China Tech News

Guiyang-headquartered Longmaster Information & Technology Company Limited has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Baidu to establish an Internet medical platform.

With the strategic partnership, the two parties will also strive to improve awareness of Internet hospital brands and explore the value of medical big data. Using data from the hospital resources, Longmaster and Baidu will rank and rate hospitals, while also provide consumers with the best medical choices.

On this new Internet hospital platform, Longmaster will integrate medical resources and set up a hierarchical Internet medical service capacity system. Meanwhile, Baidu will aid the platform construction, including building consumer-friendly PC and mobile interfaces, and provide expert resource sharing of the two parties via the platform.

Longmaster said that the cooperation will promote the rapid establishment of nationwide Internet hospital brands. It will help Internet hospitals break location limits and build high-end brands with nationwide awareness.

Financial terms of the deal were not released.

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South Korean electronics maker Samsung announced that the company will soon launch its mobile payment service Samsung Pay and will expand this service into Chinese and European markets.

Injong Rhee, Samsung's executive vice president, told investors during a company activity in Seoul that they plan to launch mobile payment services in South Korea and America in September 2015, which will be the same time of launching its next-generation flagship smartphone.

Rhee also revealed that the new service will later be available in South America and Australia. However, he did not disclose the detailed timeline.

As a major competitor of Samsung, Apple's payment service Apple Pay is already preparing for entering the Chinese market. In May 2015, Apple CEO Tim Cook visited China and told local media that he really hoped to introduce Apple Pay into the Chinese market. Apple is currently discussing with Alibaba and Chinese banks about Apple Pay's future in China.

Samsung did not reveal yet with which local Chinese companies it may partner.

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Chinese retailer Gome says its e-commerce website Gome.com.cn will launch a hotel reservation service on June 18, 2015.
With the launch of this new service, users will be able to book hotels via the hotel channel of Gome.com.cn. The hotel channel will enable booking of 280,000 hotels across China. This marks the company's latest deployment in the online tourism market following the launch of a flight ticket service at the beginning of 2015. In addition, Gome.com.cn is accelerating its deployment in attractions tickets, holiday routes, cruises, and international flight sectors.

According to Huang Xiangping, vice president of Gome.com.cn, the company will cooperate with third-party OTAs to develop the hotel business. Gome.com.cn will ensure users' shopping and travel experience with hotel recommendations, convenient bookings, and post-sales services.

Hotel reservation is one of the important businesses in the online tourism market. At present, Gome.com.cn's hotel reservation business has reached hotels in hot tourism destinations across China and the company plans to gradually expand its business to international destinations.

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Chinese search engine company Baidu announced that they will acquire a controlling stake in popIn, a native advertising company in Japan.

According to the terms of the transaction, popIn's existing management team will be able to independently operate its businesses within the enterprise architecture of Baidu. On the completion of the acquisition, Baidu's advertising platform will adopt popIn's READ technology and content recommendation technology to improve its accuracy of advertising.

Public files show that popIn is a native advertising and service-oriented intelligent content recommendation platform for news media. Its READ technology can measure users' acceptance of contents and implement advertising recommendations accordingly. By December 2015, over 200 major news websites and information media platforms in Japan used popIn's READ technology.

Zhang Yaqin, president of Baidu, told local Chinese media that Baidu has been closely watching the development of global advertising businesses and technologies. They hope to introduce popIn's technologies into China and the global market.
For overseas expansion, Baidu's international business general manager Hu Yong said that Baidu will apply its technologies in international products; meanwhile, they will bring advanced international technologies into China.

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Dell's Alienware has opened its 100th Chinese specialty retail outlet in Ningbo, Zhejiang.

With a total area of 82 square meters, the new Alienware base will allow consumers to experience Alienware's hot products such as Area51, Alpha, and new products like Alienware 13/15/17. At the same time, the store designed several special zones, including a 5v5 gaming zone, triple-screen racing experience zone, 4K curved wide screen experience zone, and living room gaming solution experience zone. All those experience zones are based on Alienware products, which aim to create the highest quality gaming experience for users.

To establish a more relaxed environment, the new Alienware store also prepares drinks like coffee for consumers.

Wang Lijun, Dell's global vice president, told local media they are glad that Alienware now has 100 bases in China. Alienware is a product for gaming, and they hope to better support the development of an e-sports culture with powerful functions and make their users the best players.

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Guangdong Qtone Education will invest CNY53.267 million to acquire a 71.75% stake in Hangzhou Sixun Technology Development Company Limited, an educational technology company.

