China recently overtook the USA as the largest automotive consumer market. You may think, so what? China may be on the other side of the world but consumer habits there are beginning to impact designs in other areas of the world.

This is a new source of globalization. This new influence has been called the ‘C-Factor’ by journalists.

South Korean and Japanese companies have been revered for their technological expertise and insightful approaches to economy and business. The tech and digital market is dominated by these companies creating everything from computers to watches. But in recent years we have seen the rise of Western technology companies that continue to thrive. Step forward China and Taiwan, two new international players on the technology.

The manufacturer of the world’s most popular, high-end technology devices is located in China. China’s Lenovo PC manufacturer is now the 4th top selling company and continues to grow.

Taiwan does not normally receive the amount of headlines as China but its technology industry is starting to make business headlines. Acer is now the second biggest computer manufacturer – jumping over Dell to reach the coveted spot. This shows the technology industry to be a continually changing landscape. It is interesting to imagine the effect of the C-Factor (and T-Factor) on other industries such as food, health and so on.

Western businesses often find it difficult. What is popular in Asia is often unheard of in the West. Western companies must offer different brands and products to appeal to the Asian demographic. This can simply be explained by cultural differences – ideas do not always translate. For companies who operate online, Asian countries can prove to be particularly difficult.

Most people think the world is converging into one globalized culture. The spread of English and international brands fuels these ideas further. However, with the Internet there are many key differences between cultures.

For example, SMS phone messaging is one of the most popular ways of communicating amongst young people in Europe. In certain Asian countries, this technology is largely unused and emails are used instead. Furthermore, cell phones and other devices may be a more popular method of accessing the Internet in Asian countries compared to the conventional personal computer in the West. This creates genuine problems for online companies – if the technology that is most used is different then you cannot merely translate a website and expect it to gain traction.

Social networks are a great example of the differences. Facebook is one of the most popular websites in the world. The number of Facebook users would rank it the third largest population behind China and India if it was a country. However, social networking has yet to be fully embraced by South East Asian markets. In China, Facebook is ranked outside of the top 100 most visited websites and it is only ranked as number 27 in Japan. Twitter, another stalwart of online social networking has a much smaller user number in East Asian countries.

Furthermore, online bookmarking (allowing you to save favorites online) is also not used as much. The majority of users are from English speaking countries whilst the number of users from East Asian countries is a lot lower. This may be down to the language barrier but there are also other factors as well. Design, layout and content should all be tailored for specific cultures. This is largely the reason why there are so few truly global brands.

You may be wondering what is popular in Asian countries. Blogs are used much more than in the West. Blogging is popular all over the world but Asian cultures have a bigger blogging culture. Many celebrities blog and groups of friends post together on shared blogs. There are blogging platforms specifically catered for specific countries, each with their individual quirks and unique features. Personalized homepages are also very popular with many people setting up home pages which feature pictures, links, videos and so on.

It is easy to see the struggles faced by businesses in the social networking industry. If you combine this with the C-Factor and Asia’s new immergence in the technology market we may soon be talking about how the West is different from the East. It will be interesting to see if these businesses can continue at this pace and if they can continue to stay ahead of the competition once they reach the top.