China Tech News

With news this week of malware infesting Apple mobile apps and a new mobile virus infecting Chinese users' smartphones, more scrutiny is being placed on Chinese technology firms to help protect netizens.

Tencent has taken the lead with the announcement of its Thunder Action. This is the company's special initiative against Internet phishing, *****graphy, and malicious information. Tencent formally launched the new campaign with partners like Didi, JD.com, 58.com, Dianping.com.

Zhu Jinsong, head of Tencent Thunder Action, said that this new campaign will use the resources and advantages of various technology companies to block mobile phone trojan viruses and safeguard users' payment payment security.

Zhu said mobile trojan text messages has become the latest method used by phishers. Criminals could pretend to be bank customer service representatives, courier customer service, or friends or families of users to lure them to click malicious links.
Statistics from Tencent's mobile security lab showed that during the first half of 2015, there were 29,762 new mobile payment trojans,which affected 11.5 million users. In June 2015, which was the peak time, an average of 68,000 users were attacked on a daily basis.

Zhu reminded netizens that to prevent trojan attacks, users need to install mobile phone security software; avoid clicking urls from unknown sources; avoid disclosing SMS verification codes; and confirm via phone calls before money transactions take place.

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Xu Yiran, former senior vice president and chief business officer of Perfect World, has joined Chinese Internet security firm Qihoo 360.

Xu will be president of Qihoo 360's gaming business line. In this new role, Xu will be responsible for Qihoo 360's existing gaming businesses, including client-based games, web games, and mobile games. And he will implement internal integration of the three business groups.

In March 2010, Xu departed Giant Interactive Group and joined Perfect World as vice president of strategy. By September 2015, Xu had served at Perfect World for about five and a half years.

During his service at Perfect World, Xu was in charge of the strategic development division and completed the company's transformation from client games to web and mobile games. At the same time, the company acquired several Chinese gaming media and established its media cluster. It explored the global console business and launched Neverwinter Online on the Xbox One Chinese official edition. In addition, Xu was responsible for Perfect World's global investment program PWIN, making investments in dozens of enterprises in the global gaming industry.

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Chinese Internet video group Letv signed an agreement with the municipal government of Chongqing and China Bridge Capital to build an industrial base in Chongqing.

The cooperation will include cloud computing, big data, smart device manufacturing, and finance. Letv said the detailed investment amount will be disclosed soon.

Letv's scope of business covers seven sectors: Internet technology, content, big screen, mobile phone, sports, automobile, and future Internet finance. The cooperation will include three of the seven sectors.

For Internet technology, Letv will establish an independent cloud company in Chongqing's Liangjiang New Area. The new company will focus on research and development, manufacturing, distribution, operation, and management work related to cloud computing and big data. The municipal government of Chongqing will promote cooperation between Letv's cloud company and Chongqing Broadcasting Group to integrate traditional radio and television with the Internet cloud video platform. At the same time, Chongqing will provide real estate to Letv's cloud company to build Letv cloud headquarters.

For smart devices, Letv will cooperate with Chongqing government in its super TV, super mobile phone, and Internet of Vehicles initiatives.
Letv will also set up a small loan company in Chongqing and team with China Bridge Capital to start a private equity fund. The Chongqing government will be responsible for preparation guidance and policy support.

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Chinese group buying provider Meituan.com and classified information provider Dianping.com formally announced their merger and the new company is reportedly valuated at USD15 billion.

The deal is supported by shareholders of both parties, including Alibaba, Tencent, and Sequoia Capital; and China Renaissance is the exclusive financial consultant for the deal.

The new company will adopt the co-CEO system and Meituan CEO Wang Xing and Dianping CEO Zhang Tao will be co-CEO and co-chairman. Meanwhile, the two parties will maintain their respective personnel structure, brand, and independent business operation. In addition, they will enhance complementary advantages and strategic synergies to promote their growth.

China Renaissance previously served as exclusive financial consultant for Dianping and Meituan in several rounds of financing; therefore, both parties choose China Renaissance to be exclusive financial consultant in this transaction.
Bao Fan, CEO of China Renaissance, said Dianping and Meituan are their long-term clients and the company appreciates the trust and recognition. Bao said the merger of the two companies will simplify the market structure, reduce repeated investment, and play to their respective advantages to effectively promote the development of the industry.

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Chinese home appliances provider Hisense Group announced that their 47-year-old vice president Liu Hongxin has been appointed new president of the group.

Liu is replacing 64-year-old former president Yu Shumin.

Liu joined Hisense after graduating from university in 1989 and started his career in a sales branch of the company. During his service in Hisense, Liu held positions like deputy general manager, general manager, and chairman of Hisense Electric and vice president of Hisense Group. In 2012, he was reportedly chosen as the president's successor.

