China ICT (Info Communications Technology) Industry, Infra, Commerce, Exports: News & Discussions

[ahojunk]

4-day conference themed on "Apsara and Evolution" opens in Hangzhou
Source: Xinhua | 2016-10-13 20:54:41 | Editor: Mengjie

Jack Ma, founder and chairman of China's e-commerce giant Alibaba, makes a speech on 2016 Hangzhou YunQi Conference in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, Oct. 13, 2016. The four-day conference themed on "Apsara and Evolution" kicked off here on Thursday. (Xinhua/Huang Zongzhi)

A girl tries a payment system basing on face-recognition technology at the venue of 2016 Hangzhou YunQi Conference in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, Oct. 13, 2016. The four-day conference themed on "Apsara and Evolution" kicked off here on Thursday. (Xinhua/Huang Zongzhi)

A visitor tries a coffee purchase process basing on biological recognition technology at the venue of 2016 Hangzhou YunQi Conference in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, Oct. 13, 2016. The four-day conference themed on "Apsara and Evolution" kicked off here on Thursday. (Xinhua/Huang Zongzhi)

Visitors try a VR shopping system at the venue of 2016 Hangzhou YunQi Conference in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, Oct. 13, 2016. The four-day conference themed on "Apsara and Evolution" kicked off here on Thursday. (Xinhua/Huang Zongzhi)

 

[ahojunk]

Officials, specialists to meet at annual World Internet Conference
2016-10-12 13:30 | chinadaily.com.cn | Editor: Feng Shuang

Internet officials, specialists and activists from home and abroad will get together at an annual world internet conference in China next month, an official from the country's top internet watchdog said on Wednesday.

The Third World Internet Conference is to once again be held in Wuzhen, an ancient town in the eastern province of Zhejiang, from Nov 16 to 18, Ren Xianliang, deputy head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, announced during a news conference.

So far, the conference organizer has sent out invitations to more than 1,200 guests worldwide, including government representatives from countries and international associations, internet or technology tycoons and network professionals, according to a statement by the administration.

It said that several well-known internet enterprises have confirmed their attendance at the conference, such as Baidu, China's largest online search engine; Alibaba, Chinese largest e-commerce service; and Sina Weibo, China's most popular Twitter-like platform.

The theme of this year's conference will be "Innovation-Driven Internet Development for the Benefit of All — Building a Community of Common Future in Cyberspace", it said.

Meanwhile, the conference will hold forums on topical issues, such as mobile internet, big data, law-based internet governance and anti-terrorism online, it said.

In addition, advanced technology and network products and services will be shown and issued at the conference, it added.

In Wuzhen, which is hosting the conference for the second consecutive year, free WiFi and other network-related services will be provided for all participants, it said.

 

[ahojunk]

Baidu sets up 20-bln yuan fund to finance Internet projects
2016-10-12 15:57 | Xinhua | Editor: Xu Shanshan

Chinese Internet giant decided to set up a new fund to invest in start-ups in their mid-and-late development stages, a company announced Wednesday.

The private-equity-style fund, Baidu Capital, will allocate about 20 billion yuan (2.98 billion U.S.dollars) in its first round of investment, extending about 50 million U.S.dollars to 100 million dollars for each project.

Baidu Capital, chaired by CEO Robin Li, will be operated independently and will invest in projects related to Baidu's industrial chain as well as projects in other Internet sectors.

The world's largest Chinese search engine announced it would establish a venture capital firm called Baidu Venture in September to focus on investing in early-stage projects in artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality and other innovative fields.

With funding to cover the whole developmental stages of start-ups, Baidu joined the growing trend for Internet companies like Tencent and Alibaba and established funds to expand and improve their business.

 

[ahojunk]

China promotes e-commerce in rural areas
(Xinhua) 19:57, October 17, 2016


BEIJING, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- To boost rural development, China will push for faster growth of the e-commerce sector across its vast under-developed areas.

"Policy support will be given to small online retailers ... to lower their operational costs," the Ministry of Commerce announced Monday.

More will be done to support and nurture e-commerce businesses operating in rural regions, and training programs will be on offer to small business owners, according to guidance advice posted on the ministry's website.

Cooperation between e-commerce businesses and service providers that deal with rural consumers will be encouraged, infrastructure that supports or facilitates e-commerce in rural areas will be upgraded, and private investors will be encouraged to support the sector, it noted.

