50% developers fail to meet sales targets

"Don't call us 'property developers'. We should try to be 'community designers,' offering comprehensive services to improve residence comfort," said Pan Jun, president and CEO of the Shenzhen-based company.

Smart home: Evergrande Group announced its plan to work with home appliance giant Haier on a smart home project in December last year, with a total investment of 30 billion yuan.

According to the announcement, the two companies will also cooperate in areas including home appliance, interior furnishing and financial service.

E-commerce: Dalian Wanda Group recently raised 1 billion yuan for its e-commerce joint venture with Internet giant Baidu Inc and Tencent.

Established in August, the joint venture aims at growing into the world's largest online-to-offline business with plan to invest 20 billion yuan in the next five years, according to the commercial property developer.

Wanda said earlier that it wants to develop online-to-offline-based e-commerce into the group's fifth "pillar industry" by 2020 after real estate, cultural tourism, finance and retail.

City development: Greenland Hong Kong Holdings unveiled its plan to develop a smart city project in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

"We will cooperate further with more technology companies, including Huawei, IBM and China Telecom, on smart city building," said Hou Guangjun, chief operating officer of Greenland Hong Kong, adding that a smart city applies digital technologies to transport, energy, healthcare, water and waste to reduce costs and enhance wellbeing.

Hou said that the Nanning project was of particular significance because it could set a new trend in the mainland property market and contribute to economic growth.