China Tech News

The number of people using fast wireless services from China Mobile is larger than the population of the United States.

Chinese telecom operator China Mobile recently published its operating statistics for June 2016, wand the company showed that the company continued to lead the 4G sector and left its two competitors China Unicom and China Telecom far behind.
By June 30, 2016, China Mobile's number of 4G users reached 428.541 million. During that month, the company gained 19.225 million new 4G users, which was the second best performance over the first half of 2016 following January. The population of the United States, according to U.S.-based Census.gov, is 324 million.

Meanwhile, China Mobile reported total number of users of 837.038 million, representing an average monthly increase of 1.8 million users. However, its 3G users saw an average monthly decrease of 6.085 million to 132.865 million users. The number of its broadband users reached 65.836 million by the end of June 2016. During the first half of the year, China Mobile gained 10.807 million new broadband users, with an average monthly increase of 1.801 million users.

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China's leading real estate online platform Fang.com announced a realignment of two of its top posts.

The company plans to appoint Liu Jian as its new president and Zhang Zhihong as new chief operating officer.
Liu joined Fang.com in 2000 and has been working as COO of the company since 2007. He also served as chief information officer of Fang.com between 2004 and 2006. He graduated from Ningbo University, and has rich experience in business operations and management.

Zhang has been serving as senior vice president of Fang.com since April 2016, leading the company's finance and operation optimization. Prior to that, she also worked as Fang.com's vice president of sales department. Zhang gained her MBA degree at University of International Business and Economics.

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Chinese telecom device maker Huawei announced that during the first six months of 2016, the company achieved operating revenue of CNY245.5 billion, which was about USD37 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 40%.

As the world's third largest smartphone brand, Huawei realized fast operating revenue growth which was contributed by its upgraded smartphone and network devices that helped the company offset negative effects caused by global demand decline.

Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, said that they are confident in maintaining the current trend. Supported by the healthy business operation, the company will realize a positive financial situation at the end of the year.

However, market competition was pressing Huawei's profit rate. Over the first half of 2016, Huawei's operating profit rate decreased to 12%, which was lower than the 18% profit rate in the same period of last year. The company did not announce the performance of individual departments.

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American rideshare company Uber and its Chinese rival Didi Chuxing are cruising on the good news today that China has taken a step towards making their businesses more legal.

China's Ministry of Transportation and six other agencies issued rules that become effective on November 1, 2016. These rules bring the businesses out of the grey area in which they've operated. They set guidelines for drivers and cars, but leave much of the decision-making in the hands of local governments.

For example, drivers need to have clean driving records and have already been driving for three years. Their cars also must have less than about 600,000 kilometers on their odometers or less than eight years old.

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SoftBank will launch its humanoid robot Pepper in Taiwan later this year and the company will provide about 100 units for leasing.

According to a representative from SoftBank, those robots will be put into use at some banks and Carrefour supermarkets.
With this move, Taiwan will become the first market outside Japan to have Pepper. However, Pepper will not be open for sales and it does not target ordinary Taiwanese consumers.

As the manufacturer of Pepper, Foxconn is headquartered in Taiwan. Lv Fangming, executive director of Foxconn, said that SoftBank plans to have monthly leasing of 60 Peppers in the first half of 2017. Lv also revealed that banking units of Taiwan First Financial Holding and Taishin Holdings, life insurance unit of Cathay Financial Holdings, and Taiwanese telecom carrier Asia Pacific Telecom are expected to use Pepper to meet basic demands of customers.

Marilyn Su, an executive from Carrefour, said that they also plan to use Pepper at two stores in Taiwan. She said that the first task for this robot is to know customers and interact with them, especially children.


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No major Western software or online business has ever succeeded on its own in China for a sustained period of time, so it's not remarkable that U.S.-based Uber has kowtowed to its Chinese rival in a billion-dollar deal.

While a few weeks and months ago it was viewed by China Internet watchers as foolhardy and blind avarice for Uber to continue its waste of money in China, it is now a sign of maturity that the company has figured out what Yahoo long ago figured out: if you can't beat them in China, join them in China. Yahoo many years ago gave up its Chinese operations to e-commerce giant Alibaba in exchange for a stake in Alibaba.

