Business News Holding

Tag: china

  • China 3G Build Props Up Global Mobile Gear Market


    Huawei Technologies doubled its market share in the mobile network infrastructure market in the first quarter of 2009.

    The Chinese company’s success comes as domestic mobile operators prepare to spend over USD $20 billion this year on rolling out the initial phases of China’s 3G deployments.

    This has led to a record number of 3G base station shipments.

    However, while Huawei now occupies third position in the market, there appears to be little sign of cheer asides from the activity in China.

    A quarterly market report from Dell’Oro said the global mobile infrastructure market contracted by nine per cent in January-March compared to the same period a year ago.

    It said the GSM market experienced its largest year-over-year decline and without China’s 3G tenders in WCDMA and CDMA base station deployments, the market would have fallen further.

    Scott Siegler, senior analyst at Dell’Oro Group, said China Unicom’s WCDMA deployment is shaping up to be the single largest 3G deployment in history.

    He said it was the primary contributor to the most ever – 100 thousand – Node B shipments in the quarter.

    "With the CDMA market declining elsewhere around the world, China Telecom’s spending resulted in the most CDMA base station shipments in over four years," he said.

    "As the two GSM operators, China Mobile and China Telecom focused their spending on the rapid deployment of their 3G networks, spending on their GSM networks significantly declined.

    "We expect this spending to accelerate in the second half of the year."

    During the quarter, Huawei experienced the greatest rate of growth, almost doubling its share of the total infrastructure market to 15 cent compared to the same quarter last year.

    Meanwhile, market leader Ericsson increased its share slightly to 33 per cent of the market in January-March, while Nokia Siemens Networks dropped to 21 per cent from 24 per cent a year ago, according to Dell’Oro.

    Alcatel-Lucent saw its share fall to 14 per cent from 16 per cent.

    Even less fortunate was North American’s largest maker of telecommunications gear Nortel, which saw its market share halving to 4 per cent from a year ago.

    The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in US federal court and for creditor protection in Canada’s Ontario Superior Court of Justice in January.

    With the market expected to remain tight and extremely competitive, other’s could well be going down the same path.

  • Dell's Smartphone Preparations Gain Pace


    Dell’s plans for entering the smartphone market have gained some more meat.

    The world’s second largest PC brand is working with two companies to develop software and hardware for new mobile devices.

    Accel’s Jim Breyer join Dell’s board

    Chi Mei Communications – an unlisted unit of Taiwan’s Hon Hai – is involved with the hardware, while China-based Red Office is engineering the operating system, according to Reuters.

    The outcome is expected to be the launch of multiple smartphones in the Chinese market before the end of the year.

    If all goes well, the US and Europe would then get the PC maker’s devices.

    Dell’s move into the smartphone market – and China, where China Mobile is seen as the favored operator – could be part of the reason why it has appointed Jim Breyer, of Venture firm Accel Partners, to its board.

    Already on ten boards, including Facebook, Etsy, Wal-Mart and Marvel, his company launched a USD $250 million fund in China in 2005.

    Breyer’s experience of finding the right partners and market could be important to Dell as it prepares new devices.

  • Sony Takes On Pirates By Opening Blu-ray Plant in China


    Sony is turning its sights on the growing high-def market in China with the opening of a Blu-ray manufacturing plant in Shanghai.

    The new plant will produce 500,000 of the high-def discs per month specifically for the domestic market.

    With bootlegging a major problem in China the move by Sony is certainly bold.

    Not least because there are strong doubts over whether Chinese consumers are willing to pay the price premium for Blu-ray.

    Illegal DVDs fetch USD $1 compared to official Blu-ray discs that could cost up to USD $30.

    If successful, the rewards are certainly appealing.

    Blu-ray is growing in China with three Chinese manufacturers making the high-def players and Pioneer, Sony and Panasonic importing devices.

    Sony expects to add around 100 new Blu-ray titles by the end of the year to the 32 currently available in China.

    The company already has Blu-ray disc plants in the United States, Japan and Austria.

    By having a manufacturing plant in China, Sony should be better placed to combat piracy by avoiding import permits and taxes while also releasing movies to consumers faster.

    Sony just reported its first annual operating loss in 14 years and announced that it plans to close one of its two television plants in Japan – Ichinomiya TEC – and cut 2,000 full-time jobs.

    The cutbacks follow last month’s announcement that 16,000 jobs were to be lost.

    Sony is targeting a global headcount reduction of approximately 30 per cent across its TV design operations and related divisions by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010.

  • Blu-Ray Takes On Pirates And Old HD Rival In China


    Blu-Ray discs will go on sale in China for the first time today – officially that is.

