Digital communications | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

30/04/2013

* Samsung Galaxy S4 lands on Bangalore, hundreds get in line

reutrs: ““I’m very excited. I’ve been waiting a couple of hours; I couldn’t get any sleep last night,” said Arif, an employee of UK retailer Tesco. He was near the front of the line of hundreds of people to line up at the UB City Mall in Bangalore to buy the new Galaxy S4 smartphone.

The phone went on sale at the Samsung store on Saturday, and Arif waited for about two hours for the privilege of spending 41,500 rupees, or about $763, on the new model, which comes with a 5-inch screen and 13-megapixel camera, and runs on Google’s Android platform.

Samsung is trying to increase its lead over Apple, a possibility for the South Korean company, considering the preference of many Indian shoppers for a good discount over products priced at the top of the line compared to their competitors. Both companies are now handing out discounts on some of their older models. The S4 also is competing with other phones on sale in India such as the HTC One and the BlackBerry Z10, not to mention Apple’s iPhone 5 — its primary rival.

Manu Sharma, Samsung India’s director for its mobile business, said Samsung is looking forward to selling more Galaxy S4s than previous phones in the line. The S3 has sold more than 50 million units since its launch last year, the Wall Street Journal reported in March.

Sharma also promised that there would be no supply problems that forced it to begin selling the S4 later than planned in the United States. The S4 is going on sale in the United States on Saturday as well, and warned that supply problems might strike there. Its reason for this? Better-than-expected demand, of course.

In Bangalore, crowd control was more of a problem than availability. People waited impatiently in a queue that snaked past a near-empty Apple Imagine store. Some people tried to shove and jump the queue, while some got into arguments with store guards who were trying to maintain order. For technology fans in India’s IT capital, arguing that it’s “just a phone” probably wouldn’t make much of an impression anyway.”

via Samsung Galaxy S4 lands on Bangalore, hundreds get in line | India Insight.

Posted in Affluence, Digital communications, Economics, India alert, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Apple, BlackBerry Z10, gadgets, India, IPhone, iphone 5, Samsung, Samsung Galaxy S4, technology

30/04/2013

The American military is using Chinese satellites

This just shows how inter-linked are the affairs of China and America.

Chinese GPS Alternative Opens To Consumers (techweekeurope.co.uk)
SPACE: China And America Together In Australia (strategypage.com)

Posted in Aerospace, China alert, Digital communications, Economics, Politics, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Pentagon, Satellite, United States House Committee on Armed Services

25/04/2013

* China Unicom 1Q Net Jumps 89% on 3G, Fixed-Line Broadband Growth

WSJ: “China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. 0762.HK -0.18% said Thursday net profit surged 89% in the first quarter from a year earlier as its third-generation mobile communications network and fixed-line broadband businesses continued their rapid growth.

China Unicom (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Chinese telecommunications carriers are scrambling to ramp up their networks to accommodate the rapid increase in data traffic in the world’s largest mobile market, as more people replace their basic cellphones with smartphones. China has already overtaken the U.S. as the world’s biggest smartphone market.

Fierce competition between China Unicom and its rivals China Telecom Corp. CHA +1.75% and China Mobile Ltd. 0941.HK +1.21% has led to increasing costs, as carriers spend more on building networks and subsidizing handsets to attract more valuable subscribers who pay for speedier wireless services. In the latest quarter, China Unicom said revenue growth outpaced that of costs.

China Unicom, the country’s second-largest mobile operator by subscribers after China Mobile, said net profit was 1.90 billion yuan ($308 million) in the period ended March 31, up from 1.01 billion yuan a year earlier. Revenue rose 15% to 70.6 billion yuan from 61.19 billion yuan a year earlier.

China Unicom, the first of China’s carriers to offer Apple Inc.’s AAPL -0.16% iPhone, has seen profitability rise on its efforts to offer high-end smartphones and attract users with more expensive cellphone plans. Still, the increasing popularity of low-cost smartphones has led to falling average revenue per user—a key metric of telecom carriers’ health. First-quarter average revenue per user for its 3G business fell to 78.2 yuan from 93.9 yuan in the same period last year.

Subsidies for 3G phones rose to 2.23 billion yuan in the quarter from 1.98 billion yuan in the same period last year.

