ON Saturday, the first day of the three-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday, stores in the Huaqiang Electronics World market in Huaqiangbei Subdistrict, Futian District, were packed with tech aficionados examining the recently released PodsPro earbud and young people looking for other electronic novelties.

A salesperson explains a product to potential buyers at Huaqiangbei Electronics World market in Huaqiangbei, Futian District. Liu Minxia

The PodsPro earbud developed in Huaqiangbei comes with a charging case equipped with a touch screen that allows users to control volume, the music playlist, and even sound effects. These innovative features are reminiscent of the yet-to-be-released Apple AirPods Pro 3, which won’t hit the market until next year.

“You can even customize your own charging case with personalized wallpaper on the touch screen,” said a man who only identified himself as Chen. “It feels like discovering a whole new world the more you play with them.”

The Huaqiangbei PodsPro earbud. File photo

Multifaceted industrial center

From time to time, Huaqiangbei wows the local tech community with novel, homegrown products like the PodsPro, and it has become a magnet for innovative minds from around the world.

After years of development, Huaqiangbei has transitioned from an electronics marketplace to a multifaceted industrial center for the introduction and exchange of technology, product development and release, and much more. Huaqiangbei is currently home to 14 incubation platforms that accommodate more than 500 maker teams.

Henk Werner, a maker from the Netherlands, started the TroubleMaker space in Huaqiangbei in 2016. TroubleMaker has attracted enthusiastic makers from over 20 countries since opening, and more than 16,000 people visited the space between May 2016 and December 2019.

A scene of Huaqiangbei in Futian District. Liu Minxia

Werner, who relocated the space to Bao’an District in 2021, has chosen to return to Huaqiangbei because it has everything makers need to develop novel products, including a comprehensive industrial chain that helps makers commercialize their new inventions. He has secured an ideal space for TroubleMaker at the Black Ark, and a reboot party is scheduled for June 22.

“Huaqiangbei’s reputation for having a full range of electronic components available, high efficiency, and a complete industrial supply chain remains unparalleled. If there is a particular electronic part that you can’t find in Huaqiangbei, chances are slim that you’ll find it elsewhere in China,” said a senior staffer with the Huaqiangbai Subdistrict Office.

Efficiency a tangible asset

When Chen Haotian decided to embark on his entrepreneurial journey in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area with a group of like-minded young people returning from overseas, it didn’t take them long to decide to establish their company, Elephant Robotics, in Huaqiangbei in 2016. 

“Being fast is crucial for enhancing market competitiveness in the electronics industry,” Chen said, adding that they chose Huaqiangbei for its efficient supply chain, which will “help us pull it off.” 

Businesses in an electronic market in Huaqiangbei. Lin Jianping

When explaining exactly how fast things happen in Huaqiangbei, Chen, who returned from Australia, said that Elephant Robotics decided to release a bionic pet panda last year after similar bionic toys became a hit in Europe in 2022. In just three days, Chen and his colleagues managed to source 100 key components needed for the production of their product. Within a week, they were able to develop a prototype that was ready for mass production.

Dubbed “China’s No. 1 Electronics Street,” Huaqiangbei hosts 22 specialized electronics markets that offer more than 1 million electronic components within a compact 1.45-square-kilometer area. Official figures show that Huaqiangbei employs approximately 150,000 people and has an annual turnover exceeding 200 billion yuan (US$27.78 billion).

Premier electronics hub

Huaqiangbei, which means Huaqiang North, was originally a road named after Huaqiang Electronics Industrial Co., a company founded in 1979 to assemble foreign electronic products. 

The SEG Electronics Market. Lin Jianping

It, more commonly, refers to Huaqiangbei Subdistrict that covers Huaqiang Road, surrounding roads and industrial parks. Zhenhua and Aihua roads in the neighborhood were also named after local electronics enterprises. The establishment of Shangbu Industrial Park west to Huaqiang Road North in 1982 solidified the Huaqiangbei area as a burgeoning electronic hub.

In the 1980s, global manufacturing started shifting from the Western countries to Asia, with Hong Kong outsourcing assembly work to neighboring Shenzhen.

To address a shortage of electronic components, the SEG Electronics Market — the first of its kind in China — opened in Huaqiangbei in 1988. As proposed by Ma Fuyuan, a senior official with the former Ministry of Electronics Industry, the SEG market was positioned as an open electronics trading center, welcoming businesses of all scales. Roughly 200 electronic companies of various types were established there. 

A view of the Huaqiang Electronics World market in Huaqiangbei. Liu Minxia

The opening of the Huaqiang Electronics World market in 1998 solidified Huaqiangbei’s leading status and served as one of its central pillars, along with SEG. At its zenith, the line of enterprising individuals eager to register their businesses there was 500 meters long.

A popular anecdote from that era provides a glimpse into the magnetic appeal of Huaqiangbei: A businessman purchased 30,000 pieces of electronic components in Hong Kong that were disposed of by Motorola at the dirt-cheap price of 0.3 yuan per piece. He then sold them a year later for 27 yuan per piece. In one year, the man earned about 800,000 yuan at a time when the average monthly salary of a Shenzhener was only several hundred yuan.

Huaqiangbei and Shan zhai (knockoffs)

Huaqiangbei has been associated with Shan zhai, knockoffs, since the early 2000s. The connection started with the influx of a low-cost chip by Taiwan-based Media Tek Inc. called Turnkey. Featuring multiple processing functions related to MP3 players, cameras and touchscreens, Turnkey made it easy to produce a mobile phone — just to add a shell and a battery.

Overseas buyers take an interest in electronics products at a store in Huaqiang Electronics World market. Liu Minxia

All of a sudden, almost all businesses in Huaqiangbei started to make mobile phones with Turnkey. Earlier media reports said that an average three new models of mobile phones emerged every day in Huaqiangbei at that time, so many that these businesspeople struggled to name their new mobile phones. 

According to unconfirmed sources, Huaqiangbei shipped as many as 150 million handsets a year, topping the world in terms of shipment volume.

As there were so many different mobile photo brands, a “Made in SZ (Shenzhen)” logo was universally printed on the packages of the Huaqiangbei-made mobile phones. Gradually, the “SZ” was translated into Shai zhai because of its cost-effectiveness.

With smart phones starting to take over the market in around 2010, the curtain of the Huaqiangbei-made mobile phones dropped, but the association of Huaqiangbei with knockoffs stayed.

Opinions on Huaqiangbei's knockoff culture, however, vary, with some, like electronics specialist Terry Given, emphasizing the quality and value that can be found amidst Huaqiangbei's offerings.

“Some people want to pay almost nothing for something that looks like a good thing [in Huaqiangbei],” said Given from New Zealand. “And that’s unfair.” 

The Kiwi has been based in Huaqiangbei for over a decade with his lab located in the the Digital Technology Building on Shennan Road Central. He argued that if a buyer offered only 40 yuan for a 12-volt lithium ion battery drill at a store here, what did he expect he’s gonna get for that price?

Given said that about two-thirds of the equipment in his lab were purchased in Huaqiangbei, and are of extremely high quality. He cited the oscilloscope of a Chinese brand as an example, which costs only one-third of a foreign brand, but functions equally well.