China Tech News

Chinese telecom device maker Huawei will reportedly build a research and development center in South Korea.

According to reports in South Korean local media, this move aims to more effectively enter the South Korean domestic market and acquire technologies related to smartphones in South Korea.

Kevin Ho, Huawei's president of the terminal mobile product line, said that the construction of the R&D center in South Korea will soon be completed. South Korea has advanced smartphone technologies and the new R&D center is expected to become an enormous help to Huawei. Ho also revealed that all hardware and software of the new R&D center is ready and they are currently deciding the specific location and investment scale. The company will hire local talents to implement high-quality development.

So far, Huawei has established R&D centers in 17 countries and regions around the world, including the U.S., U.K., and India; and those R&D centers accommodate 11,000 talents. Meanwhile, Huawei invests 10% of its annual earnings into technology development, which is between USD3 billion and USD5 billion.

Ho said they will develop customized products which can meet the expectations of Korean consumers in design, hardware and software. They will provide good smartphones at reasonable prices to win the favor consumers.


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China UnionPay has reportedly decided to launch a mobile payment service named "AndroidPay" for Android smartphones.
According to reports in Chinese local media, several information sources confirmed the new service will reportedly be available in China in the third quarter of 2015.

Several smartphone makers also confirmed the news. Cao Jingsheng, vice president of Coolpad Group, said that the company and China UnionPay have been discussing for over a month and both parties have strong willingness to cooperate, although there is no specific timeline yet. Cao said one of Coolpad's high-end products will support this new service in 2015.

Wang Yanhui, secretary-general of the Mobile Phone China Alliance, also revealed that China UnionPay decided to commence AndroidPay last week. He said that the Apple Pay project participated by China UnionPay is expected to start commercial operation in March 2015. When Apple was formulating Apple Pay standards, China UnionPay also participated in the work and is familiar with the process ns now wants to copy it for Android devices.

AndroidPay refers to AndroidPay's fingerprint identification and NFC payment model. However, unlike Apple Pay, AndroidPay will cooperate with Chinese security module manufacturers and has more cooperating partner options. It will also rely on Chinese security and encryption standards.


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Gome's home appliance and electronic sales during the first three quarters ended September 30, 2014, reached CNY44.645 billion, a year-on-year increase of 7.2%; and its net profit reached CNY1.018 billion, a surge of 74.9%.
The company made the announcement as it revealed its unaudited performance report of its listed company for the first three quarters ended September 30, 2014, stating that its

According to the report, Gome achieved 4.7% individual store growth for stores in first- and second-tier cities, and 68 stores in those cities were upgraded into smart diversified stores; while in third- and fourth-tier cities, Gome's individual store growth was 12% and 58 stores were upgraded into smart diversified stores. Meanwhile, the company opened 154 new stores in supermarkets and department stores during the first three quarters of 2014. By the end of September 2014, Gome has 1,643 stores in total, including non-listed part.

For e-commerce, including its mobile app, Gome's total sales increased by 72.7% compared with the same period of last year. At the same time, the number of its unique visitors increased by 63.9% over last year. Its transactions completed via mobile devices accounted for 12.4% of total e-commerce transactions.

Wang Junzhou, president of Gome, said in the future Gome's four major platforms, including procurement, logistics, information system, and financial service, will all support the comprehensive development of the company in online, offline, mobile app, and other social channels.


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TCL Group plans to team with its two subsidiaries TCL Multimedia Technology Holdings Limited and TCL Communication Technology Holdings Limited to invest CNY90 million to create a joint venture in Hong Kong through which the group will build a foreign-invested company in China for the operation of smart home projects.

TCL Group and TCL Multimedia will hold a 30% stake in the joint venture respectively; while TCL Communication will hold a 40% stake.

The new project aims to integrate the emerging Internet of Things and service businesses to realize home monitoring, remote control, and smart services via apps. The company will meld software with hardware to create self-developed consumer-friendly devices to make homes smarter, safer, and easier to manage.

As subsidiaries of TCL Group, TCL Multimedia and TCL Communication are both listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. TCL Multimedia is mainly engaged in the manufacturing and sales of consumer electronic products and its major product is TV set. It is also the operating entity of TCL branded TVs. TCL Communication is specialized in the design, manufacturing and sales of mobile phones, smart devices, and Internet products. It is the operating entity of TCL and Alcatel branded mobile phones.

According to public files, TCL Multimedia sold 17.184 million LCD TVs in 2013, ranking the third in the world with 6.5% global market share. It also ranked the first in the Chinese market with 18.1% market share. At the same time, TCL Communication's mobile phone shipment reached 55.2 million units.


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Chinese B2C e-commerce website JD.com signed a letter of intent with the government of Mayong in Dongguan for JD Group to invest CNY2 billion to build a modern service industrial park in Mayong.

By locating itself in Mayong, JD will make Dongguan its important business support point in the South China region and about 50% of the company's business in this region will be covered by this new industrial park. The project is expected to be completed and put into operation in 2017. After that, JD's trading value in Dongguan will reach CNY35 billion, with annual tax contribution of CNY700 million.

A representative from Mayong said that the Dongguan JD modern service industrial park and e-commerce base project will have an e-commerce operations center, smart logistics demonstration base, regional procurement center, and e-commerce cluster park. In the future, it will be established as the e-commerce base and logistics hub in Dongguan.