Major local carriers are also preparing to launch faster fourth-generation networks. Capital expenditure for network infrastructure and subsidies for smartphones continue to put pressure on major local carriers, even though smartphone users are boosting their data communications revenue.”

via China Unicom 1Q Net Jumps 89% on 3G, Fixed-Line Broadband Growth – WSJ.com.

Posted in China alert, Digital communications, Economics, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Apple, China, China Mobile, China Telecom, china telecom corp, China Unicom, chinese telecommunications, IPhone, technology, telecom carriers

16/04/2013

* India, Known for Outsourcing, Now Wants to Make Its Own Chips

NY Times: “The government of India, home to many of the world’s leading software outsourcing companies, wants to replicate that success by creating a homegrown industry for computer hardware. But unlike software, which requires little infrastructure, building electronics is a far more demanding business. Chip makers need vast quantities of clean water and reliable electricity. Computer and tablet assemblers depend on economies of scale and easy access to cheap parts, which China has spent many years building up.

So the Indian government is trying a new, carrot-and-stick approach.

In October, it quietly began mandating that at least half of all laptops, computers, tablets and dot-matrix printers procured by government agencies come from domestic sources, according to Dr. Ajay Kumar, joint secretary of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, which devised the policy.

At the same time, it is dangling as much as $2.75 billion in incentives in front of chip makers to entice them to build India’s first semiconductor manufacturing plant, an important step in building a domestic hardware industry.

But like so much of India’s economic policy, it’s doubtful that either initiative will have the impact the government is intending.”

via India, Known for Outsourcing, Now Wants to Make Its Own Chips – NYTimes.com.

Posted in Digital communications, Economics, India alert, innovation, IT, Manufacturing, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Ajay Kumar (politician), Asia, Government of India, India, indian government, Information technology

25/03/2013

* Wages Rising in Chinese Factories? Only For Some

Working in these Times: “If we are to take recent news reports at face value, the collective conscience of the worlds consumers can be eased, because conditions at Chinese factories are improving.

Last year, The New York Times told us that these workers are “cheap no more,” and just this February, the Heritage Foundation, touting the virtues of global free trade, claimed that Chinese factory wages have risen 20 percent per year since 2005. Foxconn, Apples major supplier and the manufacturer of approximately 40 percent of the worlds consumer electronics, says it will hold free union elections every five years.

But Pollyannas should take pause: The average migrant workers $320 monthly salary in 2011 was actually 43 percent less than the $560 national average, according to government statistics. And though its true that Foxconn will permit the election of union leaders, we have yet to see how much Chinas so-called democratic unions can empower the workers they purport to represent.

Skepticism and caveats aside, the reality is that the lot of formal production workers in China is indeed advancing, however slowly and painfully. But that is true only for formal workers. What many consumers and observers fail to note are the perilous conditions of Chinas temporary production workers and the increased tendency among Chinese factories to use such workers to manufacture the brand-name products that fill your home.

Factories supplying Apple and Samsung, for example, make heavy use of temp workers. According to official statistics, temp workers make up 20 percent of Chinas urban workforce of 300 million, though the proportion in individual factories often tops 50 percent. As China turns into a land of short-term workers, there are grave implications for labor, companies, and Chinese society.”

via Wages Rising in Chinese Factories? Only For Some – Working In These Times.

* Where Have China’s Workers Gone? (chindia-alert.org)
Foxconn Inland China Push Spurred by Labor, BI Says (bloomberg.com)
Union for iPhone workers is pure PR (salon.com)
Foxconn Workers Organize In Communist China (news.firedoglake.com)
Where Have China’s Workers Gone? (bloomberg.com)
Foxconn plans Chinese union vote (edition.cnn.com)
As China Changes, Infamous Foxconn Goes Robotic (forbes.com)
Chinese factories turn to outsourced workers (wantchinatimes.com)
China’s trade union reforms aim to control its militant workforce | Richard Seymour (guardian.co.uk)

Posted in China alert, Digital communications, Economics, employment, IT, Technology, temporary workers | 1 Comment »

Tags: Apple, Business, China, Chinese language, economy, Foxconn, migrant worker, politics, Samsung

18/03/2013

* Indian startup aims for the moon – and $30 million

Reuters: “Rahul Narayan, who describes himself as a serial entrepreneur, is the founder of Team Indus. It is the only Indian team in a race to the moon by privately funded groups competing for the largest international incentive prize of all time – the Google Lunar X Prize.

