China Tech News

Jiangsu-based supermarket chain Suguo announced that its 1,500 owned stores in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, covering shopping plazas, community stores, supermarkets, and convenience stores, now all support Apple Pay.

As of April 6, 2016, the supermarket chain plans to provide more secure and convenient mobile payment experience to consumers, and the Apple Pay

Apple Pay support marks Suguo's latest move in its mobile payment strategic plan. According to a representative from Suguo, improving customer payment efficiency and ensuring payment security are the major concerns of the company. As a new payment method, Apple Pay can initiate payment by placing an Apple smartphone — iPhone 6 or above model — close to a China UnionPay Quick Pass POS and complete the payment with fingerprint verification. The entire process will take about only one second.

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Asos, a leading fashion e-commerce operator in Great Britain, announced plans to end its China business after less than three years of operating in the country.

To reduce regional operating costs, the group will shut its businesses in China. Asos' Chinese website Asos.cn will be closed and its Chinese distribution center and office in Shanghai will also stop operations. In the future, the company's international site Asos.com will be responsible for delivery in the Chinese market.
Nick Beighton, chief executive officer of Asos, said that the group will serve Chinese customers with a model of lower costs and higher efficiency. In the future, the group will ensure the same service level as its Chinese official website. Beighton revealed that the closure of Chinese business will lead to GBP10 million in costs and GBP4 million operating losses.
Meanwhile, Beighton admitted that the Chinese market is different from other markets and the group's products did not gain the recognition of Chinese consumers.

On November 3, 2013, Asos opened its Chinese website and announced that they would invest about CNY100 million in the Chinese market over the next two years to build a localized operating team, covering customer service, delivery, and payment. In 2014, the company entered Alibaba's Tmall.com with the aim of attracting more users.

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Alibaba Group announced that they will invest USD1 billion to subscribe a controlling stake in Lazada, including about USD500 million to subscribe new shares and the remaining to purchase from certain shareholders.
Michael Evans, president of Alibaba Group, said that the investment in Lazada will allow Alibaba to enter an e-commerce platform with a large and growing consumer group outside China.
Max Bittner, chief executive officer of Lazada Group, said that the cooperation will provide their consumers with more diversified and unique products.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Singapore, Lazada aimed to become the "Amazon in Southeast Asia" and launched services in six countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The combined populations of those six countries is about 560 million, of which about 200 million are Internet users. At present, e-commerce only accounts for 3% of the total retail sales in Southeast Asia. Though Lazada is a leading e-commerce provider in this marketplace, its annual trading value in 2015 was only USD1.3 billion, which was about CNY8.4 billion.
Lazada started to introduce Chinese vendors to their user base in February 2015 and it had 6,000 Chinese vendors on its platform by the end of 2015.

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Chinese fintech companies are spreading globally, with Baidu Wallet the latest service to make offerings outside of mainland China.

The service from China's search engine just launched overseas payment services in Thailand, and Chinese users who visit Thailand can complete overseas payment with Baidu Wallet in four cities, including Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai, and Pattaya.

Baidu said that in the future, Baidu Wallet's overseas payment services will be available in more countries such as South Korea and Japan, and the company plans to distribute the services in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.
According to Baidu, Baidu Wallet has realized access to over 400 vendors in Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai, and Pattaya, covering clothing, food, accommodation, and transportation.

By using Baidu Wallet, users can save the trouble of currency conversion. They only need to enter the amount of Thai baht and Baidu Wallet will convert it to RMB based on real-time exchange rates.


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Chinese search engine Baidu.com, which censors its nuanced and oft-irrelevant search results, is now hoping its global maps will be accepted by netizens beyond the Middle Kingdom.

Baidu's Internet map division announced its international strategy in Beijing, and the company stated that they will complete global coverage by the end of 2016. Their overseas users will then account for 50% of their user group by 2020. At present, Baidu Map claims 500 million users in China and it boasts over a 70% market share.

Baidu revealed that the company started international exploration from 2014. In November 2014, Baidu Map launched services in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Before the 2016 Chinese New Year, it launched services in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Singapore.

On March 31, 2016, the company further expanded map services into 11 countries in Asia Pacific, including Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, Australia, and New Zealand. So far, Baidu's international map services are available in 18 countries and regions and will cover 150 countries and regions by the end of 2016.


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Shen Boyang, LinkedIn's global vice president and China president, said that the company's number of users in China has surpassed 20 million.
He also announced that the company has officially launched marketing solutions for enterprise users. LinkedIn's marketing solutions will reportedly provide accurate, customized and interactive social media advertising solutions to enterprise marketing staff, aiming to help those enterprises establish global business brands.

LinkedIn entered the Chinese market in January 2014 and it launched its Simplified Chinese beta version and its Chinese name on February 25, 2014. Over the past two years, the company insisted on localized product ideas, and this has meant censoring its content to be in line with what it expects Chinese authorities to validate.

LinkedIn China is a joint venture of LinkedIn, Sequoia Capital, and China Broadband Capital. In June 2015, LinkedIn China published a workplace social application for Chinese young professionals. LinkedIn also started a strategic cooperation with Tencent based on the latter's WeChat and QQ email service. In 2015, LinkedIn further consummated a deal with Sesame Credit, the credit-scoring service of Alibaba's Ant Financial.

