Barra Takes Center Stage at Xiaomi Product Launch

Chinese phone maker Xiaomi Inc. has become famous in China because of its blowout product releases, and Thursday's introduction of the company's new smartphone and smart television didn't disappoint.

Amid a carnival-like atmosphere, the phone company's devoted fans - some adorned with glow sticks - overflowed into the aisles as Xiaomi founder and Chief Executive Lei Jun described in detail the specs of the company's two new products to peals of applause.

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JD.com Beefs Up Its Imported Food Business To Compete Against Alibaba

China-Based Android Developer APUS Lands $100M For New Services And Global Focus

Has Apple Hit a Wall in China?

When Apple reported earnings for its second fiscal quarter back in April, CEO Tim Cook touted the period as the company's "best quarter ever in Greater China," and celebrated the eight percent growth it had seen in the region. Three months later, Apple's trajectory in China has taken a decidedly different turn, and Cook's upbeat proclamations about the company's future in the country have morphed into stalwart reassurances.

In Apple's latest quarter, revenue from Greater China - which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan - fell 14 percent year over year to $4.6 billion. That's a 43 percent decline from the previous quarter, the one Cook touted as Apple's best ever.

What happened?

That's not entirely clear. Attempting to explain the decline during an earnings call with analysts this week, Cook said that the drop Apple reported in Greater China appears worse than it is because the company better managed its channel inventory. "Our sell-through in China was only down four percent from the year-ago quarter, when you normalize for channel inventory," he said. He also noted that sell-through in mainland China for the period actually rose five percent year over year. Unfortunately, sell-through in Hong Kong fell by about 20 percent, weighing down sales for the entire region. Why? Said Cook, "It's not totally clear exactly what occurred."

That may be so, but the argument could be made that Apple's recent performance in Greater China would have been much improved by two things: A distribution deal with China Mobile, China's largest carrier, and a lower-priced iPhone that will appeal to the less-wealthy side of its massive subscriber base, which at last count numbers more than 700 million.

As BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk told AllThingsD, "Apple needs to deliver a low-priced 2.6 GHz TD-LTE phone to China Mobile, and all this unnecessary anguish can be resolved."

Perhaps, though, Apple needs to continue to up its game in Greater China in other ways, as well - expanding its retail-store footprint and dramatically increasing iPhone availability in the region. Which is exactly what Cook said the company is doing.

"We're going to double the number of retail stores in China for the next two years," Cook said. "We're continuing to lift iPhone point of sales and iPad sales, both of which are currently lower than where we would want them or need them today. But we're doing that very cautiously with what we want to do with great quality. And so I continue to believe that in the arc of time here, China is a huge opportunity for Apple."

Oppo’s N1 Android smartphone, with a 13MP rotating camera, officially goes on sale in China

Handset maker Oppo unveiled the N1 in September, a 5.9-inch Android smartphone with a full HD display and a 13-megapixel camera fitted to an adjustable hinge.

Today, the phone has finally gone on sale in China for CNY3498 ($574) on Oppo's website. Only 10,000 units are available though, on a first-come-first-served basis.

Oppo claims that the N1 camera, constructed from 67 different components, is the first to feature a six-piece lens design in an Android smartphone. It remains to be seen when the phone will roll out to other international markets, but in any case, it's got tough competition from the likes of the iPhone 5s, Lumia 1020 and Xperia Z1.

Oppo Store (China)

Image via Oppo

China’s censorship on Sina Weibo in overdrive after former official Bo Xilai is charged with bribery

China's censorship is in overdrive after a former high-ranking official Bo Xilai was charged today with bribery, embezzlement and power abuse, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Censors have reportedly been taking down unfavorable comments on China's Twitter-like microblogging platform, Sina Weibo, that criticize the Communist Party or express sympathy for Bo. Many of the deleted posts are shown on the Free Weibo site. The WSJ report also mentions that a note of support from a microblogger in Dalian, the city where Bo started his political career, was later deleted.

It is possible too that some of the posts may have been deleted by Sina Weibo's "rumor control" team - which aims to dispel false news and information, though in some cases, its hand appears to be forced by the government.

