China Tech News

Qualcomm and the government of Guizhou province signed a strategic cooperation agreement to establish a joint venture.
The new joint venture will focus on the design, development, and sales of server chips used in China. With initial registered capital of CNY1.85 billion, which is about USD280 million, the Guizhou government will hold a 55% stake in the JV, while Qualcomm will hold the remaining 45%.
Registered in Guian New Area, Guizhou, the JV will have an operating branch in Beijing. According to the agreement signed by the two parties, Qualcomm will authorize its server chip proprietary technologies to the JV along with design and technical support.
Apart from the JV, Qualcomm will set up an investment company in Guizhou, which will focus on the company's future investments in China.
Qualcomm said that the JV marks Qualcomm's newest investment in China. Prior to this, the company teamed with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation for smartphone chip manufacturing; invested in joint venture SMIC Advanced Technology Research & Development (Shanghai) Corporation; and established a USD150 million venture capital fund in China.



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Chinese telecom device maker Huawei has renewed its global patent cross license agreement with Ericsson.
As a part of the renewal, Huawei will make ongoing royalty payments based on its actual sales to Ericsson from 2016. However, Huawei did not provide further financial details about this agreement.
According to Huawei, the renewed agreement covers patents relating to both companies' wireless standard-essential patents, including the GSM, UMTS and LTE cellular standards. Under this agreement, both companies are able to access and implement the other company's standard essential patents and technologies globally.
Ding Jianxin, head of Huawei's intellectual property unit, said that the agreement reflects the joint view of the two parties that innovation and intellectual property rights shall be protected. Ding says it is important to pay reasonable compensation for using others' intellectual property rights, which can promote technology innovation, technology sharing and standardization, and industry evolution.



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China's Kugou.com and Kuwo.cn announced that they have reached a mutual licensing agreement with QQ Music to cover music copyrights of over one million songs.
Under this agreement, Kugou.com and Kuwo.cn will gain access to most of the exclusive agent copyrights owned by QQ Music, including records of Warner Music, Sony Music, JVR Music, and Linfair Records. In return, QQ Music will be able to gain exclusive agent copyright resources from Kugou.com and Kuwo.cn.
QQ Music is part of the Chinese Internet behemoth Tencent.
The digital music service platforms of Kugou.com and Kuwo.cn have established strategic cooperation relationships with over 800 enterprises, record companies, and copyright management organizations in China and abroad. At present, their copyright cooperation covers 90% record companies and individual artists, accumulating nearly 20 million digital music licenses.
Prior to this, the two companies already gained exclusive agent copyrights of over 100 record companies such as Ocean Butterflies, China Record Corporation, Taihe Rye Musia, EMI, Forward Music, and Seed Music.
Financial terms for the deal were not released.



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Several Indian e-commerce start-ups, including Zomato, BookMyShow, and BigBasket, are reportedly in investment talks with China's largest search engine company.
A spokesperson from China's Baidu.com said in an email circulated around Chinese media that the Indian market has huge business opportunities. Baidu plans to invest more resources in this marketplace to provide their services to more consumers.
However, the Chinese search engine giant did not reveal its detailed investment schedule or amount it plans to spend.
Zomato is a leading food search website in India; BookMyShow is one of the largest online ticket providers in the country; and BigBasket is a leading grocery e-commerce company.
India has a population of 1.3 billion and about 20% of them use the Internet. Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicted that by 2025, the total trading value of Indian e-commerce providers will reach USD220 billion; while the number was USD11 billion in 2015.
The huge potential of this marketplace recently attracted many international investors, including Alibaba and Softbank. In August 2015, India's large e-commerce company Snapdeal.com gained USD500 million investments from Alibaba, Foxconn, and Softbank. In February 2015, Alibaba's Ant Financial acquired about a 25% stake in One97 Communication, an Internet payment service provider in India.



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Chinese mobile game developer and operator Linekong announced a strategic investment in Hong Kong mobile game developer and distributor Gameone.

Gameone previously launched an IPO on the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing on January 13, 2016, making it the first listed Hong Kong local mobile game company. The company introduced Linekong and Taiwan-listed Soft-World as basic investors by allocating 1.2 million shares to each party.

Gameone is a game developer, operator and distributor that focuses on the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets. Established in 1999, the company has over ten years' operating experience in the Hong Kong gaming industry. Since the second half of 2015, Gameone had launched five mobile game products. In addition, the company has gained the usage rights of seven animation and literature intellectual properties.

Founded in 2007, Linekong is a well-known mobile game developer and distributor in China. On December 30, 2014, Linekong was listed on HKEx GEM.


