China Tech News

Fintech companies hoping to capture share in China's booming mobile market still need to focus on traditional computing. About 80% of visits to online destinations in the Internet finance industry are still from PCs, rather than mobile devices, according to a new report.

Chinese enterprise software and solutions provider Gridsum published its latest report on China's Internet development in 2015, and the report lays out the high potential for mobile devices, but still the reliance on PCs for financial activities in China. This relates not only to stock tracking, but also ingestion of financial and business news from leading finance, business, and alternative asset media like Caixin.com, ChinaMoneyNetwork.com, and China Business Network.

Since 2013, Internet financial activities have gained more attention, and most of the users are from men between the ages of 30 and 40 who are mainly from regions like Guangdong, Zhejiang, Beijing, and Jiangsu. The report showed that 76.8% of people who paid attention to the Internet finance industry are men.

According to the report, major negative behaviors in the Internet finance sector that worry users included fraud, security, and information leakage; and users' major complaints focused on credit, capital, and information security. For users, other concerned factors included price, security and monetization of online services.

The report also showed that in the automotive manufacturing industry, people's focus was on minicars and new-energy cars; in the education industry, the major marketing method could not match demands of users and the number of high conversion rate of media was small; in the beauty and cosmetics industry, there was a large number of high-quality users on the mobile platforms.

In regards to the entire Internet environment, mobile devices have become an important force. Since 2013, visits from mobile phones have been increasing year by year; meanwhile, visits from PCs continued to decline, though they are still the prime method by which users access the information.

In addition, the report said that market share of Chrome and QQ browsers saw large increases and Apple's Safari maintained a steady level. For PCs, Internet Explorer was still the market leader, followed by Qihoo 360 and Chrome browsers.

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Chinese Internet giant Tencent announced that the company has reached a deal with U.S.-based ESPN to become its exclusive sports content partner in mainland China.

Under the agreement signed by the two parties, Tencent will provide Chinese-language ESPN information exclusively in mainland China, covering event broadcasts and special collections. With the cooperation, ESPN's various authorized events will be played on Tencent's platform, including the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament and the X Games.

The two parties will also focus on the NBA. Beginning with the 2016 NBA Playoffs, ESPN experts will be on-site at five games per week to provide exclusive, live Chinese-language analysis as part of Tencent's NBA coverage. ESPN will also provide a weekly NBA opinion and debate program for Tencent users.

Liu Shengyi, Tencent Group's senior executive vice president and president of its network media business group, said that they are looking forward to the cooperation. With the cooperation, Tencent will be able to make its platform richer and more professional, and the company hopes to set a new example for the Chinese sports industry.
Financial terms of the deal were not released.

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Chinese mobile Internet services provider NetQin Mobile announced that Justin Chen is the company's president and general counsel.
After taking the president role on February 2, Chen will continue to be director of NetQin; however, he will no longer be independent director or take any part in the company's audit committee, compensation committee, and corporate governance and nominating committee.

To fill the vacancy, NetQin has appointed Ethan Hu as the company's independent director, chairman of audit committee, and member of compensation committee and corporate governance and nominating committee.

Chen became director of NetQin in July 2014. He is a California-licensed attorney and a counsel at PacGate Law Group. Chen received a juris doctor degree and a master's degree in biochemistry from the University of Iowa and a bachelor's degree from Peking University.
In addition, NetQin announced several other changes to the board of directors, including the resignation of Xu Zhou, Roland Wu and Max Yao from their positions as directors of the board. After the adjustments, the company's board will consist of seven directors and four of them are independent directors.

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Chinese Internet giant Tencent announced that the company has reached a deal with U.S.-based ESPN to become its exclusive sports content partner in mainland China.

Under the agreement signed by the two parties, Tencent will provide Chinese-language ESPN information exclusively in mainland China, covering event broadcasts and special collections. With the cooperation, ESPN's various authorized events will be played on Tencent's platform, including the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament and the X Games.

The two parties will also focus on the NBA. Beginning with the 2016 NBA Playoffs, ESPN experts will be on-site at five games per week to provide exclusive, live Chinese-language analysis as part of Tencent's NBA coverage. ESPN will also provide a weekly NBA opinion and debate program for Tencent users.

Liu Shengyi, Tencent Group's senior executive vice president and president of its network media business group, said that they are looking forward to the cooperation. With the cooperation, Tencent will be able to make its platform richer and more professional, and the company hopes to set a new example for the Chinese sports industry.

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A consortium of Chinese companies, including Qihoo 360 and Kunlun, have proposed to fully acquire Opera, a Norwegian browser provider, for NOK10.5 billion, which is about USD1.23 billion.

Along with some businesses related to advertising technology, Opera is much more than just a Web browser company. Opera is also getting into the security game, and it is the owner of Canada-based virtual private network provider SurfEasy. The VPN company joined Opera's portfolio in 2015.
Qihoo 360 is a technology security company that also provides a popular browser in China. Many foreign media continue to incorrectly report that VPN services are illegal in China. This is not factual information, and VPN services are used legally by a range of Chinese universities and companies in China, and the services are sold by both Chinese technology titans like China Telecom, Diyixian, and Huawei, and also foreign businesses operating in China like Cisco. So VPN services are definitely available and sold and licensed legally in China.

Confusion about the legality of VPNs in China relates to the personal VPN products used by netizens in China. These VPN services are usually run by companies operating outside of China, and these companies lack business registrations in China. Only a small handful of these VPN companies have legally registered branches in China to conduct VPN services. If foreign firms are able to find partners or register their companies and services in China, then they can legally provide services in to Chinese netizens.
While armchair Sinologists think of VPN services as solely circumvention tools, the largest market for VPN services is in North America and Europe, where VPNs are useful for privacy on wireless networks and for connections to office and school computer intranets. So Qihoo 360's bid for Opera is also a bid for grabbing the large share of privacy aficionados who rely on Opera technology to stay safe and private.

