Alibaba suspends public trading to buy back its stock from Yahoo

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has suspended public trading of its shares in Hong Kong as it prepares to buy back its 40 percent stake held by Yahoo.

The transaction is said to be worth between $10 billion and $11.5 billion.

In a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange, Alibaba representatives said the company would be releasing a statement today that would be “potentially price sensitive.”

Late last year, Alibaba began rounding up the financing … Continue Reading

Trion Worlds teams up with Shanda to take Rift online game to China

Chasing World of Warcraft in its biggest market, Trion Worlds is announcing today that it will launch its Rift online fantasy role-playing game in China in a partnership with Shanda Games.

In an interview, Trion Worlds chief executive Lars Buttler said that the move is the next logical expansion for Rift, which garnered more than 1 million registered users in its first four months on the market after its debut in March 2011. After five … Continue Reading

Role reversal: Apple accused of iPad patent infringement in China

Apple is being accused of patent infringement in China.

Yep, you read that correctly. China Daily reports that Proview Shenzhen Technology, a Chinese company based in the city of Shenzhen, has pointed the finger at Apple over the name “iPad.”

“We ask the court to stop selling and marketing for Apple’s iPad in China. We also demand an apology,” Proview Technology attorney Xie Xianghui told China Daily.

Both companies claim iPad as a trademark, but … Continue Reading

Japan’s DeNa moves into Chinese smartphone game market in deal with Baidu

Japan’s DeNA is bent on being a global powerhouse in social games on mobile platforms. Today, the company announced it will put its Mobage mobile gaming social network on Baidu-Yi smartphones in China.

As the market for games becomes global and more competitive, game companies are spreading out and moving into emerging markets such as China in a race to make social and mobile games ubiquitous.

Baidu, China’s leading internet search provider, has formed an … Continue Reading

With record earnings, Apple has no excuse for continued labor abuses

In a week when Apple reported its highest quarterly earnings ever, the company is still plagued with reports of labor abuses among its suppliers.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Apple — which is now sitting pretty with $97.7 billion in cash after record-breaking earnings of $46.33 billion in the first quarter — has become addicted to the rapid-fire manufacturing capabilities made possible by low-wage Chinese workers, no matter the human cost.

The New York Times … Continue Reading

The 14 hottest Chinese tech-startup clones of 2011

Cloning or copycatting ideas, companies, and products is nothing new in China. Westerners, especially Americans, loathe cloning; it hurts their pride and is an insult to their creativity and hard work. The Chinese, however, love it. It comes as second nature and presents a grand opportunity to seize a massive market potential.

People outside of China often wonder why the Chinese love to copy things. The answer is that it’s the way they’re taught to … Continue Reading

Could collaborative consumption work in China? Not yet.

The concept of “Collaborative Consumption” is not new in the West, but it is in the East and especially in China. The term collaborative consumption basically means sharing things with other people — via barter, trade, or rental — and giving access instead of ownership. The Internet has pushed this quaint notion beyond just sharing between friends to create a powerful business model.

Much of this dynamic has been enabled by technology that allows us … Continue Reading

iPhone 4S sales suspended in China after launch draws unruly, egg-throwing crowds

Crowds of eager iPhone owners at Apple’s iPhone 4S launch at the Beijing Sanlitun district store turned violent this morning when the store failed to open on time, which led Apple to close its other Beijing and Shanghai locations.

After waiting overnight in freezing temperatures, crowd members began shouting, fighting, and pelting the Sanlitun Apple store with eggs, Bloomberg reports.  For safety reasons, Apple closed its other locations in China to avoid similar incidents.

While … Continue Reading

Why it’s China’s turn to worry about manufacturing

America has been extremely worried about the loss of manufacturing to China. Seduced by subsidies, cheap labor, lax regulations, and a rigged currency, American industry has made a beeline to China.

But the tide may soon turn.

