China Tech News

Chinese telecom device maker Huawei invested USD9.2 billion in research and development in 2015, accounting for 15% of the total annual income of the company.

The World Intellectual Property Organization says that by the end of 2015, Huawei had been a leading patent applier for two consecutive years, with 3,898 accumulated patent cooperation treaties. By December 31, 2015, Huawei had gained 50,377 patents around the world. Those patents are related to LTE, operating systems, and user interfaces, which are very important for the development of smartphones.

As a leading supplier and patent owner of information and communications technology solutions and smart devices, Huawei put great efforts in research and development. Its investments were mainly used to develop new technologies and products and improve mobile communication services. Over recent years, Huawei has enhanced its R&D investment and generated a large number of high-value patents.

Henry Liu, head of Huawei Device in Sri Lanka, said that with continuous innovation and development, Huawei keeps on improving new technologies, which is an important factor for Huawei's success in Sri Lanka and the world. They will continue to invest in R&D business and focus on providing high-quality services to customers.

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Focus Media chairman Jiang Nanchun recently announced that Focus Media and FountainVest Partners have established a USD400 million sports fund, which will lead the third round financing of Codoon.com with USD30 million.
Focus Media revealed that SIG and SBCVC will also participate in this round financing and Codoon will gain USD50 million investments in total.

Jiang said the investment in Codoon represents Focus Media's entry into the sports consumption sector. People are transforming from goods consumption to movies, entertainment and sports consumption, said Jiang. In the future, consumer spending and time investment in these areas will see a significant increase. At the same time, with government policy support in China, the sports industry will become a hot spot over the next ten years.

Prior to this, Codoon received angel investment from Shanda Group at the beginning of 2011. In March 2014, the company completed its first round financing of USD10 million from Shenzhen Capital Group and CITIC Capital. In November 2014, the company completed its second round financing of USD30 million from SIG and SBCVC.

According to Codoon, the company is the largest sports social platform in China, with over 50 million users. It provides various products, including sports data collection and management, online and offline sports event and stadium services, content sharing, mobile payment solution, e-commerce services, and sports safety insurance, to users in China and abroad.
Shen Bo, chief executive officer of Codoon, said that with the new investments, the company aims at one hundred million users while developing more sports categories to establish a closed-loop mass sports ecosystem.

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Taiwan-based MediaTek has launched Pump Express 3.0 technology, and devices carrying this technology are expected to be available in the market at the end of 2016.

MediaTek pointed out that the Pump Express 3.0 solution can charge a smartphone battery from zero to 70% with only 20 minutes. With this new technology, users can make four-hour phone calls by charging five minutes. Compared with the previous Pump Express 2.0 technology, the power consumption was lowered by 50%.

Zhu Shangzu, MediaTek's executive deputy general manager, said that the current technical challenges for smartphones are to meet consumers' demands for strong and diversified multimedia functions as well as the continuous use for a whole day without charging.

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Chinese electronics retailer Suning Commerce Group published a private placement report, stating that the company will issue 1.927 billion new shares at the price of CNY15.17 per share, aiming to raise CNY29.085 billion net funds.

Taobao (China) Software, an affiliate of the Alibaba Group, will subscribe CNY28.233 billion Suning additional shares. On the completion of the subscription, Taobao will hold 1.861 billion Suning shares, accounting for 19.99% of the total shares of Suning, and this Chinese e-commerce company will become the second largest shareholder of Suning Commerce Group.
After the issuance of new shares, Suning's total shares will reach 9.31 billion. Zhang Jindong, chairman of Suning, will still be the largest shareholder of the company with 1.952 billion shares, accounting for 20.96% of the total shares.

Prior to this, Alibaba and Suning announced a strategic cooperation in August 2015. With the cooperation, Alibaba would make a strategic investment of about CNY28.3 billion in Suning to become the second largest shareholder of the latter. Meanwhile, Suning would invest CNY14 billion to subscribe no more than 27.8 million newly-issued shares of Alibaba.


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Baidu Map announced that it is officially available in 32 countries in Europe.

