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

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

19/04/2013

* China’s 2020 consumer is in a town you’ve never heard of

Reuters: “Wearing a floral brocade cardigan and toting a Huawei smartphone, Guo Qian, 22, gushes over her latest purchases on Taobao, China’s largest e-commerce platform. As an administrative worker, Guo makes only 3,000 yuan a month and spends most of it.

Customers selects hats at a street stall at the business area of Jiaozuo, China's central Henan province, December 20, 2012. REUTERS-Aly Song

Not only does she spend nearly all of her own money, Guo also fritters away most of her father’s 1,000 yuan monthly pension on trinkets and clothes on Taobao. “Sometimes I feel guilty using his money, so I buy him some clothes.”

Guo, a Zhengzhou native, already owns an apartment – her parents helped finance the purchase last year – and is on the upward climb to join China’s burgeoning middle class.

As Beijing tries to engineer a crucial macroeconomic shift– toward more consumption and less investment, the crucial “rebalancing” China’s new leadership is committed to, and the rest of the world is counting on — it is young consumers like Guo Qian who may hold the key to the transition.

Raised in an era of unprecedented prosperity, Guo, like many other members of what is known as the `post-80s’ generation (anyone born after 1980) has a very different answer than her parents when it comes to a central economic question: whether to spend the money she has, or save it?

“I don’t save at all,” she told Reuters. ” Why should I?”

Her “spend it if you’ve got it” attitude, some economists argue, may help unlock the surge in consumption that China urgently needs to rebalance its economy over the next decade, ending an era of lopsided, investment driven growth.

“This 18-35 group, for a variety of reasons, are much more optimistic and more open to risk, because they haven’t yet experienced bad times at all,” says Benjamin Cavender associate principal analyst with China Market Research. “They tend to have high disposable income relative to their earning power, and they tend not to be saving heavily.”

This generational change in mindset, harnessed to the sheer number of people growing more prosperous in once poor provinces throughout the country – such as Guo’s native Henan – is recasting China’s economic landscape: both the composition of growth, and its geography, are about to change significantly.”

via Insight: China’s 2020 consumer is in a town you’ve never heard of | Reuters.

Coffee Chat: How E-commerce King Taobao is Expanding Out of China (Live Blog) (techinasia.com)

Posted in Affluence, China alert, Consumer, eCommerce, Economics, Salaries | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Beijing, China, economy, Huawei, Taobao

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

16/04/2013

* U.S. Visa Law Holds Good and Bad For India

WSJ: “A draft U.S. immigration law, likely to be unveiled this week, holds good and bad news for Indian IT companies.

Indian outsourcing firms like Infosys 500209.BY -1.71% Tata Consulting Services 532540.BY +0.64% and Wipro have large offices in the U.S. that service American clients. To keep costs down, these firms send thousands of Indian workers to such centers on skilled worker, or H-1B, visas.

Indian firms have long argued a cap on these visas is unfair. This year the cap of 65,000 H-1B visas already has been reached, meaning Indian companies will need to hire more-expensive short-term workers locally in the U.S., depressing their margins.

The draft U.S. immigration law, described to the Wall Street Journal by Senate aides, aims to drastically overhaul the nation’s immigrations procedures. It seeks to create a pathway to citizenship for some 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally.

For Indian firms, the bill’s interest lies in changes it proposes for the H-1B program. The legislation seeks to increase the cap on these visas to 110,000, with the ability to go as high as 180,000 depending on economic conditions and demand. An additional 25,000 visas would be available for people who have earned advanced degrees in the U.S.

But that’s where the good news ends, says the National Association of Software and Services Companies, or Nasscom, the Indian IT industry trade body. It is worried by other proposals in the bill that will demand employers who want to tap the high-skilled-visa program to “pay significantly higher wages for H-1B workers than under current law.”

The bill also would require those employers to advertise open jobs for 30 days on a U.S. Department of Labor website before they could bring in foreign workers. Employers who rely heavily on non-U.S. workers would be forced to pay higher fees.

The idea here is to soften criticism in the U.S. that the visa program is being used to give jobs to Indian and other foreign workers that U.S. employees could do at a time of relatively high unemployment.

“The comprehensive immigration reform was necessary in the U.S. It’s good that it’s happening,” says Ameet Nivsarkar, vice president of Nasscom. But he said the association was worried the higher wage provision could be used to keep out Indian companies, by far the biggest users of H-1B visas.

“Our single biggest worry is that these rules may be applied in a discriminatory manner, only on a certain section of companies,” Mr. Nivsarkar said.

