Now that Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) unveiling of its new iPhone 6 is finally in the past, we can finally sit back and take a look at the specifics of the company’s launch plan for China. The only problem is that there isn’t any such plan yet, even though China is now one of Apple’s largest global markets. Instead, there seems to be lots of confusion about when the newest iPhone will officially go on sale on the Chinese mainland.
I can partly sympathize with Apple, as I’m nearly certain the latest confusion is the result of Chinese bureaucracy that’s impossible to control. But at the same time, this kind of sloppy move will only further undermine Apple’s reputation, which is already under regular attack by central Chinese media that are constantly looking for new ways to find fault with this trendy but secretive company. Read Full Post…
A couple of smaller deals are in the headlines today, with smartphone sensation Xiaomi dipping its toe into the financial services market and online news portal Phoenix New Media (NYSE: FENG) eying the news feed business. Both deals are relatively small in terms of size, but each provides some interesting insight on the thinking at these 2 different companies in the tech and new media space. The first deal has Xiaomi joining a group of investors betting on a peer-to-peer (P2P) online lending platform called Jimu Box. The second has Phoenix investing in Particle Inc, maker of an app that lets users design personalized feeds to receive news over their mobile phones. Read Full Post…
If telecoms equipment giant Huawei was trying to convince the world it’s not closely linked to Beijing, then its new campaign to root out internal corruption certainly looks like a bad strategic move. Of course I’m being just slightly facetious, as any good corporation should always be vigilant against corruption within its workforce. But in terms of public perception, this new internal anti-corruption campaign seems strikingly similar to the much larger and high-profile campaign being waged throughout China by the 2-year-old administration of President Xi Jinping. Read Full Post…
Two new strikes, one in Shanghai and another in Guangdong, are shining a spotlight once more on the constant challenge of labor unrest in China, following a similar wave of such strikes earlier this year. One of the latest strikes saw thousands of workers go off the job at Wintek (Taipei: 2384), a Taiwanese maker of touch screens and a supplier to gadget giant Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). The other saw employees walk off the job at a warehouse owned by recently listed e-commerce JD.com (Nasdaq: JD) in Shanghai. Read Full Post…
A new report on the resignation of the head of Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) huge Asia R&D labs to take a job at homegrown Internet giant Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) is shining a spotlight on the growing challenges that multinationals may soon face in retaining some of their top Chinese employees. Just a decade ago, jobs at foreign companies were highly coveted by ambitious Chinese in the high-tech sector, mostly because China didn’t have any of its own big names in the space.
But the emergence of companies like Baidu, Tencent (HKEx: 700) and Lenovo (HKEx: 992) have created a whole new set of opportunities for these workers. What’s more, improving working conditions at Chinese-owned firms, combined with Beijing’s subtle anti-foreign bias against high-tech multinationals, could ultimately lead many of China’s brightest tech workers to abandon their jobs at the multinationals for domestic names. Read Full Post…
Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) highly anticipated iPhone 6 could face an uphill climb in China when it gets released next week, at least based on the first figures I’ve seen for how much the model will cost. According to the latest reports, China Unicom (HKEx: 762; NYSE: CHU), the nation’s second largest carrier and Apple’s oldest partner in China, will sell the new iPhone 6 for a starting price of 5,288 yuan, or about $860. That would be significantly higher than the price tag of $750 that many believe will be the iPhone 6’s starting price when it goes on sale in the US later this month. Read Full Post…
It’s rare that one issue dominates the blogosphere among the many tech executives who like to tweet about their companies on their microblog accounts. But the past week saw one such debate occur around a spat between 2 old friends in the smartphone space. In one corner was Luo Yonghao, a well-known English teacher who has recently moved into the highly competitive smartphone space. In the other was Wang Ziru, a self-styled gadget critic who has become quite influential. As many might guess, the debate centered on a recent critical review by Wang for Luo’s newly launched smartphone model under his Smartisan brand.
While the Luo-Wang spat kept the blogosphere well supplied with musings from a wide range of tech executives, a few other tidbits also provided some intriguing hints of things to come at other leading tech names. A couple of posts from Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) CEO Zhou Hongyi suggested that a major restructuring could be on the way; and separate musings from an executive at e-commerce giant JD.com (Nasdaq: JD) also hinted at potential similar moves. Read Full Post…
Officials at the 2 main regulators probing foreign firms for anti-competitive behavior are turning up their public relations machine to defend their actions, even as they also turn up the pressure on Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) in one of the highest profile investigations. I remarked last week how unusual it was when the secretive State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) held a rare press conference to defend a series of probes that have targeted Microsoft, along with global smartphone chip giant Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) and many major auto makers. (previous post) Now the equally secretive National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the other antitrust regulator, is launching its own initiative by granting an unprecedented newspaper interview to discuss the matter. Read Full Post…
It’s become a sort of rite of passage for CEOs of major tech firms to visit China after moving into their job, which looks set to happen again with a September trip to Beijing set for Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) new top executive Satya Nadella. Tim Cook traveled to China just 6 months after taking the reins from Steve Jobs as Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) CEO in 2011, and has visited the country several times since then. Even Twitter’s (NYSE: TWTR) CEO Dick Costolo visited Shanghai earlier this year, just months after the social networking giant’s New York IPO, despite saying earlier that China wasn’t a market where his company could do business. (previous post) Read Full Post…
A headline this morning about a potential new China smartphone chip tie-up for Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) made me realize that this company that once ruled the global semiconductor market has been rapidly losing relevance these last few years. I can remember a time not long ago when finding news about Intel was a huge achievement for any reporter, as the company dominated the market for chips used to power most of the world’s PCs. Nowadays, Intel can’t even seem to attract the attention of China’s anti-trust regulators, who are conducting a series of high-profile probes on top computing names like Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM). Read Full Post…
China’s anti-monopoly regulator wants to set the record straight: Reports that Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is being probed for monopolistic behavior related to its Windows operating system and Office suite of products are incomplete. In fact, the US software giant is also being probed for monopolistic behavior related to its Internet Explorer web browser, and its media player product.
Perhaps this clarification doesn’t sound that strange to anyone outside China, but it’s actually quite unusual coming from the highly secretive State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC). The regulator is one of 2 government agencies conducting a wide range of recent anti-trust probes into mostly foreign firms, raising concerns among multinationals and western governments that they are being unfairly targeted by Beijing for such probes. Read Full Post…
