China is a country with lots of people and a fast-growing economy. In the mid-2000s, after China joined the World Trade Organisation, this argument was usually sufficient to justify buying shares in any company doing business there. In many sectors the market became crowded. For foreign entrants, the reality of challenging logistics in a vast and heterogeneous country bit into margins. Retail businesses, in particular, found that Chinese streets were not paved with gold.

But in certain sectors, the hackneyed line may still hold true. China has rapidly adopted mobile telephony. Of the country’s 1.2bn mobile phone subscribers, more than half a billion now have smartphones. By July this year, mobile internet users had surpassed desktop surfers for the first time.

These people are not just looking for directions. According to the China Internet Network Information Centre, two-fifths of mobile internet users have become accustomed to making purchases on the hoof. In the first half of 2014, the number of mobile shoppers grew at 40 per cent half on half, more than four times the rate of the overall online shopping community.