China

China’s EV upstart Nio switches on power swap station in Sweden • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 18, 2022Posted in China, electric vehicles, Europe, EV, nio, Sweden, TransportationNo Comments

Electric vehicle startup Nio is accelerating its expansion in Europe. The premium EV maker just launched its first power-swapping station in Varberg, Sweden, the company said in a LinkedIn post. When it comes to charging, Nio differentiates itself from its rivals by offering swappable batteries, which are upgradable and charge a monthly subscription fee, on top of the traditional plug-and-charge model. In its home market China, Nio’s battery-swapping systems are popping up around trendy malls and office highrises, and it’s taken the novel concept to a noticeable scale. As of November 6, the company had installed 1,200 of these swapping stations across China. The idea is to enable EV charging as fast as refueling a petrol car. The company said on its November earnings call that it planned to install 20 power swapping stations across Europe by the end of 2022 and increase the tally to 100 by next year. Nio began expanding in Europe last year, starting out in Norway, which has been aggressive in pushing EV adaption. Xpeng, Nio’s Chinese rival, also picked Norway as the first stop in its European expansion. Nio is setting itself up for an uphill battle in a crowded auto market in Europe, but it seems determined in growing its presence on the continent. Headed by the charismatic, English-speaking serial entrepreneur William Li, Nio hosted a splashy launch event in Berlin, which marked its official market entry in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden. The company began by offering lease-only for its models in all European countries except Norway but shortly added the option for customers to purchase the vehicles after initial market feedback. It’s also ramping up its operational footprint in Europe, with an R&D center in Berlin to work on “localized development and deployment of digital cockpits and to continuously improve the intelligent digital experience of local users,” said Li on the earnings call. The carmaker now operates “Nio Houses“, which are essentially product showrooms and customer clubs, in ten major European cities. Possibly in a move to diversify supply chains from China, Nio recently began manufacturing products including its power swapping facilities out of Hungary and shipped its first Hungary-made swapping station to Germany in September.

Yahaha raises $40M more for its user-generated, low-code immersive gaming platform • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in China, Gaming, metaverse, Startups, yahahaNo Comments