Google is offering $30 million in prizes to the first privately funded teams to safely land a robot on the Moon, including a grand prize and other bonus prizes.

In a conversation with Reuters, Narayan talks about Team Indus’ prospects, timing, his struggle to be taken seriously by investors and why he would not be too disappointed if someone else wins.”

via Indian startup aims for the moon – and $30 million | India Insight.

A Chat With Robotics Pioneer Red Whittaker On The Google Lunar X Prize And The Future Of Interstellar Exploration (techcrunch.com)
Cyprus looks to the stars as team plan to land a robot on the Moon (famagusta-gazette.com)
Israel’s Mission to the Moon: Can a Small Country Win a Big Prize? (world.time.com)
If people don’t think you are crazy, you aren’t thinking big (wired.co.uk)

Posted in Digital communications, India alert, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Entrepreneur, Google, Google Lunar X Prize, Moon, science, Team Indus

18/02/2013

* Outsourcers turn to China to plug India’s skills gap

The Times: “India is running out of the skilled engineers needed to man its giant software industry, forcing companies to hire staff overseas, especially from China, one of the industry’s pioneers has warned.

An Indian employee at a call centre provides service support to international customers

Kris Gopalakrishnan, the co-founder and executive chairman of Infosys, said that the outsourcing sector was facing a manpower shortage. India, he said, was not producing enough properly trained engineering graduates to meet expanding global demand for its services.

The country may have a population of more than 1.2 billion people, but the dearth of trained graduates is driving up salaries in its IT industry by 15 per cent a year. That, in turn, is eroding the sub-continent’s global competitiveness and forcing companies such as Infosys, Tata Consulting Services and Wipro to invest in finding foreign workers.

“A lot of the tertiary education in India is done by private colleges and there are significant quality issues there,” Mr Gopalakrishnan said.

India produces about 700,000 engineering graduates every year, but of these only about 25 per cent are sufficiently well trained to be considered for a job in IT, Mr Gopalakrishnan said.

Infosys — whose customers include BP, GlaxoSmithKline and Tesco — was planning to treble its workforce in China from 3,500 to more than 10,000 to help cope with constraints at home, where most of its 155,000 staff work.

“Apart from China, there are not many countries in the world where we can recruit large enough numbers,” Mr Gopalakrishnan added. Infosys, which generated revenues of $7 billion last year, already operates large software development and outsourcing operations in Shanghai, Dalian, Beijing, Hangzhou and Jiaxing. The wages in China are higher than in India but are rising at a more modest pace of about 10 per cent annually.

Infosys has also been expanding its overseas presence in other low-cost countries, such as the Philippines, and has explored opportunities in Egypt.

In expanding fields such as data analytics, there are only about 50,000 engineers in India with the right programming skills. Demand is at least five times that number, according to Heidrick & Struggles, a recruitment company.

India’s software and outsourcing industry employs about three million people directly, an increase of 188,000 from a year ago. It generated $75.8 billion in exports in 2012-13, making it India’s largest single export industry, and is continuing to grow at more than 10 per cent a year even as India’s overall rate of economic growth has nearly halved over the past three years, to just over 5 per cent.

Mr Gopalakrishnan said that as well as hiring overseas, Infosys was trying to improve the quality of education in India by funding teacher training programmes at 350 engineering colleges. The group has also built a private campus in the southern city of Mysore capable of training 14,000 students.

“We will have to continue to invest heavily in education and training,” he said.”

via Outsourcers turn to China to plug India’s skills gap | The Times.

India’s Infosys to fire up to 5,000 workers: media (scooprocket.com)
Wipro More Cautious on 2013 Than TCS and Infosys (beta.fool.com)
2013 to be a better year for IT sector: Infosys (rediff.com)
Infosys Profit Beats Estimates on Bank, Manufacturer Outsourcing – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
Infosys denies report of plans to fire 5,000 underperforming staff (itpro.co.uk)
More IT jobs in 2013: Infosys (news.in.msn.com)

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Digital communications, economic inter-dependence, Economics, higher education, India alert, IT, labour shortage, Outsourcing | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Business, China, economy, GlaxoSmithKline, global competitiveness, Gopalakrishnan, India, Information technology, Infosys, Kris Gopalakrishnan, manpower shortage, software, technology, Wipro

27/01/2013

* China’s mobile phone users reach 1.11 billion

China Daily: “The number of Chinese mobile phone users reached 1.11 billion as of the end of 2012, according to official data unveiled Thursday.

