China Tech News

Yang Xiaowei, general manager of China Telecom, revealed that China Telecom plans to have 1.15 million 4G base stations in 2017 and they will build the world's first low-frequency 4G network basing on the 800MHz frequency.
Yang made the comments during a terminal industry summit in Chongqing, and the company explained its development plans for 2017 in detail during the meeting.

At the same time, Yang clarified the future development direction of China Telecom. The company will cooperate with the entire industrial chain to establish five major business ecospheres, covering smart connections, smart homes, Internet finance, new ICT services, and Internet of Things. This meshes well with the government's "Internet Plus" strategy espoused by Premier Li Keqiang.

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'Tis the season for pink slips and cost-cutting, and PC behemoth Lenovo is putting coal in the stockings of its workers in Brazil.

As a part of its plans to reduce expenses, Lenovo will restructure its businesses in Brazil and cut 84% of its staff there.

The Chinese company initially planned to build a 52,000-square-meter manufacturing plant in Itu, a city in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. However, the company now decided to move it to Indaiatuba, the suburb of Sao Paulo, and the plant area will be reduced by half.

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Alibaba's ecosystem comprises China's biggest Internet marketplace, and it's again in the crosshairs of United States Trade Representative Michael Froman.

The USTR's annual report this year says that Alibaba's Taobao.com e-commerce platform is an important concern due to the large volume of allegedly counterfeit and pirated goods available and the challenges right holders experience in removing and preventing illicit sales and offers of such goods.
The USTR says Alibaba is making headway in eliminating counterfeits from its platform, but that current levels of reported counterfeiting and piracy are still unacceptably high.

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China's domestic mobile phone market realized shipments of 54.52 million units in November 2016, a year-on-year increase of 2.4%.

And its shipments reached 497 million units in the first 11 months of 2016, a year-on-year increase of 7.6%, according to the latest statistics released by China Academy of Telecommunication Research of MIIT.
The statistics also showed that from January to November 2016, Chinese-made branded mobile phones realized shipments of 442 million units, a year-on-year increase of 16.1%, and it accounted for 89% of total mobile phones shipped in China.

Chinese mobile phone brands are becoming more popular among Chinese users. A mobile phone satisfaction and communications performance report for the second half of 2016 published by China Telecom showed that for mobile phones with prices of over CNY3,500, Huawei's P9 plus received the best feedback from Chinese users, followed by Apple's iPhone 7 plus and iPhone 7.

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Even with the explosive growth of technology in China, it's still important to remember that China is still a nation of peasants. So Alibaba's Ant Financial is now focusing its sights on a new rural financial services strategy.

To this end, the company announced plans to make a strategic investment in CFPA Microfinance and to establish a joint venture with China Insurance. The investment totals and equity stakes were not made available by the parties.
Through these deals, Ant Financial will drive growth around three major business models. The first is the data-based financial platform model, which is at the bottom of the pyramid. Relying on e-commerce services, Ant Financial's various platforms will provide comprehensive financial services, including payments, insurance, and credit, to nationwide users involved in the agriculture industry.

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Taiwan's three leading smartphone manufacturers Asus, HTC, and Acer are all unable to meet sales targets for 2016.

Asus expects to ship 20 million smartphones in 2016, which is lower than its sales target of 25 million units. The main reason for its unsatisfactory sales performance is attributed to its weak smartphone sales in mainland China, America, and Europe. Moreover, the shipment delay of its ZenFone 3 also affected the sales.

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Chinese telecom device maker Huawei reportedly plans to acquire Israeli cloud database security start-up HexaTier for up to US$42 million.

The two parties are expected to reach an agreement soon, according to reports in foreign media. On the completion of the acquisition, Huawei will build a cloud database research and development center in Israel via HexaTier.
Neither Huawei nor HexaTier refused to comment on the news.

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Carrefour's Hubei regional office announced the launch of its Carrefour online store, which is the latest online-to-offline business of this French retailer in China.

This marks Carrefour's latest O2O e-commerce market development in China, following similar moves in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Kunming, Wuxi, and Jiangsu.

At present, Carrefour has nine hypermarkets in Wuhan. With the launch of the O2O business, the company will be able to integrate its offline store resources. Carrefour will use those physical stores as sub-warehouses and distribution sites and the orders placed via the online store or mobile app will be pushed to the nearest store and the goods will be delivered by SF Express.

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Chinese Internet company Tencent announced business restructuring and personnel changes for its QQ music business line.

The company revealed that they will establish a QQ music business line, which will be responsible for the development and operation of music products, including QQ Music and Kg.qq.com, an online karaoke platform. This new QQ music business line will have a platform product unit, a social media product unit, and a basic platform unit.
Meanwhile, Tencent announced the establishment of several related departments, including a music finance department, copyrights management department, legal affairs department, and human resources department.

In regards to personnel changes, Tencent appointed Hu Min as chief financial officer of Tencent music, leading Tencent's music finance management; Hou Deyang was appointed vice president of Tencent music, leading the full business and management of QQ music business line; Wu Weilin was appointed vice president of Tencent music group, leading the group's copyrights management; Luo Yi was appointed deputy general manager of the platform product unit of QQ music business line, leading human resources management of the group's related departments and QQ music business line; and Yang Qihu was appointed general legal adviser of Tencent music, leading legal management of Tencent music.

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British data center company Global Switch, which is owned by the Reuben Brothers, has sold 49% of its shares to a consortium formed by Chinese investors.

The shares were sold to a consortium named "Elegant Jubilee" for GBP2.4 billion, which is about CNY20.6 billion. Global Switch was acquired by David Reuben and Simon Reuben for GBP585 million in 2004 and they invested GBP1 billion to expand the businesses since then.

The consortium is reportedly led by Li Qiang, major shareholder of Daily-Tech Beijing; and the largest investor is Jiangsu Sha Steel Group, which is one of the largest private steel companies in China.

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