Yahaha, a Helsinki- and Shanghai-based immersive, user-generated, low-code gaming platform founded by a group of Chinese gaming vets, made a splash in January when it announced a cumulative $50 million in funding ahead of its alpha launch in April. Now, with 100,000 creators and hundreds of thousands of players, it’s raised a further $40 million to continue building out its product — specifically to bring in monetization features and more social hooks — as well as to hire more talent and for business development. Yahaha is describing this as an extension to its previous round, specifically a “Series A+.” We are asking for an updated valuation, but for some context, when it announced funding 11 months ago, I was told that the valuation was a “few hundred million” (so in the wide range of $300-500 million). The raise and valuation both stand out against a backdrop of slim fundraising, especially for consumer startups. Yahaha styles itself as a dual-headquartered company, but its investors in this latest raise are all out of China and greater Asia. Singapore’s Temasek and Chinese internet giant Alibaba are co-leading this investment, with another Chinese company, 37 Interactive Entertainment, also participating. Previously the company had raised funding from 5Y Capital, HillHouse, Coatue, ZhenFund, Bertelsmann Asia Investments, BiliBili and Xiaomi. The company said it now has more than 150 employees, with offices in Helsinki, Seoul and Shanghai. LinkedIn, which shut down operations in China last year, notes that about half of the company’s employees registered on its platform identify as based out of Shanghai. “Metaverse” as a concept has seen a lot of hype, especially earlier this year — spearheaded in no small part by one of the biggest consumer internet businesses of our time, Facebook, rebranding itself as “Meta” and going all-in on the concept. A lot of that has not come to much so far, one big bellwether being Meta itself knocking back an own-goal in its own efforts. However, most universally agree that gaming has been one of the few highlights, with gamers willing to pay for and use hardware and software to improve the immersive-ness of their experiences. Yahaha is tapping into that opportunity and coupling it with another couple of big trends. User-generated content has long been a popular aspect of gaming and entertainment overall, but more recently it’s taken on a more sophisticated, businesslike aspect: people who in the past might have created media for fun have now become “creators” who see business opportunities in building content and and using it to connect with audiences. Not all of those creators — not many of them at all, in fact — are “technical”, so that is leading to attention (and funding) for companies that are building platforms to help creators create and spin up their business opportunities without a lot of heavy technical lifting. And that’s where Yahaha comes in. The company’s founders — Chris Zhu (CEO), Pengfei Zhang (COO) and Hao Min (CTO) — all worked together as engineers at cross-platform gaming engine Unity — indeed Yahaha has been described to me as being built in partnership with Unity — and their low-code platform aims to do all that heavy lifting behind the scenes. With an eye to creators and the businesses they are building, the new features the product will be getting will include more “monetization modules” and other commercial developments, said Zhu. “We’ve seen fantastic growth in YAHAHA throughout the Early Alpha stage, and with over 100,000 creators signing up to make content with us, we are building on a strong foundation,” Zhu said in a statement. “This round of funding signifies the next step we are taking with YAHAHA, opening up more creator experiences monetization modules. We are also continuing to pioneer by investing in key areas of the community and by building relationships with brands that share our values, aligning ourselves with experts in the fields of game development, 3D asset creation and more. With YAHAHA, we’re not just ushering in the next generation of entertainment, we’re supporting the next generation of creators and giving them the tools and the integrated virtual world platform they need to make great content. There is a litany of opportunities that await us in the virtual world, and we want to be on the cutting edge of it with YAHAHA. To do this, it’s imperative we continue investing in our team and in the community that got us to where we are right now.” The big questions will be whether those noodling around in the early version will stay with Yahaha as monetization comes in, whether that monetization works, whether games are entertaining enough to get players to engage, and of course whether metaverse establishes itself as a permanent fixture in the market, rather than a passing stage, as gamers progress to the next level.

Alibaba eyes logistics growth in LatAm as China commerce slows • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in alibaba, brazil, China, Commerce, eCommerce, latin americaNo Comments

Cainiao, the logistics arm of Alibaba, is traveling far from home to seek expansion for its business. The company recently launched its first parcel distribution center in Brazil, adding to its regional network of sorting centers in Mexico and Chile, it said Monday. Alibaba’s e-commerce business in China has been hurt by a combination of a cooling economy and aggressive rivals like Pinduoduo. For the first time, the firm didn’t disclose the sales tally for its annual “Singles Day” shopping festival, which fell on November 11 and used to come with a Super Bowl-like gala featuring pop idols and Jack Ma himself. Cainiao has been following AliExpress abroad, helping the Alibaba-owned cross-border marketplace deliver Chinese goods to consumers around the world. But it’s now ramping up domestic services in some countries, hoping to turn local retailers into its clients. Earlier this year, the logistics giant began providing express courier service in Brazil, which now spans over 1,000 cities. The new facility in Brazil is slated to further boost Cainiao’s presence in the country. The plan is to open nine more distribution centers in seven states and set up 1,000 “smart lockers” across ten cities over the next three years. Smart lockers, which let customers pick up their e-commerce packages, have become a common sight in China. It saves couriers from running up and down buildings to deliver to people’s doorstep and helps reduce human contact during COVID-19 times. In Brazil, Cainiao aims to use the infrastructure for intra-city and cross-border logistics services as well as food delivery in the future. One of Cainiao’s smart locker clients is Piticas, a retail franchise focused on geek and pop culture products. “Our consumers can shop online and receive their parcels in a few days. In the future, we look forward to cooperating with Cainiao to utilize its smart lockers, which gives our customers more options for pick-up, as well as imports from China to Brazil, further increasing the efficiency of our supply chain,” said Vinicius Rossetti, CEO of Piticas, in a statement. Cainiao also wants to help Brazilian merchants export goods like coffee, nuts, and propolis to China, reversing the traditional trade route. The company currently operates eight weekly chartered flights between China and Brazil and plans to add more air and sea routes between the countries. In July, Cainiao opened its sorting center in Israel, bringing the number of its overseas sorting centers in use to ten at the time. As of June, Cainiao had more than 7,700 smart lockers in operation in Europe. The logistics unit accounted for roughly 5.6% of Alibaba’s revenues in the three months ended June.