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The Internet of Things is expanding its reach into more Chinese homes as two titans in Chian have pledged to form deeper ties.
Chinese electronics and home appliances retailer Suning and Chinese telecom device maker ZTE announced a strategic cooperation between the two parties for expansion of IoT services into people's homes. Financial terms of the deal were not released.


The two companies will cooperate in hardware development, content integration, and product customization, covering various sectors such as cloud computing, big data, smartphone services, communication devices, and smart home services.

Hou Weigui, chairman of ZTE, said that they will build a stronger cloud infrastructure for Suning and expand their 020 cooperation.
In the future, the two parties are expected to implement close cooperation in other areas such as Internet finance, virtual carrier services, and IPTV. They will also consider potential cooperation in smart TV and video content.

At the end of 2015, Suning Rundong invested CNY1.93 billion in ZTE's Nubia. Suning and ZTE announced that they plan to sell 10 million Nubia phones via Suning's channels over the next three years. At the same time, Suning's PPTV streaming media service also signed a cooperation agreement with Nubia for resource integration, smartphone customization, and virtual reality development.


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Victor Xu, JD's president for international business unit, said during an interview that the company will soon launch a brand in Russia.

According to reports in Russian local media, Xu said JD plans to develop online video stream media services in Russia. He said they are seeking close cooperation with partners to form development opportunities. The company's office in Russia is evolving into an independent subsidiary. Xu revealed that the company may use existing platforms or seek new platforms, and they are still unclear about the best path to take.

JD.com previously sold Chinese-made smart TVs in Russia and the products were popular. Based on this reaction, JD decided to accelerate its expansion in this marketplace.
Xu also revealed that JD's services may cover TV shows from Western countries and Russia. Chinese enterprises have reached many agreements with Hollywood to introduce films into China; and JD will discuss with Western partners for plans to to bring those films into the Russian market.

JD opened its Russian-language website in the summer of 2015. In October 2015, Xu optimistically predicted that the company is expected to eventually gain 60% share of the Russian e-commerce market.


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China's Enlight Media will invest USD30 million to acquire a 20% stake in Coveredge (Cayman) Inc.
Coveredge's major product is Echo, a sound entertainment community media platform targeting millennials. Echo was launched in September 2014 and the company boasted over 10 million registered users by September 2015. At the beginning of 2016, its user base already reached 13 million. The company provides the latest sound entertainment media content and a vibrant social platform. At the same time, it has established a user-generated content ecosystem and owns a large number of original music rights.

Enlight Media said that China's content industry payment is mainly driven by the new generation of young users. The investment in Coveredge will help the company increase its brand influence among the young users, which is an important channel for the company's content liquidity.

Enlight Media already started its related distribution among young users in 2014 and the company invested CNY25 million in Sparkly Key Animation Studio at that time. During the first three quarters of 2015, the company invested in many animation companies.

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Chinese Internet video company Ku6.com announced that their board of directors has received an initial non-binding privatization offer from controlling shareholder Shanda.

According to Ku6, Shanda offered to buy Ku6 for USD0.0108 per ordinary share, which equals USD1.08 per ADS.

This proposal values Ku6 at about USD51.5 million, which represents a premium of 54% compared with its ADS closing price on January 29, 2016. Meanwhile, it is a premium of 42% compared with its average closing price over the previous 30 trading days and a premium of 52% compared with its average closing price over the previous 60 trading days.

By February 1, 2016, Shanda held about 69.9% in Ku6 and Shanda plans to realize this potential privatization transaction with existing cash in hand. At present, the board of Ku6 is evaluating this privatization proposal and is expected to set up a special committee to implement a detailed assessment.


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GoDaddy.com, one of the largest top-level domain name sellers in the United States, is aiming for more Chinese business in a new marketing effort.

The company has emailed current domain name clients who have publicly-listed Whois Lookup data emanating from China about the new service. Now these clients can denominate all of GoDaddy's services in Chinese Yuan and access a toll-free number in China.

The toll-free number in China is answered by Mandarin speakers, but is only available for six hours each day, Monday through Friday. Godaddy has also updated and enlarged the amount of Simplified Chinese information on its website.
But GoDaddy still has a ways to go to fully serve Chinese website owners. it competes directly with the top Chinese domain name vendor, HiChina, which is owned by Alibaba.

And for GoDaddy's other main service — website hosting — many of GoDaddy's servers are blacklisted or filtered or filtered in China. This means that websites hosted on GoDaddy may not be visible or available to Web surfers in mainland China.

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