Nasscom is lobbying for a fairer visa policy in the U.S., he said. “That’s our job. We are working through our partners in the U.S. and with the government in India.”

More than 80% of the operating costs of Indian technology companies come from wages. Salaries to employees at overseas locations account for half of total wage costs. Any increase in overseas salaries may squeeze the profitability of the companies, analysts say.

“Any crimp on the movement of human capital will hurt trade between India and the U.S. and will eventually impact both Indian and non-Indian services companies, as well as their U.S. clients,” says Siddharth Pai, president of the Asia-Pacific business of U.S.-based technology advisory services firm Information Services Group.

By raising the overall costs for skilled-worker visas, the U.S. is raising barriers to trade with India, he added.”

via U.S. Visa Law Holds Good and Bad For India – India Real Time – WSJ.

High-skilled immigration debate grows over stark gender imbalance, favoring men for H-1B visas (mercurynews.com)

Posted in Economics, India alert, IT, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: H-1B visa, India, Nasscom, United States, United States visas, Wipro

06/04/2013

China’s Baidu makes its own Google Glass “independently”

Chinese innovations are catching up, fast. There is also the next generation Internet in play already.

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

Tags: Baidu, China, Google, Liquid crystal display

02/04/2013

* China’s next generation Net is way ahead of the West

The Nation: “The Net is getting creaky and old: it is rapidly running out of space and remains fundamentally insecure. And it turns out that China is streets ahead of the West in doing anything about it.

Internet! (Photo credit: LarsZi)

A report published in the “Philosophical Transactions” of the Royal Society this month details China’s advances in creating a next-generation Internet that is on a national level and on a larger scale than anything in the West.

At the root of the problem are “two major gaps in the architecture of the Internet”, according to a report from the New England Complex Systems Institute, compiled in 2008 for the US Navy and released to the public this month. First up is the Internet’s inability to block malicious traffic as a whole. While malware can rapidly replicate and distribute itself across the Net, organisations can only respond to individual instances of online aggression.

China is already coming up with better defences. One of the most important aspects of its next-generation backbone is a security feature known as source address validation architecture (SAVA). Many of the existing security problems stem from an inability to authenticate IP addresses of computers that try to connect to your network. SAVA fixes this by adding checkpoints across the network. These build up a database of trusted computers matched up with their IP addresses. Packets of data will be blocked if the computer and IP address don’t match. Steve Wolff, one of the Internet’s early pioneers, calls it a “model that should be much more widely adopted”.

Even setting security worries aside, the Internet is running out of room. The current standard for assigning space to computers – known as Internet Protocol Version Four (IPv4) – uses a numbering system which has just under 4.3 billion possible spaces. Internet engineers have been working on the new standard for years. It is called IPv6 and will boost the number of available Internet slots by a mind-boggling 80,000 trillion trillion times. But progress on IPv6 has been painfully slow, and time is running out. IPv4 slots are due to run out in multiple regions around the world this year.

But China has been planning for that day for a long time, under pressure from its massive population, all of whom want to be connected to the Net. So says Donald Riley, an information systems specialist at the University of Maryland, who also chairs the Chinese American Network Symposium.

“China has a national Internet backbone in place that operates under IPv6 as the native network protocol,” says Riley. “We have nothing like that in the US.”

China is already running next-generation services: Internet service provider 3TNet provides television over IPv6, streaming programmes in high definition. It is the basis for a system that monitors and controls traffic flow over the Internet and provides remote medical services – even long-distance, real-time violin lessons in high definition. All have the potential to reach more people at higher speeds than any equivalent service on the old Internet.

“If you are thinking about the future of the Internet, anyone that explores that territory and maps it out first has a definite competitive advantage,” Riley says, “especially with the resources available to China.””

via China’s next generation Net is way ahead of the West – The Nation.

China Jumps to IPv6 While U.S. Moves Slowly Away From IPv4 (dailytech.com)
China’s internet architecture (thedroidguy.com)
China’s new internet backbone explained: verified sources, IPv6 at the core (engadget.com)
China’s Internet Architecture Gives the Rest of Us a Run for Our Money (gizmodo.com)

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

Tags: address validation, China, Internet Protocol, internet protocol version, IP address, next generation internet, Royal Society

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

* Taiwan to aim missiles at China

News.com.au: “TAIWAN is set to produce 50 medium-range missiles next year that will target military bases in southeast China, a media report says.

Taiwan Missiles

The article on Monday came after former defence minister Michael Tsai revealed in a recently published book that the island successfully created medium-range guided missiles that could be used against rival China back in 2008.