Apple limits AirDrop ‘everyone’ option to 10 minutes in China • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in airdrop, Apple, censorship, China, Government & Policy, HardwareNo Comments

A change in the iOS 16.1.1 update for Chinese users is turning some heads. Apple is restricting the “Everyone” option in AirDrop to ten minutes on iPhones purchased in mainland China, according to online user reports. That means people can no longer keep their Airdrop on for an unlimited time, including for strangers and contacts. Some argue that this feature should have long been an option for all Apple users — sometimes one just forgets to switch Airdrop off and end up with unsolicited content from unknown users — but others interpret the decision as Apple’s response to recent incidents in China. Airdrop, which uses Bluetooth Low Energy and peer-to-peer wifi technology to enable instant file transferring, remains one of the few uncensored communication medium in China, which is why people were using the feature to share politically sensitive content with others in recent weeks as the country’s top leadership reshuffled. Despite the rise of local rivals like Huawei and Oppo, Apple has managed to hold onto its dominance in China, especially among more affluent demographics. In the second quarter, iPhones accounted for 13% of handset shipments in China, according to Counterpoint’s research, down from 18% and 22% in Q1 and Q4 respectively. It’s not unusual for Apple to introduce region-specific restrictions to abide by local regulations. In EU countries, for example, users can’t exceed the EU Volume Level as a result of hearing protection standards. In China, Apple has a history of applying more stringent rules on content-related services, including games and podcasts, a closely watched area by the local authorities.

Nvidia touts a slower chip for China to avoid US ban • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in alibaba, China, chip, Government & Policy, Hardware, Huawei, nvidia, semiconductor, TSMCNo Comments

Two months after the U.S. choke off China’s access to two of Nvidia’s high-end microchips, the American semiconductor design giant unveiled a substitute with a reduced processing speed for its second-largest market. The Nvidia A800 graphic processing unit is “another alternative product to the Nvidia A100 GPU for customers in China,” a spokesperson for Nvidia said in a statement to ZebethMedia. “The A800 meets the U.S. government’s clear test for reduced export control and cannot be programmed to exceed it.” The new chip was first reported by Reuters on Monday. The A100 processor is known for powering supercomputers, artificial intelligence, and high-performing data centers for industries ranging from biotech and finance to manufacturing. Alibaba’s cloud computing business has been one of its customers. A100, along with Nvidia’s enterprise AI chip H100, were placed under a U.S. export control list to “address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a ‘military end use’ or ‘military end user’ in China and Russia.” Nvidia previously reported that the U.S. ban could affect as much as $400 million in potential sales to China in the third quarter, so the new chip seems to be an attempt to remedy the financial loss. The A800 GPU went into production in Q3, according to Nvidia’s spokesperson. Indeed, chip distributors in China, such as Omnisky, are already marketing A800 in their product catalogs. The chip looks to be designed to circumvent U.S. export rules while still carrying out other core computing capabilities. Most of the key specs of A100 and A800 are identical except for their interconnect speeds: A800 runs at 400 gigabytes per second while A100 functions at 600 gigabytes per second, which is the performance threshold set by the U.S. ban. According to an analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan think tank, “By only targeting chips with very high interconnect speeds, the White House is attempting to limit the controls to chips that are designed to be networked together in the data centers or supercomputing facilities that train and run large AI models.” Nvidia isn’t the only one slowing down its chips in order to evade U.S. sanctions. Alibaba and Chinese chip design startup Biren, which have been pouring resources into making rivals of Nvidia processors, are modifying the performance of their latest semiconductors, according to the Financial Times. That’s because Alibaba and Biren, like other fabless semiconductor firms, contract Taiwan’s TSMC to make their products. And because U.S. export controls cover chip sales by companies using American technologies, sales from TSMC fabs to China could be curtailed.

