China Tech News

June Jin, Tesla's global vice president and chief marketing officer for Greater China, has reportedly departed the company.

According to reports in Chinese local media, Tesla China has not yet announced her replacement and the related marketing work is temporarily taken over by Tesla China public relations director Tao Rong.

Jin joined Tesla in September 2014 and she was responsible for marketing, public relations, and branding.
Jin is reportedly the third executive who left Tesla China over the past 12 months. In April 2014, Kingston Chang, former general manager of Tesla China, departed the company. In December 2014, Veronica Wu, who replaced Chang, also left. Tesla China's frequent change of executives is probably because of the poor sales performance. Elon Musk, founder and chief executive officer of Tesla, revealed to media that the company saw unsatisfactory sales in China in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Musk warned overseas executives via an internal email that if they cannot achieve positive long-term cash flow, they will be fired or transferred. He said that they already took actions in the Chinese market and they may continue in other countries in the future.


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Sony (China) Ltd., which sells TVs and digital products, will implement a large-scale layoff across China that mainly targets regular employees in local offices.

According to reports in Chinese local media, Sony has over 40 subsidiaries and offices in 13 regions in China, including Beijing, Chengdu, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Jinan, Nanjing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Wuhan, and Xi'an.

The first batch of offices to be shut down are reportedly located in Anshan, Zhuzhou, Yichang, Luoyang, Quanzhou, Neijiang, Zibo, Yantai, Huai'an, Xuzhou, and Nantong. Employees and managers in those offices have already received a layoff notice along with a compensation agreement.

In addition, an insider revealed that the Japanese company may implement the second batch layoffs around May 1, 2015.
Sony previously published its performance for the third financial quarter of 2014, stating that their profit reached JPY89 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 237.5%. The company also announced that they still made losses for the entire financial year of 2014; however, the losses were JPY170 billion, instead of the expected JPY230 billion.

On October 31, 2014, Sony announced reform measures for mobile phone businesses. Sony Mobile would significantly decrease its mobile business scale in China and of its worldwide layoff of 1,000 employees, about 700 to 800 would be from China.

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Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company MediaTek published its financial report for the fourth quarter and the entire year of 2014.

According to the report, the company achieved operating revenue of NTD213.063 billion, which was about CNY42.3 billion, in 2014, a year-on-year increase of 56.6%; and it achieved net profit of NTD46.399 billion, which was about CNY9.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 68.8%. Both operating revenue and net profit represented a record-high performance in the history of the company. At the same time, the company's earnings per share were NTD30.04 in 2014.

During the fourth quarter of 2014, MediaTek's operating revenue was NTD55.453 billion, a decrease of 3.51% compared with the third quarter of 2014. Its gross margin and profit rate were 47.9% and 17.8%, respectively. Meanwhile, its net profit was NTD10.41 billion and its earnings per share were NTD6.65.

Hsieh Ching-chiang, general manager of MediaTek, predicted that the company's shipment will be impacted in the first quarter of 2015, attributing to fewer working days. In addition, due to the rapid appreciation of US dollar, its clients will reduce inventory and control costs, which will also affect the shipment of the company.

The company aims at smartphone chip shipment of more than 450 million units in 2015, including over 150 million 4G chips. Meanwhile, its tablet chip shipment will be 5,000 units.


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There have always been worries that the Chinese government could use its power to force homegrown technology companies like ZTE, Huawei, Qihoo 360 and Lenovo to spy on user communications, but now a bombshell has landed that shows Lenovo is forcing adware onto users' computers on the company's own volition.

According to Errata Security, an ad-supported software on Lenovo computers called SuperFish is "designed to intercept all encrypted connections… It does this in a poor way that it leaves the system open to hackers or NSA-style spies."