The “Yun Feng” (Cloud Peak) missile has been developed by the state-run Chung-shan Institute of Science and Technology and each has a range of over 1,000 kilometres, said the Taipei-based China Times, citing unnamed military sources.

The missiles will be deployed in the mountains in central Taiwan from next year to aim at military targets, including airports and missile bases, along China’s southeastern coast, the report said.

Taiwan has been researching missiles of this type to counter threats from China after it fired missiles near the island in 1996, according to the report.

It added that the “Yun Feng” project was developed with the help of an unidentified European country.

The defence ministry declined to comment on Monday’s report but it has condemned Tsai’s revelations, saying they could endanger national security.

Taiwanese experts estimate China’s People’s Liberation Army currently has more than 1,600 missiles aimed at the island.

Tensions with China have eased since Ma Ying-jeou became Taiwan’s president in 2008 on a Beijing-friendly platform.

However, China still refuses to renounce the possible use of force against the island in its long-stated goal of re-taking Taiwan, which has ruled itself since the end of a civil war in 1949.

via Taiwan to aim missiles at China | News.com.au.

Posted in China alert, Defence, Military, Politics, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Beijing, China, Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, medium range missiles, Missile, People's Liberation Army, politics, Taiwan

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

10/03/2013

* China to buy super quiet Russian submarines to counter US aircraft carrier

China Daily Mail: “According to Russian Foreign TV News Net’s report on March 5, Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun believed the Taiwan military’s allegation that Mainland China has entered into a contract with Russia on the purchase of Amur-class (the export version of Lada-class) diesel-electric submarines.

Kilo Class Submarine

It is a part of China’s plan to achieve modernisation of its troops and build up a marine superpower and aims at countering US aircraft carriers and preventing them from interfering with Taiwan affairs.

Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun pointed out: the Russian Lada-class submarine is an upgraded version of the Kilo-class ones, which are well-known for their extremely low noise. China will import four export-version Lada-class submarines, of which two will be build in Russia while the other two, in China. It is expected that a submarine supply agreement that really meets the requirements will not be concluded for two to three years.

Having been certain that China-made Type 041 Yuan-class submarines generate too loud a noise, China has decided to order Russia’s new-type submarines. It is said that in 2004, China successfully developed its Yuan-class submarines on the basis of imported technology of Kilo-class submarine and has vigorously used such submarines in its military drills over the past 5 years. However, due to relatively loud noise, the submarines have been discovered and recorded by US military’s SONAR and radar system.

The Japanese media believed: China is drafting a strategy to protect the nation and prevent enemy invasion across the first island chain, including the Japanese Archipelago, Taiwan and the Philippines. For that purpose, China plans to use guided missiles and submarines. In case of potential emergence of conflict in the Taiwan Strait, under specific circumstances, China could prevent the US from interfering with China’s internal affairs.

Taiwan’s military is worried that China’s import of new-type submarines from Russia will bring more trouble to US aircraft carriers in the Taiwan Strait area. China already has 60 submarines. In addition to the Kilo-class submarines imported from Russia from 1994 to 2002, China has its first batch of China-made Song-class submarines developed by China on its own. Most of the Kilo-class submarines and similar submarines developed by China on its own are deployed in the East China Sea Navy’s base in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province. It is expected that the Amur-class submarines imported from Russia will also be deployed there.”

Sources: mil.huanqiu.com “China is said to buy super quiet upgraded version of Kilo-class submarines to counter US aircraft carriers” (translated by Chan Kai Yee)

via China to buy super quiet Russian submarines to counter US aircraft carrier | China Daily Mail.

The Game No One Wants China To Start (humesbastard.wordpress.com)
SUBMARINES: Back From The Dead (strategypage.com)
The dragon gets a bear hug (thehindu.com)
Russia plans to sell multipurpose submarines abroad (rbth.ru)

Posted in China alert, Defence, GeoPolitics, Military, Politics, Technology, Territorial dispute | 1 Comment »

Tags: China, diesel electric submarines, Kilo class submarine, Russia, submarine supply, Taiwan, Taiwan Strait

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

* China’s 2020 consumer is in a town you’ve never heard of

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

* U.S. Visa Law Holds Good and Bad For India

China’s Baidu makes its own Google Glass “independently”

* China’s next generation Net is way ahead of the West

* Wages Rising in Chinese Factories? Only For Some

* Taiwan to aim missiles at China

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

* China to buy super quiet Russian submarines to counter US aircraft carrier

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