Bo, a former Communist Party politician, captured the attention of Chinese citizens and people from all over the world as details of his allegedly corrupt life surfaced last year - which included links to the mysterious death of a 41-year-old British businessman in a Chongqing hotel room that was declared a murder.

His downfall caused a huge political shockwave that reverberated to the online world, and most comments went through Sina Weibo, with the WSJ noting that back then plenty of posts debated on whether Bo was a criminal or a sacrificial lamb.

Last year, this led to three of China's most influential Internet companies - Baidu, Sina and Tencent - pledging to "firmly support and cooperate with relevant government departments in cracking down and probing web rumors."

Subsequently, this time round the comments on Sina Weibo in response to Bo's news are largely supportive of the government. Several comments say that the Communist Party has made the right decision to charge Bo, and that Bo's indictment proves the government's determination to stamp out corruption and that they believe in the Party.

The one-dimensional tone of these comments leaves one to believe that China's censors have been hard at work. The WSJ report notes that this could be the work of so-called trolls or the "Water Army" - real people who use so-called zombie accounts to post comments online to influence public opinion.

Among other social media services, Twitter is blocked in China. On the other hand, Sina Weibo has more than 400 million registered users and the service enjoys a large profile in China, becoming a force to be reckoned with. This has resulted in Sina Weibo having to walk a fine line between exerting control on the service and letting it operate organically as a forum for dissent and "free"(er) speech. This time round, it seems the government has the upper hand.

Headline image via Mobile Monday Bangkok

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H7N9 bird flu: Chinese provinces halt live poultry trade

Bans instituted on mainland and Hong Kong culls chickens as infections increase and Chinese new year travel period arrives

Xiaomi will make joint announcement with Tencent next week on product-related partnership with QQ

Rumors typically abound in the Chinese tech scene, and Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has been bombarded by plenty recently - with one report a few days back notably saying that Xiaomi had received an investment of $2 billion from Internet giant Tencent via Russian investment firm DST.

In a bid to dispel these rumors, Xiaomi has confirmed to The Next Web that it will be holding a press conference on July 30 (UPDATE: the press conference has been postponed to July 31) to announce a product-related partnership with QQ - Tencent's instant messaging platform.

The press conference was first announced on Xiaomi's official Sina Weibo account, which said that it will reveal an "important partnership" next week. Li Wanqiang, one of the seven founders of Xiaomi, elaborated on the teaser by saying that Xiaomi will be collaborating with QQ - but only in terms of products and nothing else.

You can see a (very cute) poster uploaded by Chinese media outlet IT 168 that depicts Tencent QQ and Xiaomi's cartoon figures on something that resembles a wedding invitation and alludes to a "happy marriage", sent by Xiaomi to members of the Chinese media.

All we can do is wait and see what will be announced.

Xiaomi has been well on the rise recently, and it would not be surprising at all for more collaborations to crop up, riding on Xiaomi's success - which has been attributed to its ability to inspire the loyalty of many consumers. Its competitively priced phones are sold in batches that, when released in phases, regularly sell out fast, often within half an hour.

The last phones it launched were the Xiaomi Mi-2S and the Xiaomi Mi-2A in April this year, which followed last year's launch of the popular Xiaomi Mi2 phone.

The handset maker booked RMB13.27 billion ($2.15 billion) in revenue for the first six months of this year, exceeding the amount it recorded for the whole of 12 months, which stood at RMB12.6 billion. The 7.03 million devices sold in the first six months this year was also just shy of the 7.19 million units that Xiaomi sold during the whole of 2012.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Xiaomi will be closing a round of funding at the end of July that values it at $9 billion.

Headline image via Thinkstock

Apple Finally Signs Long-Awaited Deal To Sell iPhones On China Mobile’s Network

China Mobile has finally signed a deal to offer Apple iPhones on its network, an agreement that took years to reach, reports the Wall Street Journal. China Mobile is the world's largest mobile carrier, with more than 700 million subscribers, and is the last of China's three major carriers to offer the iPhone. We have emailed Apple and China Mobile for more information.