Yu started serving as Hisense Group president in 2000 when the group separated its management team and decision-making team. Over the past 15 years, Yu continued to promote the development of the group via technology, industrial distribution, and acquisitions in China and abroad, realizing rapid sales growth. So far, Hisense Group's overall scale is nearly ten times of that when he first took the role.
After taking over Yu's work, Liu will face a huge challenge to achieve the synchronous growth of corporate scale and profit.


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Alibaba Group announced that its YunOS will enter the smart wearable device market with the launch of YunOS for Wear.
According to Gu Zhicheng, head of smart hardware for the YunOS business unit, YunOS for Wear can be applied to smart wearable products unilaterally or paired with smartphones and external apps.

Gu said YunOS for Wear provides research and development infrastructure to smart watch manufacturers. This system is based on the Alibaba Group user account system and it integrates various services from Tmall, Alipay, and AutoNavi.

Using Alibaba's basic platform facilities, developers can implement related development for the operating system to extend the services offered to users. At the same time, YunOS for Wear can upload users' health and sports data to cloud storage services. Smart watches using YunOS for Wear can support offline payment and payment by scanning with NFC services.

Manufacturers like inWatch and Oband have already launched their smart watch products based on YunOS for Wear. Moreover, YunOS also signed strategic cooperation agreements with Chinese chip makers, solution designers, and hardware device makers, including Ingenic and Gomtel.

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IBM and China Electronics Corporation jointly announced that they will establish a joint innovation lab and begin in-depth cooperation.

The joint innovation lab is based on the collaborative innovation model of IBM and its partners. It will combine technology and talent resource advantages of IBM and its partners such as CEC to help those partners break innovation barriers.
IBM and CEC plan to apply big data and Internet of Things technologies to product development, manufacturing, sales, supply chain, and post-sales services and jointly create products and solutions that are suitable for the Chinese market. In addition, the two parties will use big data analysis applications and services to integrate industrial knowledge and realize new technology and business model innovations.

Wang Yang, IBM senior vice president and China development center general manager, said that the establishment of CEC-IBM joint lab is an important step to promote the cooperation and joint innovation of the two parties. They will begin the innovation cooperation under the banners of "Made in China 2025" and "big data and analysis", which are key projects in the current industrial innovation and information industry development in China.
Yang Jun, deputy general manager of CEC, said that innovation development is the inexhaustible power for the continuous development of CEC. By teaming with IBM in the establishment of joint innovation lab, CEC will enhance its technology joint innovation, realize win-win cooperation, bring greater value to customers, and promote the development of Chinese information technology industry.

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Intel will invest USD5.5 billion in Dalian to transform its existing local plant into a storage chip manufacturing plant.
Intel said that the Dalian plant started operation in 2010 and it will start making storage chips from the second half of 2016. Over the next three to five years, Intel will invest up to USD3.5 billion in this plant and they will increase the investment to USD5.5 billion in the future.

Though most of Intel's operating revenue is from processors, the company also established a storage chip joint venture with Micron Technology. The JV mainly produces NAND flash memory chips used on mobile and computing devices. By changing the storage media from disks to semiconductors, Intel hopes to speed up data processing rates and raise the response speeds of laptops, desktops, and servers.

Intel's storage chips will help the company offset the weakening demand for PC processors.

Micron Technology said that the upgraded Dalian plant may become its storage chip supplier and it is possible for the company to enhance its involvement in the project.

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Apple's 25th Apple Store in China, which is located in Dalian Parkland, has started its formal operation.
According to Apple, the company plans to increase the number of its retail stores in the Chinese market to 40 by mid 2016.
Since the beginning of 2015, Apple has opened new sites in Zhengzhou, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Tianjin, Shenyang, and Hong Kong. In September, the company launched a large recruitment drive for its store in Macau. In addition, it was rumored to open a new store in Taipei.

Like most Apple Stores, this new store in Dalian has iconic oak desks and 121 Internet-connected iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches, and iPod products available for consumer experiences.

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China Mobile's performance report for the first three quarters ended September 30, 2015, shows that its operating revenue reached CNY512.739 billion, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%; and its net profit attributable to shareholders was CNY85.4 billion, a year-on-year increase of 3.4%.

At the same time, the company's net profit rate was 16.7%; its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization were CNY192.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9.1%; and its EBITDA rate was 37.5%.

The company also released its operating statistics for September 2015, which showed that the total number of China Mobile users reached 823 million, including 248 million 4G users. During the first three quarters of 2015, China Mobile gained over 157 million new 4G users.

Contributions from the 4G user growth and business development pushed China Mobile's data traffic to a year-on-year increase of 151% during the reporting period.

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