Monday, November 18

CHINA

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Alibaba’s Revenue Rises 39 percent As More Shoppers Buy Online
CHINA

Alibaba’s Revenue Rises 39 percent As More Shoppers Buy Online

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, China's biggest e-commerce company, said fourth-quarter revenue rose 39 percent, beating Wall Street estimates, helped by growth in gross merchandise volume. The company's American Depository shares were up 3.5 percent at $78.48 on Thursday. Revenue rose to 24.2 billion yuan ($3.7 billion) in the quarter ended March 31 from 17.4 billion yuan a year earlier, beating the average analyst estimate of 23.22 billion yuan. "Whatever they are doing must be working, and most importantly it's a sign that the Chinese consumer may not be weakening quite yet," said Gil Luria of Wedbush Securities. Gross merchandise volume (GMV), or the total value of goods transacted on its platforms on China retail marketplaces, rose 24 percent to 742 billion yuan. "Alibaba represent...
Beijing Based LeEco Launches Driverless Electric Concept Supercar
CHINA

Beijing Based LeEco Launches Driverless Electric Concept Supercar

Chinese technology company LeEco today unveiled what it claimed to be the world's first driverless electric concept supercar. The company, which has an aggressive strategy for Indian smartphone space, also launched three smartphones, Le 2, Le 2 Pro and Le Max 2, and two premium televisions Le Super 4X50 and Pro/X50. The LeSEE supercar encompasses a unique internet design, with a large and flamboyant LED screen. The car works on the idea of "inter-connection" and offers fully-automatic driving functions. It can also learn on its own with facial recognition, emotion recognition, system recognition and path recognition. The company did not share details of the car with regard to commercial launch, time and money invested in developing and price tag, among others. All it said was it w...
China’s First Driverless Cars Complete Long-Distance Road Test
CHINA

China’s First Driverless Cars Complete Long-Distance Road Test

Two self-driving cars on Saturday afternoon wrapped up a 2,000-km (1,240 miles) journey in China's first long-distance road test for autonomous vehicles. The vehicles, produced by Chang'an Automobile, left the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing on Tuesday and arrived at Beijing at about 5 p.m. Saturday. The cars successfully drove distance from other vehicles, changed lanes, overtook and performed other maneuvers including three-point turns automatically but still need the help of a driver in certain road sections and gas stations, the designers said. The maximum speed of the cars reached 120 kilometers per hour. Tan Benhong, deputy director of the Chang'an Automobile Engineering & Research Institute, said they would improve the technologies based on the results of the test a...
China Shuts Down 28,000 Websites in National Crackdown
CHINA

China Shuts Down 28,000 Websites in National Crackdown

Fifteen million illegal publications were confiscated and 28,000 websites deemed pornographic or featuring other illegal content were shut down in China in 2015. It's not only Chinese websites that are being targeted, China is banning access to certain websites on the internet in the same way that Google currently does to websites they believe to infringe on copyright laws, these include websites like sexfreehd xxx that are pornographic but are still completely legal in the USA and many other countries around the globe, however, China deems them to be inappropriate and have therefore banned access to them on the Chinese internet. The figures were announced by the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications on Friday, reviewing its achievements. The campaign against...
China Party to Punish Former Tycoon for Microblog Posts
CHINA

China Party to Punish Former Tycoon for Microblog Posts

China's ruling Communist Party will impose "severe intra-party penalties" on a former property tycoon whose microblogs were closed at the weekend after he criticised government policy, state news agency Xinhua reported. Microblog portals such as Weibo.com and t.qq.com, among China's most popular, were ordered to shut the accounts of Ren Zhiqiang, a retired top executive from a state-controlled property developer who had more than 30 million online followers. China's Internet regulator said that Ren, a party member, had been "spreading illegal information". Chinese media has accused Ren of making remarks criticising state media and questioning whether taxpayers money should be used to promote the government. The Beijing city Xicheng district party committee said that Ren had "re...
Alibaba Revenue Jump 32 Percent in Q4
CHINA

Alibaba Revenue Jump 32 Percent in Q4

AFP- Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba revenue jump 32 percent year-on-year for the quarter ending in December, it said in a statement Thursday, despite slowing growth in the world's second-largest economy. Alibaba, which dominates the consumer-to-consumer market in China, said revenue reached $5.33 billion (CNY 34.54 billion or roughly Rs. 36,155 crores) in the December quarter, beating an average forecast of CNY 33.2 billion in a survey of analysts by Bloomberg News. Investors have hammered the New York-listed shares of Alibaba as a proxy for China's falling growth, weakening currency and domestic stock market turmoil. China's economy grew 6.9 percent in 2015, the slowest rate since 1990. Fourth-quarter growth alone slowed to 6.8 percent, its worst since the global financial cris...
Chinese Twitter-like Platform Sina Weibo Will Also Lift 140-word Limit
CHINA