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Chinese mobile phone users sent out a total of 699.2 billion short messages in 2015, according to statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China.

MIIT's satistics also showed that the year of 2012 was the peak for short messages in China. Since then, the number of short messages sent out continued to decrease year by year despite the fact that the number of Chinese mobile phone users kept growing.

In 2012, Chinese mobile phone users sent out 900 billion short messages; in 2013, the number of sent short messages decreased by 1%; in 2014 it decreased by 14%; and in 2015 it decreased to 699.2 billion short messages.
At the same time, the number of mobile phone users in China continued to increase. MIIT's report showed that from 2012 to 2015, China added nearly 200 million mobile phone users.

The decline of short messages is mainly attributed to the rise of mobile communication apps like Weibo and Wechat, and those apps are more popular in China than in many other countries and regions. Meanwhile, with a large population base, the number of instant messaging users in China is also larger than in other countries and regions.

The penetration rate of instant messaging apps is high in China. In 2015, about two-thirds of mobile netizens downloaded and used instant messaging apps, which equals to two-fifths of total mobile phone users in China.

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China's Letv and the luxury British sports car manufacturer Aston Martin signed an electric car joint venture MOU in Frankfurt, Germany.

With each party holdsing a 50% stake, Letv and Aston Martin will work together in manufacturing and engineering.
William Ding, co-founder of Letv's car division, revealed that apart from the substantial capital cooperation, the two parties will also enhance their cooperation in technology, engineering, and service sectors.

Aston Martin will be responsible for providing the vehicle technology for RapideE; while Letv will be in charge of the powertrain and Internet of Vehicles technologies. Meanwhile, relying on its resources in communication and marketing, Letv will help Aston Martin enhance sales. RapideE's volume production edition is expected to be available in the market before the end of 2018.

Prior to this, Letv and Aston Martin established a cooperation partnership in April 2015. Eight months later, the two parties signed a strategic cooperation memorandum of understanding. On January 6, 2016, Letv and Aston Martin released their cooperating result at CES: the RapideS with Letv's Internet of Vehicles system.

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Chinese Internet recruitment website Zhaopin.com announced Peter Everingham, managing director of SEEK International, is the company's new chairman of the board and chairman of remuneration committee.

At the same time, former chairman of the board Jason Lenga will resign, but remain as a director of the company.
Prior to this, Zhaopin.com announced in mid-January 2016 that the company received an initial non-binding privatization offer from a consortium formed by CDH V Management Company Limited and Shanghai Goliath Investment Management L.P.

The consortium proposed a cash purchase of all issued shares of Zhaopin.com, which were not already held by SEEK International, at the price of USD17.5 per ADS. The price equals to USD8.75 per ordinary share.

By September 30, 2015, SEEK International owned a 75.1% stake in Zhaopin.com and Ridgegate Proprietary Limited owned an 18.3% stake.

Zhaopin.com previously appointed Robert Pu as its new chief financial officer; while the current CFO Guo Jianmin prepares to leave to seek other development opportunity. The company was originally founded by foreigners living in China in the late 1990s, and then went through a rollercoaster period of hirings and firings as it saw its competitors eat into its market share.

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Asus announced that the company has lowered its smartphone shipment target for 2016 from 30 million units to 25 million units.
Asus said that the reason for the adjustment is because smartphone shipments were affected by the product iteration period. But that has not stopped social media from pontificating about export setbacks for electronics companies.

For PCs, Asus revealed that its shipment target for 2016 is between 22 million units and 24 million units.

In addition, Asus said that its new smartphone product Zenfone 3 is expected to be released in June 2016. Asus' mobile phone business unit predicted that the total shipment of Zenfone 3 would reach 30 million units. Jonney Shih, chairman of Asus, said that the company hopes to become a top ten mobile phone manufacturer in the world during 2016.

Asus previously published its financial statistics for January 2016, stating that the group's combined operating revenue increased by 0.9% year-on-year to NTD35.29 billion, which was about CNY6.93 billion; and its brand operating revenue increased by 0.03% year-on-year to NTD31.879 billion, which was about CNY6.26 billion.


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Chinese telecom device maker Huawei announced in Spain that the company has officially entered the PC sector by launching its PC product Huawei MateBook.

Yu Chengdong, Huawei's chief executive officer of consumer business, said that Huawei hopes to build a consumer-oriented smart terminal experience. The launch of Huawei MateBook represents the company's step forward to meet this goal.

Yu commented that though the existing mobile devices like smartphones are powerful enough, they still cannot replace laptops. On the other hand, laptops have various shortages and 2-in-1 tablet laptops are becoming mainstream in the market, which is a good opportunity for Huawei. For business people, 2-in-1 tablet laptops are good choices and Huawei aims to lead in this mobile business trend.

Huawei MateBook has a 12-inch IPS LCD 2K display with 2160×1440 resolution and 85% color saturation. With 6.9mm thickness and 10mm screen frame, the weight of the tablet is 640g. For comparison, Apple's iPad Pro is 713g and Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 are 766g. Huawei MateBook's 4430mAh lithium battery can support 10 hours of routine use.
Huawei MateBook will be sold at between USD699 and USD1,599 excluding taxes in the U.S. and its prices in Europe will be between EUR799 and EUR1,799, including tax.
According to Huawei, this new PC product is expected to be available in dozens of countries and regions across Asia, Europe and Americas in April 2016.


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