took off a decade earlier, and facilities in the city still outnumber the total on the mainland. But the two industry leaders, who are from Hong Kong but based in Beijing and Guangzhou, said the city’s industry was behind in terms of technology development.
In Hong Kong, most major self-storage companies ask customers to bring along their own locks for their space, with no digital key available. Believing the local market had been saturated, Tso moved to Beijing in 2008 to find ways to pursue his own business, starting with expanding his personal network there. He founded his first self-storage facility in Beijing in 2014.
On the mainland, the industry has grown more than 122% year on year, from less than 180 facilities to more than 320, according to a 2018 survey by the Self Storage Association Asia.