China Tech News

Chinese smartphone maker Gionee plans to invest INR5 billion, which is about CNY495 million, to build a smartphone factory in northern India.

This new smartphone factory will be put into production within two years. Gionee previously signed a memorandum with the local government in Haryana, India. The products made in this factory will not only target the Indian market, but Southeast Asia will also become one of its major markets.

Located in Haryana, India, Gionee's new factory will have an area of 200,000 square meters. At the same time, the Chinese company continues to enhance its investments in India and it expects to achieve annual production capacity of 30 million units, with total investments of INR15 billion.

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Shanhai Capital and Analogix Semiconductor jointly announced that the two parties have reached a final agreement under which a consortium led by Shanhai Capital will acquire all outstanding shares of Analogix Semiconductor for over USD500 million.
The National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund will also join Shanhai Capital as one of the limited partners. This deal is subject to the approval of related regulatory authorities and is expected to complete later this year.

Headquartered in California, Analogix Semiconductor's high-speed mixed-signal chips are used on mobile devices, VR/AR devices, and other high-performance electronics products. Most of Analogix Semiconductor's engineering resources reside in Beijing and its clients include Apple, Samsung, LG, Microsoft, Google, Lenovo, Dell, HP, Asus, and HTC.

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Internet lifestyle service and group buying platform Meituan Dianping announced that they have completed the acquisition of Qiandai.com, a third-party payment company in China.

With this acquisition, Meituan Dianping will gain a coveted third-party payment license.
Qiandai.com is one of the first companies to have gained a third-party payment license issued by the People's Bank of China and the company has been focusing on the payment businesses. Since its establishment in November 2008, Qiandai.com has provided comprehensive payment solutions to small and micro vendor customers with advanced technical concepts and quality product services. Its payment license covers Internet payment, mobile payment, and bank card collection businesses. The company has formed important partnerships with various commercial banks.

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Chinese interactive entertainment content platform Linekong has completed a strategic investment of tens of millions of RMB in appMagics, a mixed reality technology company.

This is Linekong's first disclosed investment project in the VR/AR sector, but the exact amount figure is still unclear.
Founded in 2014, appMagics focuses on mixed reality technologies which integrate virtual reality and augmented reality. Its products include virtual augmented reality cameras and a magic creative image community. At present, appMagics is trying to apply facial capture technology to Internet live shows.

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Lenovo Group will implement an employee layoff program, but the total number of employees affected will be no more than 2% of its employees worldwide.

However, most of the employees affected by the layoffs will be from Moto smartphone unit, but the company did not reveal the detailed number. Lenovo Group reportedly has 55,000 employees around the world.

This marks another round of employee layoffs for Lenovo following its biggest purge in 2015. In order to improve its financial position, Lenovo announced plans to cut 3,200 employees worldwide last year, of which 500 were from Motorola Mobility.

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The Industry of Virtual Reality Alliance has been established in China as part of the government's effort to partner with private industry.
The IVRA claims to have more than 170 enterprises and institutions as partners, includes Alibaba, HTC, Huawei, JD.com, Netease, Sohu, Perfect World, Enlight Media, Letv, iQiYi, Samsung, Nokia, AMD, Ubisoft, Nvidia, and ARM.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is working with these companies to promote technology innovation and to formulate industrial standards, bridging hardware, software, content, platforms and industrial applications.

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Apple R&D (Beijing) Co., Ltd. has been established in Zhongguancun Chaoyang Park.
The company has registered capital of CNY100 million. With a total investment of CNY300 million, it will have about 500 employees. Locating in Zhongguancun Chaoyang Park, it is close to the Donghuqu station of Beijing's subway line 14.

The company is reportedly Apple's first directly-invested research and development center in China. In the future, this R&D center will focus on the development of advanced technologies, covering computer software and hardware, communication, audio and video equipment, consumer electronics product technology, and information technology.

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Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase jointly announced that the two parties will extend their existing online game cooperation in mainland China to January 2020.

The renewed operation agreement includes Blizzard's World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and Overwatch, as well as new content for these games during the agreement period.

This is reportedly the ninth year for the partnership between U.S.-based Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase. In 2008, the two companies jointly introduced Blizzard's StarCraft II and Battle.net platform into China. The renewal of the operation agreement represents the achievements of the past eight years and further enhances the existing partnership of the two companies.

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Chinese B2C e-commerce website JD.com and social media content platform Toutiao.com announced that the two parties have reached a strategic deal to work together to launch a "JD-Toutiao program".

Toutiao's 550 million users will be able to enjoy the e-commerce services provided by JD in their reading scenes; meanwhile, JD will gain another top traffic portal on the mobile Internet to peddle its online sales.

In addition, the two parties plan to integrate multi-screen, multi-platform, and multi-scene big data resources. Financial terms of the deal were not released.


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U.S. supermarket chain Walmart has doubled down on its high expectations for China's e-commerce growth.
Walmart increased its stake in Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com to 10.8% from 5.9%, three months after the U.S. retail giant swapped its Yihaodian unit for an initial interest in China's second largest e-commerce firm.
Walmart has been trying to grow its online business after having entered the Chinese market 20 years ago. It currently operates more than 400 offline stores and a Chinese Sam's Club online site.

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