmosphere throughout this dense trip!

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