China Tech News

What better way to sell products than to get your own employees to buy the products? Foxconn has established a special team to display and promote Sharp's white goods, including dehumidifiers, air purifiers, and refrigerators, in its own factories.
With this move, Foxconn hopes to attract its employees' attention to purchase Sharp products to improve the sales of Sharp products in the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. Meanwhile, Foxconn's employees can order Sharp products via Foxconn's e-commerce service platform.

This new propaganda team started promotional activities in mainland factories at the beginning of May 2016. In addition, Foxconn plans to establish experience centers and stores around the entire country to promote Sharp products to consumers.

Earlier in April 2016, Foxconn and Sharp officially signed an acquisition agreement to absorb Sharp into Hon Hai Group. In the Japanese white goods sector, Sharp has fallen behind Panasonic and Hitachi, and Foxconn aims to change this situation.

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What better way to connect the Internet and devices than through robotic automation? A Chinese mobile company has just committed funds to exploring robot manufacturing.

Chinese Internet and mobile Internet security company Cheetah Mobile announced during its media open day that the company will establish a robot company with an initial investment of USD50 million.

According to Fu Sheng, chief executive officer of Cheetah Mobile, the recent Go game between AlphaGo and Lee Sedol prompted Cheetah Mobile's determination to enter the world of artificial intelligence.

Fu says that the development of the robot industry will release human beings from simple repetitive labor. In this area, human labor will be replaced by artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, which is inevitable. However, Cheetah Mobile did not disclose what kind of robots they will focus on.


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There is now no need to worry the next time you purchase a leather case for your iPhone and wonder if the odd all-caps "IPHONE" imprinted on the outside is real. In China, it is real and legal now.

Apple has lost its trademark dispute with Beijing Xintong Tiandi Technology Co., Ltd. over the use of the "IPHONE" mark in China. Tiandi sells a range of purses, cases, and bindings with the eponymous "IPHONE" name stamped on each one.
The case apparently was decided in April by the Beijing Municipal High People's Court, but only now is news leaking in the Chinese press about the decision. This legal decision comes at a bad time for Apple, which has seen its sales slip globally, and especially in China it is losing momentum with more than 25% drop in the country.

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Chinese technology companies are always worried about having their top employees poached by rivals, but now they also have to fear the human resource departments of companies outside the tech sector.

Traditional enterprises are developing their own technology departments, so they are fighting over the same talent pool that previously only looked to startups and Zhongguancun as career paths. Big data, cybersecurity, and mobile development are some of the key hiring areas for these companies.

Chinese IT professionals will see an increase in their salaries in 2016, with the average IT salary expected to rise between 5% and 12%, according to ZW HR Consulting, a Chinese/Singaporean recruitment company that specializes in information technology.

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What better way to cash-out your cronies, pay back local government officials, and inject some capital into s business than to push your company to go public. Alibaba appears ready to help small and medium-sized enterprises in China do just that.
Alibaba Group's B2C e-commerce platform Tmall.com announced that they have established an office to help vendors on their platform get listed. Over 50 enterprises on Tmall reportedly plan to launch IPOs and many brokerages are competing to be the underwriters.

Gu Ying, head of this new office, said that Alibaba attaches great importance to the IPO needs of its vendors. The group has organized financial, legal, data security, and business units to set up a project team to check internal processes to make everything fast and effective and provide one-stop solutions to support vendors.

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Uber announced that the company will expand its cooperating relationship with Alipay in the global market.
With the deal, Alipay's 450 million active users will be able to pay for the rides in 68 countries and regions where Uber operates businesses. They can also directly call for the rides via Alipay app. Financial terms of the deal were not released.
Over the past couple of years, Uber China and Alipay have maintained a stable cooperation. In 2014, Uber announced plans to accept Alipay as its payment channel in mainland China. And early in 2016, Uber started accepting Alipay payment in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

According to Emil Michael, senior vice president of Uber, this is important fintech deal for Uber. Alipay is one of the most innovative payment companies in the world.

Accepting Alipay as its payment channel is reportedly a key factor for Uber's explosive growth in the Chinese market. It helped the company increase its market share in the Chinese special car ride market from 1% at the beginning of 2015 to 33% at the end of the same year. Many Chinese consumers do not have credit cards and they use Alipay as their major payment method. With the global cooperation expansion of Uber and Alipay, Chinese users can get a ride anywhere with Alipay, instead of using a dual-currency credit card.