TikTok privacy update in Europe confirms China staff access to data as GDPR probe continues • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in China, data transfers, GDPR, Government & Policy, Privacy, Social, TikTokNo Comments

An incoming privacy policy change announced by TikTok yesterday for users in Europe — which, for the first time, names China as one of several third countries where user data can be remotely accessed by “certain” company employees to perform what it claims are “important” functions — has landed months ahead of expected movement on a year+ long investigation into the platform’s data exports to China under the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR probe into the legality of the video sharing platform’s data transfers to China is being led by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), TikTok’s lead privacy regulator in the region, which opened the inquiry just over a year ago. The DPC told ZebethMedia today that it expects its TikTok data transfers inquiry to progress to the next stage in the coming months — with a draft decision slated to be sent to other EU DPAs for review in the first quarter of next year. This ‘Article 60’ review process could lead either to an affirming of Ireland’s draft decision — which would then, in relatively short order, allow for a final decision to be issued (potentially before the middle of next year, judging by past inquiry timelines). However if other EU regulators raise objections to Ireland’s draft decision the inquiry would have to move to an ‘Article 65’ dispute resolution process — which could add many more months to the process before a final decision could be issued as the bloc’s regulators seek consensus. It’s not clear whether TikTok’s announcement of the privacy policy tweak relates to this overarching GDPR investigation. The incoming changes — which are due to apply from December 2 — do also include an update on how the platform collects users location information so they are not wholly focused on data transfers. But the disclosure of China staffers accessing European user data could also be a not-very-subtle attempt to pre-empt regulatory enforcement over its data transfers — and try to soften a future blow by being able to point to steps already taken to improve its transparency with European users. (Not that that is the only potential issue of regulatory concern vis-a-vis data exports, though.) A spokesman for TikTok declined to comment on whether its updated privacy policy is in any way linked to the GDPR inquiry — saying it could not do so as the inquiry remains ongoing. However in a blog post announcing the update, the company claimed the changes “include greater transparency into how we share user information outside of Europe”. That’s notable because transparency is a key principle of the GDPR — while infringements of the transparency principle can lead to stiff penalties (such as the $267M fine for Meta-owned WhatsApp last year, after an Ireland-led inquiry found a string of transparency breaches). Claiming you’re being transparent and actually being transparent are not necessarily the same thing, of course. So it’s worth noting that TikTok’s updated privacy policy appears to atomize key bits of information — such as the full list of third countries countries where employees may remotely access European users’ data and for what specific reasons — across a number of collapsable menus and hyperlinks spread throughout the policy, thereby requiring a user to click around, follow multiple links and basically hunt for relevant intel amid a larger morass of data in order to piece together a comprehensive view of what’s happening with their data (rather than clearly articulating and collating everything into a single, easy to digest view…). So, if it’s transparency TikTok is really shooting for here it still looks like it has work to do. Also still a work in progress for TikTok: A data localization project to store European users’ data in the region — which, earlier this year, it announced had been delayed again (until 2023). Thing is, if TikTok intends to continue to allow employees located in third countries with no EU adequacy agreement affirming they have essentially equivalent data protection standards as the bloc to have remote access to European users’ information then questions over the legality of its international data transfers are likely to persist. As well as China, TikTok’s privacy policy names Brazil, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and the US (which has only a preliminary agreement with the EU for a fresh data transfer agreement atm) as countries where employees have remote access to European user data without the cover of an adequacy agreement — saying it’s relying on standard contractual clauses (SCCs) for these transfers. But, as the EDPB guidance on data transfers points out, each transfer to a third country must be individually assessed and some may not be possible legally, even with supplementary measures applied. So every single one of these transfers will need to stand up to regulatory scrutiny. Given so many third country transfers, TikTok’s European data localization project can only — at least for now — be considered a PR exercise. And/or an attempt to curry favor with local regulators in the hopes they take a kinder view of ongoing data exports. Unless or until it ceases data exports to third countries and finds a way to fully firewall its parent entity in China from being able to access any European users’ data in the clear. TikTok’s spokesman declined to comment on any future plans it may have to further adapt its data transfers in light of these challenges but he pointed back to its blog post — which describes its approach to data governance in Europe as being “centred on limiting the number of employees with access to European user data, minimising data flows outside of the region, and storing European user data locally”. TikTok’s wider problem is that it’s facing dialled up regulatory scrutiny across the Western world more generally as a result of security concerns attached to the Chinese state’s ability to gain access to data commercial platforms/services hold on their users — with national security laws in its home country overriding the usual standard contractual protections. Its platform