So far, LinkedIn China claims to have provided talent solutions to nearly 600 enterprise customers, including Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Fosun, Hainan Airlines, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft.
As an American company, LinkedIn's growth is pretty unique in China for the recent decade of Internet history. The company appears to have had few publicly-known problems with Chinese authorities, and this may be the result of its public admission that it conforms its online content to be in line with Chinese standards. Social media sites like Facebook.com, Twitter.com, and Youtube.com are still filtered and blocked in China. And this past week, Apple's iTunes saw its blockade in China apparently because of content posted on iTunes in Hong Kong.


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According to information published by an online regulatory approval platform for investment project under China's National Development and Reform Commission, the privatization project of Qihoo 360 has been approved by National Development and Reform Commission and it is now up for public comment.



This project was approved on April 19, 2016 and its legal entity is Tianjin Qixin Tongda Technology Company Limited.
Tianjin Qixin Tongda was founded on November 16, 2015, with registered capital of CNY10 million. Its corporate representative is Zhou Hongyi, chairman and CEO of Qihoo 360. The company's businesses cover scientific research and technical service; information transmission, software, and information technology service; business service; and wholesale and retail.

Prior to this, Qihoo 360 held an extraordinary general meeting at its group headquarters and implemented a vote on the privatization agreement. Its shareholders approved the agreement.
On December 18, 2015, Qihoo 360 announced that the company reached a final privatization agreement with a buyer group, who would acquire Qihoo 360 for about USD9.3 billion in cash. Members of this buyer group include Citic Guoan, Golden Brick Road Capital, Sequoia Capital China, Taikang Life Insurance, Ping An Insurance, Sunshine Insurance, New China Capital, Huatai Ruilian, and Huasheng Capital.

As a publicly-listed Chinese company in the United States, Qihoo 360 has faced the pressures of being a public company. Transparency dogged the company, which also has a security software component, and ultimately the company saw the U.S. public markets as incompatible with how the company wanted to conduct business.


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Amazon.com faces stiff competition in China from JD.com and Alibaba, but a new deal may help attract more consumers to its website.

Chinese electronics and home appliances retailer Gome has reached a deal for its official flagship store to enter Z.cn, which is Amazon's website in China. Financial terms of the deal were not released.

The two parties will work together also on third-party product supply, logistics solutions, and post-sales services.
This Gome official flagship store on Z.cn will provide over 5,000 kinds of products of nearly 70 brands, covering large home appliances, TVs, stereo systems kitchen appliances, and lifestyle appliances. In the future, this store will gradually expand to cover more products such as digital products, communication products, and consumer electronics.

During the initial operating period of this store, it will focus on serving the Beijing market. Before the end of this year, the service range is expected to extend to major first- and second-tier Chinese cities. Gome's official flagship store on Z.cn will then realize nationwide operation with full product categories in the future.


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Chinese online travel website Ctrip.com and low-cost airline China Eastern Airlines signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement under which Ctrip promised to invest CNY3 billion to subscribe to non-public offering A shares of China Eastern Airlines.

At present, China Eastern Airlines' valuation is about CNY87 billion. Based on this calculation, Ctrip will hold a 3.45% stake in China Eastern Airlines.
According to the strategic cooperation framework agreement, China Eastern Airlines and Ctrip will focus on cooperation in three major sectors, including business cooperation, equity cooperation, and capital market cooperation.

For business cooperation, Ctrip said that the two parties will work together on IT and tourism product development, technology docking, and business integration so as to provide comprehensive tourism service products to the market. At the same time, the two parties will combine their resources, channels, research and development power, and marketing advantages to implement full cooperation in low-cost travel services and IT services

Both Ctrip and China Eastern Airlines said that they would explore related cooperation in low-cost airlines, aviation insurance, IT, and e-commerce sectors.
They will also discuss the possibility of cross-shareholdings in due course. Ctrip promised to invest CNY3 billion in private capital to subscribe to non-public offering A shares of China Eastern Airlines.

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Chinese search engine company Baidu published its unaudited financial report for the first quarter ended March 31, 2016, stating that its total operating revenue reached CNY15.821 billion, which was about USD2.454 billion and a year-on-year increase of 24.3%. But its net profit decreased by 18.9% year-on-year to CNY1.987 billion, which was about USD308.1 million.

Based on the average expectations of Wall Street analysts and calculated by GAAP, Baidu's expected earnings per share was CNY5.96. The financial report showed that Baidu's earnings per share was CNY5.38 during the first quarter of 2016, which failed to meet the expectations. Meanwhile, based on the average expectations of Wall Street analysts, Baidu's expected operating revenue was CNY15.83 billion. The financial report showed that Baidu's operating revenue was CNY15.821 billion during the reporting period, which basically met the expectation.

According to the company's report, in March 2016, Baidu's mobile search business had 663 million monthly active users, an increase of 9% compared with the same period of last year; its mobile map business had 321 million monthly active users, an increase of 19% compared with the same period of last year.
From January to March 2016, Baidu's gross merchandise volume was CNY16 billion, which was about USD2.5 billion and a year-on-year increase of 268%. By the end of March 2016, Baidu Wallet had 65 million active accounts, representing a year-on-year increase of 152%.

In addition, Baidu announced a personnel change to its board. William Decker, former member of the board and chairman of audit committee, left the board due to retirement and replaced by Brent Callinicos. Callinicos once worked for Uber as CFO and became independent director of Baidu in October 2015.


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