New technologies will likely cause the same hollowing out of China’s manufacturing industry over the next two decades that the U.S experienced over the past twenty years. That’s right. America is destined to once again gain its supremacy … Continue Reading

Dozens of Foxconn’s Xbox 360 production line workers threaten suicide

According to reports, dozens of workers at a Chinese factory that assembles Xbox 360 consoles threatened to jump off a dormitory roof. The rooftop protest began on Jan 2, following plans to close the Xbox assembly line, with workers saying that Foxconn reneged on a promise to compensate anyone wanting to leave.

While an incident of this scale is unusual, suicides at Foxconn factories are far from unheard of. A suicide cluster in 2010 saw … Continue Reading

iPhone 4S heads to China, 21 more countries on January 13

Mainland China will get the iPhone 4S earlier than previously expected. The phone will be available next week on January 13, Apple announced today.

Additionally, the iPhone 4S will be available in 21 more countries on January 13, including Ecuador, Jamaica, Kenya, and other countries in those regions.

“Customer response to our products in China has been off the charts,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement today. “With the launch in China next … Continue Reading

Mainland China gets iPhone 4S in time for Chinese New Year

The iPhone 4S is set to drop in mainland China by or before January 23, the date of the Chinese New Year.

According to People’s Daily, the official news outlet of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the coveted gadget has been approved for distribution and should be available for sale soon.

“After obtaining the network entry permit from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China (MIIT), the iPhone 4S … Continue Reading

Foxconn invests $1.1B for world’s largest smartphone production plant

Foxconn plans to invest $1.1 billion in its Henan, China smartphone manufacturing plant in order to build the world’s largest smartphone production facility, reports China Daily. The company is the world’s largest electronic component contractor and is Apple’s principal parts supplier.

The money will go towards expanding the Foxconn Science Park plant, which opened in Zhengzhou, Henan earlier this year. The facility will grow to operate 95 production lines and is expected to bring the … Continue Reading

DST may invest $200M in Chinese microblogging company, Sina Weibo

In July, it was reported that Sina Corp. had turned down Digital Sky Technology (DST)’s $500m investment in Sina Weibo, a Chinese micro-blogging service. But it seems that the talk between two parties is still on going. We just heard from a reliable source that Sina finally accepted the investment from DST, an international investment firm founded by Yuri Milner. The source said the deal can ‘almost’ be confirmed:

The deal is a convertible bond … Continue Reading

Cyber criminals attack U.S. Chamber of Commerce, China footing the blame

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently uncovered an attack on its systems, and fingers are pointing toward China.

The Chamber represents over three million US businesses, 96 percent of which are small businesses with 100 employees or less. The agency, situated in Washington D.C., lobbies for free enterprise, competition between US companies and entrepreneurship. Some of its bigger members include Adobe, Microsoft, Visa, and Google.

According to the Wall Street Journal which first reported on … Continue Reading

The9′s Game Zone enables mobile game discovery in China (exclusive)

The9, an online gaming company with a long history in China, said it has scored good results making games more discoverable in the China Apple App Store.

Working with OpenFeint, The9 has created its Game Zone social gaming platform to help promote and distribute mobile games for third-party game developers.

The9 partnered with game developer Beijing Handloft in Beijing to launch the game Terrible Coaster on mobile devices in China. The game saw great success, … Continue Reading

China overtakes U.S. to become world’s largest smartphone market

It was bound to happen eventually. Smartphone sales in China for the third quarter of 2011 surpassed U.S. sales, making China the largest smartphone market by volume, reports Strategy Analytics.

The firm’s research found that smartphone shipments reached 23.9 million units in China during Q3, while the U.S. had 23.3 million units shipped.

Even more telling is how those sales compared to the past quarter: China grew 58 percent, while the U.S. fell 7 percent. … Continue Reading

Apps for occupiers make organizing, communicating and sharing easier

The smartphone has been at the center of the Occupy Wall Street movement, just as it has played a pivotal role in the Arab Spring. And while the cameras in phones have recorded some of the movement’s most searing images, a growing number of apps are helping protest participants communicate and coordinate with one another.

Occupy Wall Street encampments across the U.S. have been dismantled by police actions, and as cold weather sets in, the … Continue Reading