Don’t panic — this isn’t Tencent’s first tie-up with a state-owned firm • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 2, 2022Posted in alibaba, Beijing, China, Government & Policy, jack ma, TencentNo Comments

News on Tencent and China Unicom is causing a stir in China’s tech industry on Wednesday afternoon. The gaming and social networking behemoth and the state-owned carrier have received regulatory approval to set up a joint venture, according to a government announcement. Following the transaction, Tencent and China Unicom will respectively own 42% and 47% of the firm. The development has led to concerns over even greater government influence on China’s Big Tech. Some netizens go as far as speculating Tencent will eventually be de-privatized. This reaction is expected given China has been tightening its grip on the internet industry over the past three years. Tencent’s gaming business, for instance, took a big hit when Beijing halted the issuance of new gaming permits. But a closer look at the notice suggests this new “mixed ownership” entity seems to have a limited impact on Tencent’s existing business. The entity, according to a filing in September, will center around two areas: content delivery network and edge computing. CDN refers to a geographically distributed network of servers that work together to speed up content distribution for users, whereas edge computing means processing data at the periphery rather than the center of a network. Tencent’s cloud computing arm seems most pertinent to the new JV. The enterprise-facing segment has gained new significance as a revenue driver since China’s regulatory clampdown sent chills across the consumer internet sector. And it’s indeed in the area of web infrastructure where Tencent’s involvement in the public sector has been the most active. Tencent Cloud has a page dedicated to showcasing the sort of public services it empowers. From online government services to community centers with self-serve kiosks, one can find solutions supplied by Tencent — and in fact, Alibaba, Baidu, and other tech giants we well. Beijing has been working to digitize the government apparatus for years, and what better solution providers are there than its own tech darlings? Tencent has been boasting the role of WeChat as a digital infrastructure for government services as early as 2019: The WeChat owner is no stranger to mixed ownership either. In 2017, China Unicom was seeking to raise $11.7 billion from a dozen investors — including Tencent and Alibaba — as part of Beijing’s push to revitalize state-owned enterprises with private capital, a structure dubbed ‘mixed ownership.’ Working with a state-owned entity doesn’t naturally imply a greater presence of the visible hand at Tencent. The goal of an SOE is to earn profits for the government, too. But undeniably, China’s private tech sector has been under growing pressure to align its interest with that of the state through a series of regulatory overhauls, often at the cost of their profitability. Ant Group has gone through a deep restructuring to play more like a traditional financial institution. Tencent has ramped up protection for minors and put more effort into educational games.