Wang Jizhang, investment director of JD Group, said at the signing ceremony that Mayong has professional teams and a good industrial environment. Wang spoke highly of the investment environment and government efficiency of Mayong and he hoped the cooperation would bring positive influence to tax, employment status and industrial development of Mayong and Dongguan.

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If China's top Internet search engine controls Chinese literature the way it delivers Internet search results, be prepared for Baidu.com to censor, misrepresent, and deliver books to Chinese readers in a way only a book-burner could love.

Baidu is now extending its government-influenced Internet monopoly into the Chinese literature sector. Baidu Literature announced its establishment and revealed a complete structure covering several sub-brands like Zongheng.com, 91 Panda Book, and Baidu Shucheng.

At the same time, according to a report from TechWeb.com.cn, Baidu Literature will gain support from Baidu's various internal resources, including Baidu Tieba, Baidu game, Baidu music, Baidu video, and 91 Wireless. Baidu Literature also signed agreements with several partners in the gaming, movie and TV sectors.

Baidu Literature's representative told local media that Zongheng.com will be the core of its original literature platform, which has over 10,000 contracted authors, more than 400,000 registered authors, and 160,000 works. Zongheng.com was previously an Internet literature website under Perfect World — a Chinese Internet game company — and Baidu acquired its entire stake for CNY191.5 million at the end of 2013.

For its distribution platform, Baidu Literature said they have the Baidu Shucheng app and website and Panda Book platform, which can ensure the stable output of original resources to obedient Chinese readers.

For third-party cooperation, the company will also promote resource exchanges with its peers. Baidu Literature said at present they have teamed with hundreds of distribution platforms for copyright content cooperation covering nearly 100,000 copyright works.

Financial terms and organizational details of Baidu Literature were not released.


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American semiconductor company Qualcomm recently confirmed that they will sell their Mirasol panel plant in Longtan, Taiwan, to Taiwanese local foundry TSMC.

Mirasol panel manufacturing was a business under Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, a subsidiary of Qualcomm, and it was once considered a breakthrough LCD panel product. However, the related business expansion was not smooth. Early in 2012, the Mirasol panel plant reportedly halted production.

Jointly founded by Qualcomm and Taiwan Foxlink Group, the Mirasol display plant was put into operation in 2009. After TSMC's acquisition, it will be used for a chip packaging business.

Mirasol is a new display technology developed by Qualcomm MEMS Technologies. Like traditional E-ink technology, it uses ambient light reflection to display content instead of using backlight. With the eyesight protection feature like E-ink, Mirasol technology also incorporates a high refresh rate and it can be used to play videos, which allows usage as mobile phones and tablet screens. With low power consumption, the Mirasol technology may bring revolutionary influences if it can be widely applied.


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China's Suning announced plans to increase its strategic investment in PPTV, a Chinese video website.

At the same time, its board of directors appointed Fan Zhijun, executive president for Suning in East China, as chairman of the management committee at PPTV.

Suning said that over the past year of transition, the strategic integration of PPTV and Suning is becoming clear. The two parties will team to seize the Internet multi-screen portal market and actively develop and distribute on mobile, family and PC video terminals.

By June 2014, PPTV's daily user coverage reportedly reached 42.64 million and its daily visit view was about 280 million.

At the end of October 2013, Suning teamed with Hony Capital in acquiring about 74% of PPTV for USD420 million. With this move, Suning gained a 44% stake in the video website and became its largest shareholder.


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Huawei's product and solution CTO Li Sanqi revealed that the company has reached a close cooperation with three major South Korean telecom companies, SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus, for the research and development of fifth-generation network services.

During the closing ceremony of Startup Nations Summit 2014 held in Seoul, Li said that Huawei will work together with telecom service suppliers to develop a stable 5G network. In addition, Huawei's president of the terminal mobile product line Kevin Ho previously announced that Huawei is planning its 16th R&D lab in South Korea.

Li revealed that Huawei is committed to making 5G technology a reality along with SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus. They currently mainly talk about 5G development engineering and the Internet of Things.

Though it is still early to talk about 5G technology standardization and there is yet no official standard to define the speed of 5G transmission, related reports already pointed out that by 2020, 5G speed will be 1,000 times of that of 4G.


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The next time travelers board an airline in China, they may expect more than just the Chinese government and airline companies to have access to private information as a recently discovered exploit may give flyers more indigestion than an inflight meal.

Wooyun.org, a Chinese loophole reporting platform for security manufacturers and researchers, published a loophole in the system of China Eastern Airlines which may cause leaks of customer data to hackers and thieves. According to the platform's information desk, the hazard rating was high for this exploit.

The loophole was raised by a Wooyun white hat hacker named "Lu Ren Jia" on December 2, 2014, but the loophole has reportedly not yet been patched and is still waiting for action from appropriate manufacturers of the hardware and software components that are related to the exploit. No word yet either has been released by the airline.

An insider from the airline industry pointed out in an article on 21cn.com that a loophole like this can cause the leak of user information, including names, mobile phone numbers, and airline flight information.

Wooyun platform already exposed a SQL injection loophole in the system of China Eastern Airlines in August this year. The loophole was later confirmed by security manufacturers and patched.


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