The reported deal comes after two months of signs that the rollout of iPhone's on China Mobiles network is imminent. The launch date is expected to coincide with the Dec. 18 China Mobile conference in Guangzhou, when the carrier is supposed to reveal more information about its new 4G LTE network.

In September, the WSJ reported that Apple is preparing to ship the iPhone 5S and 5C to China Mobile and earlier this week, China Mobile began quietly taking pre-orders for both models on a website owned by one of its subsidiaries.

China's top three carriers recently received licenses from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to start operating 4G networks. In September, reports emerged that Apple's newest iPhone models will be compatible with China Mobile's network. The completion of its 4G network was an important sticking point for China Mobile to agree to start selling iPhones. One of the major roadblocks was that China Mobile operates on a different 3G standard that was developed in part by the Chinese government, and Apple said that the carrier's proprietary network as too unreliable. China Mobile, on the other hand, did not want to agree to Apple's sales volume guarantees.

China is currently Apple's third biggest market and CEO Tim Cook has said he anticipates it will eventually become the company's largest. But over the past year, Apple has quickly lost market share there to Android handsets from Samsung and domestic handset makers, as its revenue also slowed down in the U.S. But deal with China Mobile may give it a boost. Research firm Trefis says the deal with the carrier may result in the sale of an additional 20 million iPhones in 2014, a 17% increase from the year before.

Robots May Revolutionize China's Electronics Manufacturing

A new worker's revolution is rising in China and it doesn't involve humans.

With soaring wages and an aging population, electronics factory managers say the day is approaching when robotic workers will replace people on the Chinese factory floor.

A new wave of industrial robots is in development, ranging from high-end humanoid machines with vision, touch and even learning capabilities, to low-cost robots vying to undercut China's minimum wage.

Over the next five years these technologies will transform China's factories, executives say, and also fill a growing labor shortage as the country's youth become increasingly unwilling to perform manual labor. How the transformation plays out will also go a long way in deciding how much of the electronics supply chain remains in China.

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Chinese Galaxy S4 variant shows up in video

As Samsung gets another day closer to the launch of the Galaxy S4, a supposed Chinese variant of the upcoming phone stole some thunder recently by showing up on camera. Today, you get a lot more to look at as the owner of this smartphone released a video to help prove the legitimacy of his claim.

So far this year very few manufacturers have kept to a specific design language. If you take a look at the BlackBerry Z10 or the HTC One, these phone are wildly different in design from what has been expected from either company in the past. Everyone is looking for lighter, thinner, stronger phones with the best screen and the best battery life.

What each of these new handsets have in common is they are endlessly compared. More often than not though, users are still interested in comparing these phones to the Galaxy S3 . The comparison isn’t usually about specs, either. The design of the Galaxy S3 is both iconic and unique to Samsung, and is popular enough that it should surprise no one to see that the Galaxy S4 looks nearly identical to the S3.

The video offers a quick rundown of a version of the Galaxy S4 that is unlikely to be seen outside of China — the dual-SIM design just isn’t used in many other places.

When the phone boots, you can see the TouchWiz flavored Android 4.2.1, complete with lockscreen widgets and other visual cues to the latest version of Android. As the phone is used, you see much more of Samsung’s version of Android, including the “natural” sounds and animations. The camera is shown off for a brief moment, but not much is gained from that bit of the video. All told, the experience looks and feels like a slight bump all around and not a major overhaul or a reinvention.

While some may have been looking for a brand new look and feel from Samsung, it’s important to remember that they have a product that works right now. They don’t have to guess anymore, their hardware is selling better than any other Android phone right now and very few of their customers seem to mind their version of Android. Samsung’s presentation for the Galaxy S4 will likely focus on software improvements, like the eye scrolling and other gesture systems. Whether or not this will hurt Samsung in the coming year has yet to be seen.

Now read: Possible Galaxy S4 photos pop up just before official launch

China executes four foreign nationals convicted of Mekong river murders

State TV live broadcasts men being led to death chamber after being found guilty of killing 12 Chinese sailors in Thailand

China has executed four foreign prisoners for murdering a crew of Chinese sailors on the Mekong river after a live television broadcast showed them being lead to their death.