Zebra Labs raises $5M to help Chinese celebrities enter the metaverse • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in China, Media & Entertainment, metaverse, MusicNo Comments

In June, Chinese pop-punk singer Wowkie Zhang released a music video where he encounters a virtual character in a hyper-colored, animated world that is reminiscent of Pixar films. The avatar, sporting Gen-Z-styled silver hair, a yellow and black oversize sweat, and baggy pants, makes hip-hop moves to Zhang’s catchy, light-hearted tune. The virtual character isn’t a one-off creation; instead, Zebra Labs, which produced the video, is turning him into a piece of reusable intellectual property that can be bought as NFTs on marketplaces and appear in other virtual occasions like video games. The startup is waiting for the bull market to return to launch the NFT project, Scarlett Li, founder and CEO of Zebra Labs, tells ZebethMedia. The aim of Zebra Labs is to “create intellectual property that’s deeply integrated with content” and “run virtual idols like celebrities,” says Li. Some of the avatars it creates are based on real-life stars, while others are original characters. To generate revenues, Zebra Labs cultivates an audience for its idols through short films, images, and social posts and in turn monetizes the fan base. It also licenses its virtual idols to partners for a fee. NFT, which is already being widely used in authenticating IP rights, can be used to better engage fans, reckons Li, who previously helped organize some of China’s largest music festivals. “When you reach 30 years old, you lose interest to explore music, so a virtual environment can jumpstart visualization [of music] again.” NFTs also give emerging musicians a more direct avenue for income. In China, music distribution is in the grip of music streaming giants owned by Tencent and NetEase. These platforms tend to allocate user traffic to musicians already with a lot of fans, “so to live well as a musician, you need to have a million followers,” says Li. “NFTs can change that.” As a veteran of music festivals, Li is excited about the prospect of online concerts. She’s benchmarking against Ariana Grande’s Fornite concert, in which the singer descends into a colorful island in her virtual manifestation with a shimmering silver dress and a glowing white ponytail. Zebra Labs is in talks with several gaming firms to launch virtual concerts for Chinese artists inside a Minecraft-like game and a metaverse platform by 2023, Li says. Zebra Labs recently raised $5 million to advance its metaverse vision. The funding came from the Chinese gaming firm NetDragon and the Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo. Onboarding a Japanese investor, according to Li, can help the startup learn from the country’s long history of IP management, which is exemplified by the success of virtual idols like Hatsune Miku. The company is also backed by SOSV, the VC firm known for its network of accelerators. Following its collaboration with Wowkie Zhang’s music video, which has garnered some 40 million clicks across an array of online channels, Zebra Labs has five other artists in the pipeline. It’s also planning to release a digital twin of Zhang by the first quarter of 2023.

US sanctions on China could extend to biotech, official says • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 28, 2022Posted in biotech, Biotech & Health, China, Sanctions, usNo Comments