Chinese Twitter-like Platform Sina Weibo Will Also Lift 140-word Limit

Chinese Twitter-like platform Sina Weibo will cancel its 140-word limit, a move Twitter is reportedly considering. Sino Weibo management team has sent a letter to its developers on Wednesday. However, Weibo users have always been allowed to write posts longer than 140 words. But previously they were required to type the extra content on a different site and link back to Weibo. Launched in August 2009, Sina Weibo is China’s largest social network with 222 million monthly active users as of the third quarter of 2015. The platform will start a trial with some of its microblog users in about a week on January 28, and lift the word limit for all users a month later on February 28.The new word limit is 2,000 words. The platform will only show the first 140 words on the feed, but readers...
China’s richest man buys Hollywood studio Legendary for $3.5 billion
CHINA

China’s richest man buys Hollywood studio Legendary for $3.5 billion

Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group has bought U.S. film studio Legendary Entertainment for about $3.5 billion, turning its chairman into a Hollywood movie mogul as China's richest man steps up a drive to diversify his business empire overseas. At a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday, Wanda Chairman Wang Jianlin said he plans to package Legendary, behind hits like "Jurassic World", with existing movie production assets in China and sell shares in the merged operation in an initial public offering (IPO). The move makes Wanda the first Chinese firm to own a major Hollywood studio - a sign of the country's growing power in the global movie world, industry watchers said. "Wanda Cinema already has made tremendous development in China, but it isn't enough," said Wang, whose personal ...
Uber drives into China tourism industry
CHINA, News

Uber drives into China tourism industry

Uber Technologies Inc said on Monday its China unit will get an undisclosed amount of investment from Chinese firm HNA Group as part of a partnership of the U.S. ride-hailing firm with the aviation and shipping conglomerate. The partnership, which marks Uber's ambitions to break into China's huge tourism industry, includes an array of transportation services to and from airports and for HNA flights, as well as online financing for the automotive sector. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said in Beijing he envisions a system where customers can seamlessly move from traveling within a city to between and outside cities, built on a global series of partnerships. Uber's partnership with HNA Group comes as it and rival Didi Kuaidi vie to forge ties with influential Chinese companies with long-e...
How to set up a Chinese company as a foreigner
CHINA

How to set up a Chinese company as a foreigner

Every country has its own set of rules and regulations when it comes to setting up a business. China is no exception, but what are some of the challenges for foreigners setting up a business in China? Michael Michelini, will tell you how? A, 34 years, old Shenzhen-based American internet dude helping western companies leverage Chinese social media for business. Michelini is also the author of Destination China: Entrepreneurs’ Journey from Wall Street to business in China.   What are some of the difficulties a foreigner faces opening and operating a business in China? Michelini: It’s a lot more difficult as a foreigner to open a company in China, it’s not the same as a Chinese person opening a company in China. Also maintaining a business is harder than for Chinese companie...
China’s country code domain “.cn” becomes world’s largest
CHINA

China’s country code domain “.cn” becomes world’s largest

Beijing, Jan 9 (PTI) - China's country code domain '.cn' has become the world's most commonly used in the internet with 16.36 million users, surpassing Germany's '.de' domain. According to the data released yesterday by the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), which manages the domain, '.cn' had 16.36 million users by the end of 2015. The '.cn' domain is also world leading in domain resolution service, security and the ratio of benign uses, said CNNIC head Li Xiaodong. As China began to require real-name registration in 2009, the '.cn' domain is able to protect users' interests and reduce online theft, phishing and fraud, Li said. In the past, Germany's '.de' domain had the largest number of registered websites. The domain is not only widely used by Chinese institu...
China’s Drone Maker Comapny Ehang Unveils First Passenger-Carrying Drone
CHINA, Tech

China’s Drone Maker Comapny Ehang Unveils First Passenger-Carrying Drone

LAS VEGAS, United States, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese drone maker Ehang on Wednesday, unveiled the world's first drone capable of carrying one passenger, which might help achieve the long-standing dream of automated short-to-medium-distance everyday flights. The electrically powered Ehang 184, unveiled at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, can carry a single passenger weighing up to 100 kg for a 23-minute flight at sea level at a speed of 100 km per hour, the company said. After setting a flight plan, passengers only need to send two commands: "take off" and "land," each controlled by a single click on an accompanying tablet, it said. There's no need for a runway because the drone takes off and lands vertically. "Due to the 184's fully automated navigation, made possibl...