Naw Kham, the Burmese head of a drug gang, and three of his alleged henchmen - Hsang Kham, from Thailand; Zha Xika, from Laos; and Yi Lai, whom Chinese state media referred to as "stateless" - were executed by lethal injection in Kunming, southern China, the official Xinhua newswire reported.

The men were convicted of murdering 12 Chinese sailors in northern Thailand near the Golden Triangle, a lawless area bordering Burma and Laos, in October 2011.

Thai authorities were the first to discover the bodies on two Chinese cargo ships, some of whom had apparently been blindfolded, gagged with duct tape, and shot in the head at close range. Nearly 1m methamphetamine pills were found on board. One sailor was missing.

Chinese state television aired a two-hour live broadcast before the executions, which showed the four prisoners as they were tied up by police officers and bundled into the back of a van.

The broadcast juxtaposed images from the prisoners' trials with displays of Chinese judicial force - armed patrol boats on the Mekong, rows of Swat officers and border guards, and interviews with Chinese analysts on the country's rule of law.

"I think [the broadcast] is compatible with what the government wants - to show the Chinese people that the government is serious about protecting them within the country and outside," said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.

The prisoners were sentenced to death last autumn, but a local court in Kunming did not announce the date of the executions until Wednesday.

The court said that it would hand over the prisoners' remains to their relatives and relevant consulates, state media reported.

China to crack down on ‘malicious’ trademark registrations following Apple ‘iPad’ debacle

“China plans to change the law to crackdown on ‘malicious’ trademark registrations, state media said on Monday, after a series of cases in which well-know international brands and individuals have had their names or copyright misused,” Reuters reports.

“Foreign governments, including the United States, have for years urged China to take a stronger stand against intellectual property rights violations on products ranging from medicines to software to DVD movies,” Reuters reports. “Basketball legend Michael Jordan is one of the latest to accuse a company of using his name without permission, and French luxury group Hermes International SCA and Apple Inc have faced trademark problems too.”

Reuters reports, “The proposed amendment will offer protection to major international brands, giving copyright owners the right to ban others from registering their trademarks or from using similar ones, even if such trademarks are not registered, the official Xinhua news agency reported.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Welcome to proposing entering the 20th century, China.

China Unicom’s iPhone 5 reservations double to 200,000 in 3 days

“With the iPhone set to arrive in China next Friday, China Unicom has revealed that it has received over 200,000 reservations in just a couple days, doubling its original 100,000 first-day reservations,” Josh Ong reports for TNW.

“The company also announced that it will offer a full subsidy for the handset, with a minimum deposit of $947 (RMB 5,899) for the 16GB version,” Ong reports. “The carrier announced the figures on its official Sina Weibo microblog on Thursday.”

Ong reports, “With 200,000 orders booked through China Unicom alone and many more expected through third-place China Telecom and Apple's official retail and online sales channels, the iPhone 5 looks set to be another hit in the world's most populous nation.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Dan K." for the heads up.]

Related article:
China Unicom racks up 100,000 iPhone 5 preorders in first day – December 4, 2012

A Romney win would hurt Apple very badly – Nigam Arora

“A Romney win would hurt Apple and General Motors very badly,” Nigam Arora writes for Forbes.

“Both of these companies are highly dependent on China for their growth,” Arora writes. “Romney has repeatedly stated that he will declare China a currency manipulator on his first day in office. Such a declaration would likely lead to a trade war.”

Arora writes, “Chinese consumers are nationalistic... Apple will find itself in a much worse position than General Motors. Apple will be hit with a double whammy, falling sales and falling margins... In my analysis, a trade war would result in Apple stock falling under $400.”

Read more in the full article here.

Related articles:
How Romney and/or Obama should have answered Candy Crowley's Apple assembly question – October 17, 2012
U.S presidential candidate Romney vows to get tough with China, tackle unfair Chinese trade practices – August 28, 2012
Mitt Romney: Does President Obama think Steve Jobs didn't build Apple? – July 18, 2012
Photos of Mitt Romney with his Apple iPhone and iPad at his Lake Winnipesaukee home – July 15, 2012