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Unisplendour Corporation Limited released its financial report for 2015 and showed that the company realized operating revenue of CNY13.35 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19.78% and its net profit was CNY152 million, a year-on-year increase of 20.93%.

The report also said that with the completion of its non-public offering and the arrival of the raised funds, the company will complete its acquisition of H3C as soon as possible. 2016 is the first year for Unisplendour to fully launch its distribution in the information technology service industry and the company will focus on a few specific tasks.

In the information technology service sector, Unisplendour will continue to implement its cloud service strategy and optimize its industrial chain combining cloud, networks, and terminals to optimize its advantages in cloud computing and information security while actively promoting the transformation and upgrades from traditional IT service business to cloud services.

In the information technology distribution sector, the company will keep improving its product line, actively develop value-added businesses, optimize profit structure, and increase profit levels.

Based on the establishment of its new cloud computing research lab and big data collaboration center project, Unisplendour will seize industry opportunities, form key technologies, enlarge market share, and improve core competitiveness.
At the same time, Unisplendour announced its financial report for the first quarter of 2016, stating that its operating revenue increased by 17.35% year-on-year to CNY3.074 billion and its net profit increased by 27% year-on-year to CNY39.66 million.


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Microsoft's portal website in China at Cn.msn.com will stop providing its Simplified Chinese services from June 7, 2016.
Cn.msn.com is Microsoft's portal website targeting white collar users. It has several channels covering automobiles, fashion, luxury goods, financial management, and health. In March 2015, Microsoft announced business adjustments and moved the MSN unit to its Windows unit; and in June 2015, Cn.msn.com was re-designed with the aim of being promoted on other mainstream platforms, including Windows, iOS, and Android.

A representative from Microsoft said that in the future the company will focus on international advertising search engine businesses, especially search businesses related to cross-border e-commerce, to help more Chinese enterprises expand into the overseas market.

In March 2013, Microsoft announced plans to shut down its instant messaging software MSN Messenger in the worldwide market and replace it with Skype, with exception of Chinese mainland market. In October 2014, MSN Messenger also finally bade farewell to the Chinese market.


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Chinese mobile phone retail channel provider D.Phone and Letv have reached a strategic deal with total value of CNY2 billion.
The two parties plan to enhance their alliance in various sectors, covering Letv's second-generation super phones, mobile TV services, membership promotions, Letv's ecosystem experience stores, and customer service.

During 2016, D.Phone will sell one million Letv super phones, 200,000 Letv super TVs, and 200,000 Letv memberships. Meanwhile, D.Phone will add no less than 1,500 Letv ecosystem experience stores into its retail outlets. The total cooperation value will reportedly reach CNY2 billion. In addition, between May and June 2016, the two parties will jointly hold the offline debut of Letv's second-generation super phones.

Letv officially rolled-out its second-generation super phones on April 20, 2016, including Le 2 at the price of CNY1,099, Le 2 Pro at the price of CNY1,499, and Le Max 2 at the price of CNY2,499.

Commenting on the cooperation with D.Phone, Feng Xing, president of Letv mobile, said that Letv's mobile phone strategy is a full-channel operation. Apart from carriers, third-party e-commerce and owned e-commerce channels, offline retail channel is also important. The strategic cooperation between D.Phone and Letv represents Letv mobile's important expansion of its offline retail channel.
This is the second year of operation for Letv's mobile phone business. Prior to the cooperation with D.Phone, they already reached deals with China Unicom and JD.com.


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Australia-based Telstra has appointed Cynthia Whelan as new chairman of Autohome.com.cn, a Chinese automobile website.
Autohome's former chairman Timothy Chen resigned on May 6, 2016; however, he will continue to be a consultant of the company.

In 2008, Telstra acquired a 55% stake in Autohome. On April 15, 2016, the Australian telecom company announced that they would sell 47.7% of Autohome shares to Ping An for USD1.6 billion. However, a few hours after the announcement, Autohome's executives raised a go-private proposal. The buyer group was led by Autohome's CEO Qin Zhi and its executives, and participants included Boyu Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Hillhouse Capital. They planned to complete the privatization at the price of USD31.5 per ADS.

At that time, Telstra did not disclose the detailed reason for the sale of the stake and the company only said that it was the best time to reap the return of its investment in Autohome. However, the company recently said in public that the USD1.6 billion from the sales of stake was to prepare for its USD1.1 billion annual dividend to shareholders.


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