China Tech News

Hisense and the Fujian Provincial Expressway Information Technology Company have signed a strategic cooperation agreement to establish a smart system for the highways in the southern Chinese province.

The deal focuses on services such as self-service toll payments and smart business functions within the service zones along the highway. Financial terms of the deal were not released.

Cars will be able to rapidly pass the unmanned highway stations and enjoy customized services within the service zones. For example, Hisense will crunch the spending habits data so consumers will gain product recommendations and preferential treatment within the service zones.

The services will improve the information level of highway charging stations and reduce the time drivers spend both paying tolls and at the service zones on the side of the highway.


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Chinese ride-sharing app Didi Chuxing is adding a new business model: car rental service.
The company today launched its own online car rental business through an asset-light model in cooperation with existing leasing firms. Financial terms of Didi's deal were not released.

In 2015, 58.5% or 2.34 billion of China's 4 billion domestic tourist trips were completed in rental cars. The number is expected to surpass 5. 8 billion by 2020 according to estimates by the China Tourism Automobile and Cruise Association. According to Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, the value of China's short-term car rental market will grow from CNY6 billion in 2013 to CNY18 billion in 2018 at a CAGR of 27% much higher than the growth pace in the United States, Japan and other developed markets.

Rather than owning cars, Didi Car Rental works with car rental and leasing companies in an asset-light, high-efficiency sharing-economy model. Our data-driven rider-vehicle matching system and economy-of-scale advantages will help our partners improve their operational efficiency, reduce operations costs, and better organize under-utilized social resources to meet travelers' dynamic demand.

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Are Chinese technology companies taking advantage of stupid investors, or are investors complicit in allowing technology firms to post stupendous losses like those reported by Ucar Group?

Ucar Group, a mobile app-based chauffeured car service unit launched by Chinese rental car firm Car Inc., saw losses increase 74%, or RMB1 billion (US$150 million), during the first half to RMB2.37 billion (US$356 million), according to a newly released half-year report.

The offshoot of Car Inc., backed by Warburg Pincus LLC, Legend Holdings and other investors, just completed a listing on China's New Third Board with a valuation of RMB36.9 billion (US$5.5 billion) last month.


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Two thumbs up for Dushe, the Chinese movie review website that has just raised about US$11 million.

Bertelsmann Asia Investments has led a series A funding round in Chinese movie commentary and content platform Dushe, with participation from existing investors Neowing Venture Capital and Yonghua Capital, according to Chinese media reports.
The round reportedly values the movie content producer at RMB300 million (US$45 million). The investment value was not disclosed, but could be worth RMB75 million (US$11 million) assuming investors are taking a 25% stake.

Dushe, a Chinese phrase that means "vicious tongue", was founded last year by veteran media professionals.
The firm produces original and controversial commentary for movies and distributes them across over 20 media platforms, including the popular Wechat app where the firm has over two million followers.


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Beijing-based cloud testing firm Testin claims to have completed a US$30 million series C funding round.

The news is being reported by local Chinese media, but the identity of the cloud computing investor is cloudy and is currently undisclosed.
Testin provides one-stop cloud testing services to mobile app and games developers and was founded in 2011. The company Testin previously received series A funding from IDG Capital Partners.

In 2014 to 2015, it raised a series B financing round from IDG and Banyan Capital, and a series B+ round led by Haiyin Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Banyan and IDG, in 2015.

The series B and B+ round totaled US$54.9 million, say the reports.

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Though its population of 7.5 million is equal to that of a mid-size mainland Chinese city like Hangzhou, Hong Kong makes up for lack of people with strength in its financial markets. And news today that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority has issued stored value facilities licences is big news.

HKMA has granted stored value facilities licenses to five companies under the Payment Systems and Stored Value Facilities Ordinance: Alipay, Octopus, TNG, Money Data, and HKT Payment. Octopus' license is effective November 13, 2016, but the other firms have effective licenses from today, August 25.

"The grant of the first batch of licenses for SVF issuers is turning a new page in the retail payment development in Hong Kong," Norman Chan, CEO of HKMA.

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Is China becoming too expensive for technology manufacturing, or is India's tough market entry rules forcing Huawei to manufacture in the country?

Huawei will soon begin manufacturing smartphones in India, making the Chinese company an important competitor in the fastest-growing smartphone market in the world. Local Chinese media report Huawei will setup manufacturing operations in India, though the exact start date and investment scope have not been revealed.

Peter Zhai, Huawei's president for consumer business group in India, revealed during the Huawei P9 launch in India that the company had gained the manufacturing license in the country and would soon announce their local manufacturing plan.
Huawei expects to make India its second largest device market. By the end of 2016, Huawei will increase the number of its Indian retail specialty stores from the existing several thousand to 50,000.

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Lenovo and Microsoft announced plans to enhance their strategic cooperation and Lenovo will pre-install Microsoft's productivity applications such as Office, OneDrive, and Skype on some of its devices using the Android operating system.
Meanwhile, the two parties will implement cross-licensing of some device patents.

Lenovo expects to ship millions of such Android devices globally over the next few years. This move will enhance the cooperating relationship between Microsoft and Lenovo.

Nick Parker, vice president of Microsoft's OEM unit, said that Microsoft is glad that their productivity software will be pre-installed on Lenovo's high-quality devices. The marriage of Microsoft's apps and Lenovo's Android-based devices will enable customers around the world to be more productive and more connected.

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Bank of China Hong Kong and Hang Seng Bank have both issued warnings in recent days about Web-based attacks targeted at bank customers in Greater China.

On August 23, Hang Seng Bank alerted consumers to a fraudulent website using the domain name 'hangsengbank-hk.com'. The site today appears offline today, but the domain name was only first registered on August 20, 2016. That means the window for malfeasance lasted at most three days before Hang Seng Bank issued its warning.

This fraudulent website requested customers to provide details about their Hang Seng Bank accounts. Hang Seng's legitimate domain name and website is found at hangseng.com.

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Sorry Beijing, your next food delivery will have to come by motorbike and not by autonomous drone.
Baidu's project to courier food deliveries by drones, which was launched last year under the name Baidu Takeaway, is now coming back down to earth. The search engine company is scuttling the drone project, and perhaps more related drone projects, according to Chinese media reports.

During last week's China Artificial Intelligence Conference, Lin Yuanqing, senior director at Baidu's deep learning laboratory, said Baidu's advances in AI have been great and they are now separating that research from drone work.

"Unmanned aerial vehicles are indeed a very good project, but we are puzzled with how Baidu can compete with DJI, because we do not produce them. We considered whether unmanned aerial vehicles can automatically draw a map, in particular for places unachievable by people and cars, but we finally concluded that the market value is not that big. Although we now give up the project, our technology can be used in other places, " said Lin.

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