China's mobile phone users reach 1.11 billion

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in a statement that mobile phone users represent 80 percent of all phones users in the country.

A farmer in Huojiatai village, Yongdeng county, Northwest China’s Gansu province, receives a text message on his phone from the local agricultural technician about growing vegetables, Jan 22, 2012. [Photo/Xinhua]

The number of mobile phones owned by every 100 people reached 82.6 by the end of 2012, up by nine from a year earlier, according to the statement.

Last year, the country recorded 125.9 million new mobile phone users, among whom 104.38 million were 3G mobile phone users, bringing the total number of 3G users to 232.8 million, the MIIT said.

The ministry said the number of Internet users rose by 51 million to 564 million people, among whom 74.5 percent, or 420 million people, surf the Internet with their mobile phones.

The Internet penetration rate reached 42.1 percent by the end of last year, up 3.8 percentage points from a year earlier.”

via China’s mobile phone users reach 1.11 billion |Economy |chinadaily.com.cn.

MIIT Shares China’s October Numbers: Internet Gets More Mobile, Land Line Phones Dying (techinasia.com)
Research and Markets: Mobile Phones in Asia-Pacific (sys-con.com)

Posted in China alert, Digital communications, Economics, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, Internaut, MIIT, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China, mobile, Mobile phone, mobile phone users, number of internet users, technology

27/01/2013

* India wary of China’s telecom forays in Nepal, Maldives

Times of India: “The growing presence of Chinese telecom companies in Maldives and Nepal has put security agencies on alert over fears that equipment used for infrastructure development there might be bugged and misused for intercepting any communication between India and the two countries.

The concerns by the central security agencies which have been conveyed to the telecom department here came against the backdrop of about $5.70 crore loan given by China to Maldives to implement its information technology (IT) infrastructure project, according to official sources.

The Huawei Technologies (Lanka) Co. Ltd, China enterprise business group and the National Centre for Information Technologies, Maldives have already signed an MoU to develop the IT Infrastructure in Maldives under the ‘Smart Maldives Project’, they said.”

via India wary of China’s telecom forays in Nepal, Maldives – The Times of India.

Maldives Moving Away From India? – Analysis (eurasiareview.com)
China’s Quietly Sinks New Delhi’s Influence in the Indian Ocean (irrawaddy.org)

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Digital communications, Economics, GeoPolitics, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, climate, Huawei, India, internet, Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, politics, technology

25/01/2013

* China’s Huawei Creeps up on Apple, Samsung

WSJ: “As Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc. try to defend their dominance in the smartphone market, the latest data show China’s Huawei Technologies Co. coming third in terms of market share for the first time, indicating that a rapid increase of smartphone users in China and other emerging markets may be starting to alter the global landscape.

According to research firm IDC, Samsung’s smartphone market share in the fourth quarter through December rose to 29% from 22.5% a year earlier, while Apple’s share dropped slightly to 21.8% from 23%. Meanwhile, Huawei’s share rose to 4.9% from 3.5%, ahead of Japan’s Sony Corp. , whose share also increased to 4.5% from 3.9% a year earlier. Another Chinese company ZTE Corp., came fifth with 4.3%.

“The fact that Huawei and ZTE now find themselves among the Top 5 smartphone vendors marks a significant shift for the global market,” said IDC research manager Ramon Llamas.

via China’s Huawei Creeps up on Apple, Samsung – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

Posted in Affluence, China alert, Digital communications, Economics, innovation, patents | Leave a Comment »

Tags: android, Apple, China, gadgets, Huawei, huawei technologies, International Data Corporation, mobile, Samsung, samsung electronics co, Smartphone, technology, ZTE

CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon

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* Samsung Galaxy S4 lands on Bangalore, hundreds get in line

The American military is using Chinese satellites

* China Unicom 1Q Net Jumps 89% on 3G, Fixed-Line Broadband Growth

* India, Known for Outsourcing, Now Wants to Make Its Own Chips

* Wages Rising in Chinese Factories? Only For Some

* Indian startup aims for the moon – and $30 million

* Outsourcers turn to China to plug India’s skills gap

* China’s mobile phone users reach 1.11 billion

* India wary of China’s telecom forays in Nepal, Maldives

* China’s Huawei Creeps up on Apple, Samsung

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