SuperFish apparently resides on all Lenovo laptops registered after "mid-2013". Errata reports that SuperFish's advertising injects JavaScript code into webpages and installs a transparent-proxy service on the laptop that intercepts browser connections.
Yet Mark Hopkins, the program manager for Lenovo social media, responded about a month ago that "Superfish technology is purely based on contextual/image and not behavioral. It does not profile nor monitor user behavior. It does not record user information. It does not know who the user is. Users are not tracked nor re-targeted. Every session is independent. When using Superfish for the first time, the user is presented the Terms of User and Privacy Policy, and has option not to accept these terms, i.e., Superfish is then disabled."

The good news is FireFox or Chrome users are not affected, even if they do use infected Lenovo laptops. So only users who use Internet Explorer are vulnerable.

But removing the adware software reportedly does not solve the problem because the root certificates are still embedded into Lenovo laptops. So a savvy user must manually go into the computer's settings to remove that errant certificate.

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Chinese telecom operator China Mobile announced that by the end of January 2015, it had reached over 100 million 4G users.
The company also announced that they plan to build one million 4G base stations, develop 250 million users, and sell 200 million devices in 2015.

According to China Mobile, their 4G network has realized continuous coverage in most cities and towns and partial coverage in developed villages, reaching over one billion people. Meanwhile, they provide 4G roaming services in 71 countries and regions.
For subscriptions, the company will offer a new data package in addition to new 4G basic packages in 2015.

For devices, China Mobile had cooperated with device manufacturers in providing 1,031 4G devices for customers by the end of January 2015, including 917 4G smartphones and 114 data products. In addition, about 65% of those 4G smartphones are cheaper than CNY1,300.

Statistics provided by China Mobile showed that by the end of January 2015, its Global TD-LTE Initiative had attracted 116 global carrier members and 97 industrial partner members. Meanwhile, there were 52 TD-LTE commercial networks deployed in 30 countries and 83 additional networks were undergoing deployment in 55 countries.


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American game developer Zynga announced that the company will close its office in Beijing.

Zynga announced the decision while publishing its performance report for the fourth quarter of 2014. The company said that they will cut the 71 jobs in Beijing office and the related expense of USD7 million will be included in the first quarter of 2015.
According to Zynga's financial report, the company reached operating revenue of USD183 million in the fourth quarter of 2014, a year-on-year increase of 9% and an increase of 9% compared with the previous quarter. However, the company made net losses of USD45 million during the reporting period and it net losses in the same period in 2013 were USD25 million.

Zynga specializes in web game development and its products are mainly published on social networking sites such as Facebook.
Other American technology companies have recently downsized their operations in China. Cloud-based American software firm Vocus is currently liquidating its previously-profitable China operations after privatizing and merging with rival Cision. And American electronics retailer Best Buy bid farewell to its failed China experiment as it sold some of its assets to a Chinese firm at the end of last year.


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The European Patent Office announced that Chinese enterprises submitted 26,500 patent applications to them in 2014.

According to the report, the office received a total of 274,000 patent applications last year, representing a year-on-year increase of 3.1%. Of which, Samsung submitted 2,541 patents, ranking first; while China's Huawei ranked fifth with 1,600 applications. Following Samsung, Philips submitted 1,040 applications; Siemens submitted 2, 133 applications; and LG submitted 1,638 applications. In addition, Qualcomm submitted 1,459 patent applications in Europe; Intel submitted 1,054 applications; Nokia submitted 1,040 applications; Microsoft submitted 734 applications; Google submitted 518 applications; and Apple submitted 294 applications.

By country, American enterprises submitted the most patent applications in Europe in 2014, reaching 71,700 and accounting for 26% of the total. Japan ranked second with 48,400 applications; Germany ranked third with 31,647 applications; and China ranked fourth with 26,500 applications. Meanwhile, China saw the fastest increase in applications with a 18.2% growth rate year-over-year.

Among Chinese enterprises, Huawei, ZTE and Tencent submitted the most applications, which were 1,600, 476 and 97, respectively. By industry, medical technology was the largest sector and the related applications were 11,000, followed by communications technology with 10,944 applications, and computing technology with 10,018 applications.