    While it’s been possible to buy dubious pirated version of the high-def format for some time, today marks the start of what is expected to be a major push by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment into the vast Chinese market.

    Discs will be priced in the region of RMB200 (USD $30) and will be available online and in-store.

    The initial movie offering isn’t extensive – just 30 titles will be available – including Hancock, the recent Spiderman movies and classics including Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

    To coincide with the introduction of the discs, Sony is also launching its BDP-S350 Blu-ray player into the Chinese market.

    It’s an environment where rampant piracy of high-definition discs, among other things, is already an issue.

    Authorities in China recently seized over 800 illegally pirated Blu-ray titles. The discs contained movies ripped from Blu-ray to DVD using AVCHD compression.

    The fakes, seized in Shenzhen, were packaged in realistic-looking Blu-ray boxes, complete with authenticating holograms.

    The bust has highlighted flaws in the robust copy-protection that Blu-ray is supposed to have, although the Motion Picture Association International said this was the first ever seizure of this type of disc.

    Sony Pictures is the first Hollywood studios to release films on the high definition format in China but both Warner Brothers and Disney are in talks with local replicators and distributors in order to release their Blu-ray titles in the country as well.

    But pirates aren’t the only opposition Blu-ray is likely to face.

    Production of China’s self-developed high-definition optical disc format – China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD) – is expected to begin production before the end of the year.

    Shanghai United Optical Disc has completed its first production line for the modified version of the Toshiba-supported HD DVD format that lost out to Blu-ray.

    But with no Hollywood studios on board, it faces an uphill battle with (at least) three studios now preparing Blu-ray releases in China.

  • iPhone Sets The Standard In China


    The iPhone may be made in China but Apple still hasn’t launched its game-changing handset there yet.

    That hasn’t stopped the 3G smartphone having a huge impact on China’s estimated 700 million cell phone market, according to the latest report from Research and Markets.

    It says that Apple’s iPhone has had a significant impact on the smartphone world generally, because of its user interface (UI), user experience (UE), and business model.

    And despite not being officially on sale in China, the report says it has also made a big impact on the smartphone market there as well.

    "The iPhone has set a standard for users’ expectation of entertainment smartphones, resulting in iPhone-like models appearing in the marketplace," the report states.

    Not surprisingly, it goes on to predict that this type of revolutionary UI/UE, enabled by a touchscreen, with acceleration and proximity sensors technologies will be a distinct trend in China’s entertainment smartphone market over the next two years.

    The report analyses Chinese consumer attitudes toward smartphones (including the iPhone) based on a web survey carried out in May 2008.

    Based on this analysis, the repsearch provides drivers and barriers for the Chinese smartphone market and smartphone shipment forecasts from 2008 to 2012.

  • Chinese manufacturers given approval to produce Blu-ray discs

    Eleven Chinese disc manufacturers, including TCL, Malata and Desay, have been authorized by Blu-ray Disc Association to produce Blue-Ray discs, CDs, and disc players next year.

    According to president of Blu-ray Disc Association, each of the manufacturers have now turned to BD development since Toshiba’s withdrawal from the HD DVD camp in February this year and BDA’s member number has increased to 187 while that of International DVD Forum has decreased to 163 from 240.

    It is estimated that the demand for consumer electronics and computers adopted with BD technology will reach 5.3 million this year and top 11 million by 2009.

  • Rising demand for HD video in China will play a part in increasing pressures on bandwidth.

    User-generated video (UGV) is growing faster than expected fuelled by significant expansion in the Chinese market, according to a study by high-tech market research firm In-Stat.
    The spiralling growth rates have led to forecasts for UGV use and revenue shifting upwards since last year.
    Researchers at In-Stat found that total worldwide UGV revenue is expected to eclipse US$1.19 billion by 2012, with an estimated 160 billion UGV served videos forecast for 2012.
    And with expectations of higher quality content, such as HD video, and increasing file size maximums, the demands on bandwidth are expected to continue growing at a faster rate than the number of files/videos served.
    Michael Inouye, In-Stat analyst, said: “User-generated video (UGV) and the video sharing sites that exemplify this form of content have spread across the globe.
    “China is a prime example of UGV’s global reach and appeal, capturing a significant portion of the world market, making it second only to the US.
    “In general, viewing of online video has increased in the US in the past year, although participation is still stratified by age.”
    The study, “User-Generated Video, A Global Stage for you”, also predicts that individuals who use mobile phones to participate in online video sites are most likely to contribute to the market (both financially and in terms of content).