News that the country's leading sportswear brand Li-Ning has started its own freshly-brewed coffee business has made it a new contender to the competitive on-premise coffee sector, but it's also left a question mark on whether such a crossover will work.

中国领先的运动服装品牌李宁开始了自己的现煮咖啡业务，这一消息使其成为竞争激烈的室内咖啡行业的新竞争者，但这也给这种跨界是否有效留下了一个问号。

The Chinese contender's new focus on concentrating brick-and-mortar stores in big cities is a signal that it is luring customers back to physical stores and encouraging pick-up consumption.

Another noteworthy contender in the ranking is Mengniu, a Chinese dairy brand growing at a similar pace to Yili.

"With this new technology — electric mobility and everything that it entails — China is coming in as a very big and equal, if not dominating, contender to this (domain)," he said.

Motorola may be the only contender in markets like the United States for now," said Jene Park, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research.

Employees at Chinese real estate developer Vanke were surprised to find that they had a special contender for the award of the company's best new employee in 2021.

The special contender was Cui Xiaopan, in charge of reminding employees to pay the company's bills on time and collect bills due.