The document came as retail sales emerged as a major driver of China's economic growth. The country is transitioning from an export-reliant economy to a consumption-driven one. In 2015, consumption contributed 66.4 percent to China's gross domestic product (GDP), up 15.4 percentage points from 2014.

To further tap market potential, China is looking to exploit the ample retail opportunities in its underdeveloped rural areas and e-commerce sector.

 

[TaiShang]

Big data guides poverty alleviation efforts in China
By Yuan Can (People's Daily Online) October 18, 2016

Map of Living Standards across China (Photo provided by UNDP)

Dynamic statistics that come courtesy of big data to measure poverty in China have been playing an increasingly significant role in targeted poverty reduction in the country, according to a report released on Oct. 17.

Put out in cooperation with Baidu, China’s largest search engine, the report highlights a measure called the Living Standard Dimension of the Human Development Index, which addresses the complex nature of poverty by selecting eight indicators to evaluate the provision of services in China’s 2,284 counties.

The report, entitled “The Living Standards Dimension of the Human Development Index: Measuring Poverty with Big Data in China,” was jointly assembled by Baidu and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with the goal of assisting governments in their decision-making, according to UNDP.

“Big data provides an alternative tool for tackling development challenges, which, however, does not go without constraints. The real-time and dynamic nature of data inevitably leads to potential margin of error. This report touches on some of the weaknesses of using big data, but hopes to illustrate that, despite its limitations, it serves to complement the traditional household surveys that feed the national database,” said Patrick Haverman, deputy country director of UNDP in China.

The eight indicators used to analyze poverty in China include: access to water, access to sanitary toilets, access to indoor kitchens, access to living services, access to financial services, access to roads, mobile Internet coverage and nighttime light density.

The Living Standards lndex serves to support income-based measures of poverty, and will hopefully become a supplementary tool to assist policymakers, UNDP said at the press conference. The index ranks eastern China’s Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces in first and second place respectively, followed by Beijing and Shanghai.

In general, the report demonstrates that 19 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions rank above average, including 11 provinces and municipalities from China’s eastern coast and eight from the country’s center. Provinces and autonomous regions in the western part of China all rank below the national average.

National poor counties ranked by Living Standards Index (Photo provided by UNDP)

China has adopted the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the agenda’s 17 sustainable development goals, which aim to end poverty in all forms by 2030.

China is striving to intensify its poverty reduction efforts and eliminate poverty within its borders by 2020, just before the centennial anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.

According to a government paper titled "China's Progress in Poverty Reduction and Human Rights," issued on Oct. 17, China still had 55.75 million people living in poverty at the end of 2015, equivalent to the entire population of a medium-sized country.

The data collected from the report will be available in the form of an interactive map by the end of October. The map will allow users to zoom in on particular provinces to see how they are doing across all eight indicators, as well to pick one indicator and see its strengths and weaknesses across the country.

 

[TaiShang]

China's Weibo overtakes Twitter in market cap
Xinhua, October 19, 2016

The logo of Sina Weibo is seen in the photo. [File photo]

Chinese social media giant Sina Weibo overtook its U.S. counterpart Twitter in market capitalization for the first time ever during trading on Monday.

Nasdaq-listed Sina Weibo saw its market value rise to about 11.32 billion U.S. dollars at one point during trading on Monday, while that for Twitter, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, stood at about 11.22 billion U.S. dollars at the same time. It is the first time the Chinese microblog service has outperformed its U.S. counterpart in market cap,

Sina Weibo's share price closed at 52.91 U.S. dollars per share while that for Twitter stood at 16.73 U.S. dollars, with the former lagging behind the latter by about 600 million U.S. dollars at market close.

Financial reports for the second quarter of this year showed that Twitter raked in about 602 million U.S. dollars in Q2, more than quadruple that of Sina Weibo.

However, Sina Weibo showed stronger growth momentum in revenue and user growth. Twitter had about 313 million monthly active users by the end of Q2, up only three percent year on year, while Sina Weibo boasted 282 million monthly active users, surging 33 percent compared with Q2 2015.

Sina Weibo's share price is expected to reach 70 dollars in mid-2017, according to an estimate by international investment bank J.P. Morgan, thanks to its strong user and revenue growth.