On the heels of the Biden administration’s decision to impose sweeping chip sanctions on China, there are signs that China might also lose access to other types of critical U.S. technologies including biotechnology, an area that has historically seen close cooperation between the two countries. Areas “on my radar” for possible additional export controls include quantum computing, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence, said Alan Estevez, Commerce Department undersecretary for industry and security, according to The Washington Post. The message is worrying for an industry that’s intrinsically global. Biotech is one of the few areas, alongside climate policy, that transcends nationalities and boundaries between countries. Scientific progress in China could well save lives in the U.S. The globalization of the sector has also resulted in greater efficiency. As we wrote before, biotech firms often maintain a presence in China and the U.S. to leverage the different strengths of both sides. In China, they harness large reams of patient data, fast and cost-efficient clinical trials, as well as local tax cuts, government funding, and subsidized offices to advance their research. At the same time, they keep operations in the U.S. to tap the country’s R&D talent and work towards FDA regulatory approval and commercialization. It’s not uncommon to see biotech startups increasingly labeling themselves “born global” and employing executives with experiences in China, the U.S., and other countries. Needleless injection device maker NovaXS, for example, was founded by a Berkeley researcher who headquarters the company in the U.S. but conducts clinical trials in China. Xtalpi, one of China’s most-funded drug discovery startups, conducts research and business development in Boston, where it “maintains close communication with professors and experts from the research community as well as from the pharmaceutical industry,” while keeping multiple R&D centers across China. When asked previously why the drug discovery firm Insilico straddles China and the U.S., founder and CEO Alex Zhavoronkov compared the space to the early semiconductor industry where “research was done mostly in the U.S. while hardware production happened in China.” Eastern Chinese city Wuxi especially has emerged as a global hub for contract research organizations, which conduct outsourced work for international pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Biotechnology is “a highly complex, uncertain, and very risky process that fails 95-99% of the time if you start from target discovery. To put one drug on the market, you need 10-15 years, $2-3 billion dollars, and the process fails 95-99% of the time,” Zhavoronkov observed. “International collaboration in biotechnology is a way to share this huge risk and cost. And by limiting collaboration in this field or even talking about it, the politicians demonstrate a lack of fundamental understanding of the industry and disregard for the health and well-being of their electorate,” he added. Indeed, treating the biotech sector with a security-driven approach could harm U.S. competitiveness, argued two U.S. scholars specializing in China, writing for ChinaFile: Unlike the semiconductor and telecommunication sectors, whose development depends on expensive equipment and hard-to-acquire manufacturing expertise, barriers to entry in biotechnology are low. Likewise, as Eric Lander’s now infamous mapping of CRISPR’s development illustrates, both foundational research and key innovations in biotechnology often take place in the public domain and build on incremental advancements made across the globe. When breakthroughs, like employing CRISPR as a means of gene-editing, do occur they spread through global scientific networks with little heed for national boundaries. Consequently, it is not a zero-sum industry in which a single innovation sets any firm or country ahead for a prolonged period.

China’s smartphone shipments slumped 23% in Jan-Aug • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Apple, China, chips, Gadgets, Hardware, Huawei, iPhone, oppo, Phone, semiconductors, shipment, XiaomiNo Comments

Smartphone shipment is often seen as the bellwether of China’s consumer spending, and right now, the picture isn’t very rosy. The world’s largest market for smartphones shipped 175.1 million handsets between January and August, marking a sharp 22.9% decline year-over-year, according to research from a state-backed institution. In August alone, shipments dropped 21.9% year-over-year. The global smartphone market as a whole is experiencing a slowdown, logging a 9% decline in the second quarter due to a mix of challenges including a COVID-struck economy, inflation, and deceleration following years of frantic growth. China’s growing consumer appetite obviously played a big part in driving the boom, and now that the world’s second-largest economy is hitting a speed bump, the smartphone industry is inevitably taking a hit. The era of economic miracles is coming to a close in China. On Monday, official data reported a 3.9% GDP growth rate from July to September, which beat forecasts but was way below the double digits that propelled the country’s economy forward for three decades. China is not only the world’s largest market for hanset users but is also its largest phone producer, with home-grown brands like Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi rising over the years to rival Apple and Samsung. These domestic phone markers began seeking overseas expansion well before their home market start cooling down. And they’ve successfully carved out their international market share and have in recent years consistently shared the top five spots alongside Apple and Samsung. The smartphone industry is notoriously cut-throat with modest margins, so it wasn’t unsurprising when Xiaomi and Oppo, which are long known for selling budget phones, started offering higher-end models in recent years. Huawei established a strong presence in the premium handset space before the U.S. cut off its supply of critical chipsets and key Android services. Having seen how overdependence on advanced U.S. technologies and geopolitical tensions has wrecked Huawei’s revenues, Oppo and the likes are rushing to work on their own smartphone processors. The need for Chinese firms to have their own high-end chips is getting dire as the Biden administration hit China with possibly the strictest export controls earlier this month. Analysts are still parsing the impact of the policy, but initial observation shows that the new rules will not only restrict Chinese companies’ access to high-end U.S. chips but will also bar their access to chip-making equipment, which will hobble the country’s ability to develop such advanced technologies.