Baidu Map already has entered 18 countries and regions in Asia Pacific, including Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. And Baidu Map has realized global distribution in 50 countries and regions.

The 32 countries are France, Germany, Spain, Italy, United Kingdom, Turkey, Poland, Finland, Greece, Sweden, Portugal, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Romania, Belgium, Denmark, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Ireland, Estonia, Latvia, Iceland, Luxembourg, Monaco, Vatican, Albania, Ukraine, and Croatia.

With the deployment, Baidu Map will meet Chinese users' demands when traveling around Europe, though those Chinese users may find Google Maps is a much better alternative with deeper resolution, more refined features, and without much of the censorship Baidu deploys upon itself.

Li Dongmin, general manager of Baidu Map's business unit, said that at present, Baidu Map has over 500 million users, leading the industry with over 70% market share in China.

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Chinese private investment firm AGIC Capital, which was established in 2015, has acquired Gimatic, an industrial robot company in Italy.
AGIC Capital revealed that the company has reached an acquisition agreement with Gimatic, and it aims to acquire the latter for between EUR100 million and EUR150 million. However, the Chinese company did not disclose the detailed price.

Founded by Henry Cai, former executive chairman of Investment Banking Asia Pacific at Deutsche Bank, AGIC Capital aims to create a smart industry and it focuses on the so-called fourth generation of the industrial revolution.

The acquisition of Gimatic is reportedly the first transaction that has been independently completed by AGIC Capital. The company is a member of a consortium led by China National Chemical Corporation and this consortium acquired KraussMaffei Group, one of the largest machinery suppliers in Germany, for EUR925 million in January 2016.

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Investors eyeing Apple's China growth with anticipation have had their bubbles popped today with news that the tech company was ordered to stop selling two if its latest iPhone models to Chinese consumers.

A Beijing Intellectual Property Bureau notice from May 19 told Apple to stop selling the infringing products: iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. However, Apple now says the government order has been stayed while it appeals and seeks to remedy the problem. And Apple's iPhones are currently being sold by some stores.

Shenzhen Baili's 100C smartphone is at the center of the dispute, with the Beijing Intellectual Property Bureau saying Apple's iPhones infringed the exterior design of the 100C model.


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Chinese search engine company Baidu announced that they have reached a strategic deal with the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand will provide geographic information of over 10,000 authorized attractions, vendors, and hotels to Baidu Map in Thailand. Financial terms of the deal were not released.

According to Baidu, the cooperation will allow the company to access the advantageous resources of the Tourism Authority of Thailand. Meanwhile, relying on Baidu's product advantages in mobile search and mapping, they will establish the largest online marketing platform in the Chinese and Thai tourism industry for Chinese outbound tourists.

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Chinese Internet company Tencent has launched a customer relationship management product named Tencent Qidian that integrates the company's various social networking tools into an easy-to-use dashboard.

Relying on Tencent's QQ and WeChat instant messaging services, Tencent Qidian will provide social value to small businesses and establish a customer-oriented closed-loop CRM system based on instant messaging.

Tan Yi, head of the Tencent Qidian project, said that on Qidian's platform, enterprises can connect with users via many methods. They can reach customers' by QQ, WeChat, H5, apps, and QR codes, and then provide information and services to consumers.

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Over the past few months, China-based Alibaba has closed four enterprise e-commerce platform offices in India.
According to reports in Indian local media, Alibaba Group is adjusting its operating model in the country and it intends to soon directly enter the Indian e-commerce market. The Chinese e-commerce group is seeking investment opportunities in India, including potential acquisitions of logistics company and additional investment in Paytm.

Alibaba's official spokesperson told local media that the group will enhance its distributor sales network in India and better serve the small- and medium-sized enterprise users by using resources and channels of distributors. At present, Alibaba has 4.5 million registered users in India and the company plans to increase the number to ten million within the next few years.
In March 2016, the Indian government announced plans to open its e-commerce market to foreign capital and allowed foreign companies to implement 100% direct investment into platform-type e-commerce companies in India.

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