***

A practical result of keeping the established US media companies out of the lucrative China market. You end up having national giants. The market was poised to be the largest in the world; the question was who would get the absolute chunk of it. While most other countries gracefully let US companies dominate their home turf, China became the bad boy and insisted on having its own innovation, creation, and employment -- as well as strategic control. This is such a basic understanding of absolute sovereignty, yet, little practiced. Heavens bless China's decision makers for seeing into the future several decades prior.

@AndrewJin , @Shotgunner51 , @Economic superpower , @cirr , @Chinese-Dragon , @DCS , @ahojunk et al.

 

[ahojunk]

Twitter is still four times more profitable than Sina Weibo but the latter has better growth potential. Potential is just potential, until it becomes reality, it is still potential. There are a lot of hard work ahead. There is no free lunch.

My understanding is China did not keep out foreign companies. China asks the foreign companies to follow its laws if they want to operate in China such as locating servers for Chinese content in China, filtering contents, allowing the government access to requested data, etc. This is no different for companies operating in US or EU. These companies screamed "censorship" in China but that's a lame excuse.

However, for small countries with small markets, these big foreign companies will just ignore them. Is this double standards? Yes, indeed it is but that's the reality as there is nothing much they can do.

Some years ago, Google exit the China market rather than complying with its laws and some said that Google has lost to Baidu. Now, Google is trying hard to get back into the Chinese market but without much success. Google said they didn't exit the Chinese market because they maintain a small office, LOL. To be fair to Google, ten years ago the Chinese market was insignificant.

Another truth - it is impossible for any company to maintain its number one position if it does not have a reasonable market share in China, US and EU. That's why Google is trying to get back into China. I think it's too late as the horse has bolted.

 

[ahojunk]

Internet economy driving IT sector's wealth
2016-10-19 09:07 | China Daily | Editor: Xu Shanshan

The booming internet economy is playing an increasingly important role in supporting wealth growth in China's IT industry, according to a report released on Tuesday.

According to the annual Hurun IT Rich List, the average wealth of the top 50 Chinese IT tycoons hit a record, surging 13 percent year-on-year to 26.9 billion yuan ($4 billion).

Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd topped the ranking of China's richest IT people for the third consecutive year, defending his position against rivals including Tencent Holdings Ltd founder Pony Ma.

Jack Ma and his family's total wealth in IT industry was 195 billion yuan, followed by Pony Ma, whose wealth increased by 30 percent year-on-year to 134 billion yuan, according to the Shanghai-based Hurun Research Institute.

Due to the rapid growth of the online gaming sector, NetEase Inc founder Ding Lei doubled his wealth to 96 billion yuan, surpassing Baidu Inc Chairman Robin Li and ranking third in the IT rich list.

Hurun Chairman Rupert Hoogewerf said: "Those entrepreneurs should be called 'super wealth creators' instead of simply 'rich people', which could highlight their contribution to China's society and economy. They've created such a lot of opportunities and jobs."

"The recent technological explosion provides a better environment for those IT tycoons. In the last two to three years, several technologies have seen breakthroughs, including artificial intelligence, virtual reality and cloud technology. Some have already been integrated into our daily lives, while others will soon be implemented," said Zhao Ziming, an analyst at internet consultancy Analysys.

Compared with an average age of 45, 52-year-old Jack Ma is the oldest among the top 10 IT tycoons.

Among the top 50 IT tycoons, five were born in the 1980s, including 33-year-old Cheng Wei, chief executive officer of Beijing-based Didi Chuxing.

 

[JSCh]

Walmart unveils new Chinese investment
By Ding Yining | October 21, 2016, Friday

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon announced a strategic investment in New Dada with Philip Kuai, CEO of New Dada.

WAL-MART Stores Inc said today it will invest US$50 million in Chinese online grocery and delivery crowdsourcing platform New Dada as the retailer seeks to expand its tie-up with local online players as consumers are shifting focus towards online retailers.

Walmart earlier this year sold its subsidiary, Shanghai-based online retailer Yihaodian, in exchange for a minority stake in JD.com.

The investment in New Dada, which is part-owned by JD.com, would also deepen the collaboration between the US retailer and JD.

"We look forward to deepening our cooperation with Walmart as China’s O2O retail industry continues to evolve and grow," said Philip Kuai, CEO of New Dada.

Dada's application, which provides on-demand logistics and grocery delivery, boasts more than 25 million registered customers with 2.5 million crowd-sourced deliverers across more than 300 cities in China.