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Chinese classified information website 58.com officially announced that the company has acquired the real estate information website Anjuke.com for USD267.01 million in cash and stock.

After the acquisition, 58.com will establish a real estate business cluster to integrate the real estate businesses of 58.com and Anjuke.com and the company will develop a full-sector business covering new homes, second-hand homes, and the rental business. The new structure will not affect the existing team of Anjuke.com. The website will be able to maintain its website and app as well as its brand independence. Meanwhile, 58.com will allocate USD10 million to launch a limited stock incentive program for Anjuke.com employees.

58.com will reportedly appoint its senior vice president Zhuang Jiandong as president of the new real estate business cluster. Liang Weiping, founder and former CEO of Anjuke.com, will continue to be chief consultant of the group to realize a stable transition between the two parties. At the same time, Liang will start a new business.

According to Yao Jinbo, CEO of 58.com, Anjuke.com has market advantages in first- and second-tier cities, especially in coastal cities. With the acquisition, 58.com will provide more home choices to users and better online promotion services to realtors and developers.

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The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China tracked over 5.4 million mobile phone apps from 135 Chinese app stores in 2014 and discovered 28,000 apps were malware.

According to the ministry's website, those 28,000 malware apps were banned and removed from the app stores, and 155 other "bad software" were exposed.

MIIT said that in 2014, China's telecom industry user complaint rate was 32.9 times per million users, representing a decrease of 30% compared with the previous year.

MIIT said they checked 1,085 paid services of the three major telecom operators and 620 value-added telecom service providers; meanwhile, the ministry checked over 5.4 million mobile phone application software applications from 135 app stores.

At the beginning of 2014, MIIT clarified seven important tasks for the year, including handling spam short messages; remediating adverse mobile apps; and standardizing service agreements and data traffic charges.

MIIT enhanced its punishment of illegal infringement activities of enterprises and 29 telecom enterprises were investigated for violations.


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Alibaba's cloud computing service Aliyun announced that its data center in Silicon Valley has started trial operation and is providing cloud services to users in North America and around the world.

This is reportedly Aliyun's sixth data center, following those opened in Hangzhou, Qingdao, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen. It also means that Aliyun will start competing with Amazon's AWS and Microsoft's Azure in the cradle of cloud computing. In addition, Aliyun plans to establish data centers in various markets around the world, including North America, Europe, Japan, and the Middle East.

But the creation of the American data center shows a double standard between Chinese and American laws and business practices. The Chinese offshoot of Alibaba can easily open a data center in the United States with limited worries about regulation, but a competitor like Amazon cannot participate in the same type of Internet Service Provider business in China because of China's anti-foreign business environment, its exclusion of foreigners in the ISP sector, and laws omitting Amazon and other non-Chinese businesses from engaging in the same type of Cloud Computing business. In fact, Amazon recently setup small cloud computing operations in China, but it did so via a third-party company, ChinaNetCenter.

Located in the Silicon Valley, Aliyun's data center meets the international Tier3+ standard. At present, this data center provides five kinds of cloud services, including cloud server, server load balancer, relational database service, cloud shield, and cloud monitor.

Users can customize their services based on demands on the official website of Aliyun and realize direct purchase. They will enjoy the same service guarantee as that offered in Hangzhou, Qingdao and Beijing. Meanwhile, the Silicon Valley data center will connect with Aliyun's data centers in China, which allows users to manage their cloud applications in both America and China with a single account to achieve unified deployment and operation. In the future, Aliyun will launch more cloud computing and big data innovative services.

According to Yu Sicheng, Aliyun's vice president of international business, the reason for setting up the American data center is for user convenience. For Chinese companies that want to expand businesses in America, they can realize American website and mobile application deployment from China by a few clicks on Aliyun official website.

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