Uber will reportedly exchange its local Chinese operations for a 20% stake in Didi Chuxing, Media like WSJ.com are reporting that Didi will then invest USD1 billion in Uber at a USD68 billion valuation. This deal makes Uber then the biggest shareholder in Didi.

Last week word came from China's Ministry of Transportation that ridesharing services would be legalized in China. Many foreign media incorrectly saw this move as a boon for Uber, but actually it creates more roadblocks as the Ministry placed implementation decisions in the hands of the thousands of municipalities in which Uber would operate. So, essentially, Uber's business could very much still be blocked by local protectionists in China.

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Qualcomm has reached a new 3G and 4G patent licensing agreement with Chinese smartphone brand Oppo.
According to the agreement, Qualcomm will authorize Oppo to use its patents for the development, manufacturing, and sales of 3G and 4G LTE devices. The licensing fee paid by Oppo is in line with the terms of corrective measures submitted by Qualcomm to the National Development and Reform Commission of China.

Feng Ying, director of intellectual property department of Oppo, said that with the new licensing agreement, Oppo will be able to gain the most advanced technologies in the mobile industry which will support them to create great devices for consumers.
Alex Rogers, Qualcomm's senior vice president and general manager for technology licensing business, told local media that they are glad to sign the agreement with Oppo. As a research and development engine of the industry, Qualcomm is thrilled to see that many companies such as Oppo are using Qualcomm's patents to promote further development and innovation of outstanding products.

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Lenovo-Motorola's India branch recently submitted an application for a single-brand retail business license as it aims to open a new display store in the Indian market.

Sudhin Mathur, director of Lenovo India, said that during the last financial year ended March 31, 2016, the company's turnover from mobile phone sales reached USD1.3 billion, which was nearly doubled compared with the USD700 million turnover in the year before.
Mathur said that Lenovo's sales maintained healthy growth in India and they are expecting a stronger sales performance in the future.
Based on statistics provided by the industry research firm IDC, Lenovo-Motorola sold about ten million mobile phones in the Indian market in 2015 and the company's market share was about 10%.

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Chinese telecom device maker Huawei announced that He Honglve has joined Huawei's consumer business as Greater China vice president, leading device business in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

He will directly report to Zhu Ping, Greater China president of Huawei's consumer business.

According to Yu Chengdong, chief executive officer of Huawei's consumer business, the year of 2016 marks the rise of Huawei's consumer business in the global market. With their global strategic and huge development potential, the company will provide a wide stage for the best talents of the industry. They believed that the joining of He will make continuous contribution to the business development of Huawei's consumer business in Greater China.

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More Chinese are playing mobile and console games, while Web games are slipping.
During ChinaJoy 2016, the latest report for China's gaming industry was published and showed that from January to June 2016 China's gaming sales reached about CNY78.75 billion.

According to the report, the number of Chinese gamers reached 488.9 million during the first half of 2016, a year-on-year increase of 6.7%; the number of console game users reached 138 million, a year-on-year increase of 3.1%; the number of web game users was 279 million, a year-on-year decrease of 8.7%; and the number of mobile game users was 405 million, a year-on-year increase of 10.7%.
During the reporting period, the actual sales of Chinese gaming market reached CNY78.75 billion, a year-on-year increase of 30.1%. For details, the actual sales of self-developed online games in Chinese domestic market were CNY57.04 billion, a year-on-year increase of 30.1%; and the actual sales of self-developed online games in overseas market were USD2.53 billion, a year-on-year increase of 43.7%.
The actual sales of client game market were CNY28.1 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5.2%; the actual sales of web game market were CNY10.06 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 2.1%; the actual sales of mobile game market were CNY37.48 billion, a year-on-year increase of 79.1%; the sales total in the stand-alone game market were CNY80 million, a year-on-year decrease of 42%; and the sales of TV game market services were CNY460 million.

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