The announcement came after Walmart said it would launch an exclusive Sam’s Club and Global Imports stores on JD.com, as well as two-hour grocery delivery for orders placed on JD dispatched by New Dada.

 

[TaiShang]

Alibaba posts strong revenue growth in 2nd fiscal quarter
(Xinhua) November 03, 2016


HANGZHOU, Nov. 2 -- China's e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba posted robust revenue growth for its second fiscal quarter ending Sept. 30, according to results announced on Wednesday night.

The group's revenue growth rose 55 percent year on year to about 34.3 billion yuan (5 billion U.S. dollars) in the quarter, exceeding market expectations.

Revenue from its core operations of e-commerce increased 41 percent year on year to about 28.5 billion yuan, while those of other reporting segments such as cloud computing, digital media and innovative initiatives all posted impressive performances.

"We expect each of these businesses to drive long-term value for both our customers and shareholders," said Maggie Wu, Alibaba's chief financial officer.

But the company's net income slipped about 69 percent year on year to 7.075 billion yuan in the quarter.

Alibaba's share price in pre-market trading in the United States rose more than 3 percent to 104 dollars after the results were announced.

 

[JSCh]

Baidu, China Unicom partner to promote artificial intelligence
Source: Xinhua 2016-11-03 15:04:01

BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Internet giant Baidu inked a strategic partnership with leading telecom company China Unicom on Wednesday with the aim of applying artificial intelligence (AI) and other leading technologies to future products and services.

The two companies will leverage their expertise and advantages in online and offline services to cooperate on projects in mobile Internet, AI, big data and telecom services.

Baidu will help China Unicom put the services of more than 10,000 brick-and-mortar outlets and 300,000 franchised stores online. China Unicom will offer Baidu stronger telecom infrastructure support such as Internet data centers and information and communication technology.

Robin Li, Baidu board chairman and CEO, said his company already cooperates closely in linking mobile search, mapping and group buying services with China Unicom's services, and Baidu is looking forward to impressive results from AI technology.

Wang Xiaochu, board chairman of China Unicom, called the move an important step for cross-sector cooperation between Internet companies and telecom firms in line with the government's "Internet Plus" proposal to upgrade traditional sectors with IT technology.

The latest quarterly financial statements showed that Baidu had steady profit growth in the third quarter while China Unicom suffered a heavy drop in profit growth year on year in the first three quarters, which put more pressure on the company to upgrade its products and services.

 

[TaiShang]

Baidu, China Unicom partner to promote artificial intelligence
Source: Xinhua 2016-11-03 15:04:01

BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Internet giant Baidu inked a strategic partnership with leading telecom company China Unicom on Wednesday with the aim of applying artificial intelligence (AI) and other leading technologies to future products and services.

The two companies will leverage their expertise and advantages in online and offline services to cooperate on projects in mobile Internet, AI, big data and telecom services.

Baidu will help China Unicom put the services of more than 10,000 brick-and-mortar outlets and 300,000 franchised stores online. China Unicom will offer Baidu stronger telecom infrastructure support such as Internet data centers and information and communication technology.

Robin Li, Baidu board chairman and CEO, said his company already cooperates closely in linking mobile search, mapping and group buying services with China Unicom's services, and Baidu is looking forward to impressive results from AI technology.

Wang Xiaochu, board chairman of China Unicom, called the move an important step for cross-sector cooperation between Internet companies and telecom firms in line with the government's "Internet Plus" proposal to upgrade traditional sectors with IT technology.

The latest quarterly financial statements showed that Baidu had steady profit growth in the third quarter while China Unicom suffered a heavy drop in profit growth year on year in the first three quarters, which put more pressure on the company to upgrade its products and services.

China Unicom

The provider I use when in Mainland.

 

[grey boy 2]

China Unicom

The provider I use when in Mainland.

Same here when i'm back to HK bro

 

[TaiShang]

Same here when i'm back to HK bro

I feel they are more accessible with more service centers although they may be smaller than China Mobile in terms of coverage etc.

Same reason, I use 台湾大哥大 in Taiwan, instead of the larger 中華電信.

 

[AndrewJin]

I feel they are more accessible with more service centers although they may be smaller than China Mobile in terms of coverage etc.

Same reason, I use 台湾大哥大 in Taiwan, instead of the larger 中華電信.

View attachment 348772
View attachment 348773

Very few people use Unicom in mainland because their 4G signal is not very good. Though all three companies have national coverage of 4G.