Of the total funding, CNY41.76 million will be used to acquire a 56.25% stake from Shi Dongying; CNY9.28 million will be used to acquire a 12.5% from Lou Hongyu; and CNY2.227 million will be used to acquire a 3% stake from Jiang Huaqing.

On the completion of the transaction, Qtone Education will hold a combined 71.75% stake in Hangzhou Sixun, making the latter its subsidiary. With the acquisition, Qtone Education's education information service business scale and user group will be further expanded and the company's education information services and profitability in Zhejiang is expected to be improved.

Hangzhou Sixun focuses on the research and development, promotion, and operation of information service products for intercommunications between families and schools. The company also develops and makes related smart card terminal devices. By December 2014, Hangzhou Sixun's businesses had reached nine cities in Zhejiang province, serving over 900,000 users in 719 schools.

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Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi announced that Wang Xiang, former Qualcomm global senior vice president and Greater China president, will join Xiaomi as senior vice president to lead the company's strategic cooperation efforts.

Lei Jun, Xiaomi's founder, chairman and chief executive officer, said that Wang is an experienced manager. He has a deep understanding of the communications industry and has made important contributions to support the global development of Chinese mobile terminal industry. Wang helped the establishment of the strategic partnership between Qualcomm and Xiaomi and continues to promote it. With his outstanding leadership, industrial background, and close relationship with various parties in the mobile ecosystem, Wang will help Xiaomi gain greater success in strategic cooperation and important cooperating partner relationship sector.

Wang has over 20 years of experience in the semiconductor and communications sectors. He worked for Qualcomm for 13 years. Prior to joining Qualcomm, Wang also worked for Motorola and Agere. Wang graduated from Beijing University of Technology with a Bachelor's degree of science in electrical engineering.

Xiaomi and Qualcomm have maintained a long-term and close strategic cooperation partnership. Qualcomm is an important chip supplier for Xiaomi as well as an initial investor. With the joining of Wang, the two parties' relationship is expected to further build.

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Chinese search engine company Baidu is rumored to be talking with U.K. digital sports media group Perform Group to establish a joint venture in China.

Perform's core business is purchasing digital copyrights of various high-level sports events, displaying those events on online with its powerful digital editing capacity, and attracting money with its traffic. In addition, Perform specializes in sports data consulting analysis and advertising sponsorship marketing.

Perform has digital copyrights of over 200 kinds of sporting events. In 2014, the group purchased a ten-year digital content and production rights for the WTA for over USD500 million, which set a copyright price record in the women's sports industry. Early in 2012, the group already claimed 105 million audience members in the sports sector.

If the two parties form a partnership, Baidu will be able to enter the live sporting events and sports marketing sectors.
At present, high-level live sporting events have become an important competitive field for Chinese Internet information and video companies. At the beginning of 2015, Tencent gained a five-year exclusive Internet broadcast rights for NBA games in China for USD500 million. Le Sports also gained Internet rights for F1 between 2014 and 2017.

Financial terms and organizational structure of the rumored joint venture have not yet been released.

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Brand management company BlueFocus Communication Group will acquire two major mobile advertising companies Domob Limited and Madhouse Inc.

The report revealed that BlueFocus will acquire a 100% stake in Domob Limited and a 95% stake in Domob Network Technology for USD289 million; and the company will acquire a 51% stake in Madhouse Inc. for USD61.2 million. At the same time, BlueFocus will invest an additional USD10 million in Madhouse and they will hold a 54.77% stake in the latter on the completion of the investment.
Revenue figures for both companies were not available.

Domob is a Chinese smartphone advertising platform. Headquartered in Beijing, the company has over 300 employees.

Madhouse is headquartered in Shanghai and has over 240 employees. The company focuses on China and India markets. It provides mobile advertising and optimization services to developers in China.

Neither company has announced any post-acquisition layoff plans.

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Ant Financial Services Group, a small and micro financial services company under Alibaba Group's Alipay, will officially launch their online banking platform MYbank on June 25, 2015.

MYbank is also known as Zhejiang Online Business Bank and is one of the first five trial private banks approved by China Banking Regulatory Commission on March 11, 2014. This bank later gained construction approval on September 29, 2014.

Ant Financial will own a 30% stake in Zhejiang Online Business Bank; Fosun International's relevant enterprise will own a 25% stake; Wanxiang Group will own an 18% stake; and Ningbo Jinrun Asset Management will own a 16% stake.

MYbank previously announced its remote account opening with face recognition technology; however, this service did not gain approval from regulatory authorities due to security risk concerns. Commenting on this issue, Alibaba said that they are still communicating with the regulatory authorities regarding the service.

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