China’s technology Ministry is worried about the dominance of Google’s Android platform, according to Reuters. The news agency links to a whitepaper authored by the research arm of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology which contains the above graph — so it’s not difficult to see what the Ministry’s issue is: Android has grown from a standing start in 2008 to saturate the local market, taking 72.4 per cent in Q3 2012 (Gartner sourced data).
According to Reuters, the Ministry’s whitepaper is critical of China’s dependency on a platform it argues is ultimately controlled by Mountain View. “Our country’s mobile operating system research and development is too dependent on Android. While the Android system is open source, the core technology and technology roadmap is strictly controlled by Google,” the whitepaper states.
It also claims that Google has deliberately impeded the progress of some Chinese companies seeking to develop their own operating systems (presumably by forking Android) by delaying code sharing, and accuses Google of using commercial agreements to restrain the business development of mobile devices of these companies. The paper goes on to pile praise on homegrown companies such as Alibaba, Baidu and Huawei for creating their own systems.
Google declined to comment on the allegations in the whitepaper when contacted by TechCrunch.
Alibaba’s Aliyun OS was going to be used by Acer to power a Chinese smartphone planned for launch last year — but cancelled, at least in part, after Google intervened. (Google argued that Acer was building what it described as a “non-compatible” Android device, having previously committed to building compatible devices.) Presumably this is the sort of commercial pressure the whitepaper is critical of.
Alibaba also declined to comment on the Chinese whitepaper when contacted by Techcrunch.
Another graph in the whitepaper pegs the Aliyun OS’s share of the 2012 Chinese market at around one per cent — versus 86.4 per cent for Android: Reuters speculates that the Chinese government could be planning to impose regulations on Android to try to rein it in and give Chinese companies a chance to take some a greater share. That could also be good news for smaller foreign players such as Finnish startup Jolla, which is using the MeeGo open source OS as the foundation of its new Sailfish platform. Jolla is targeting its debut smartphone at China first, as well as setting up a base in Hong Kong to build an alliance around Sailfish. It has also attracted investment from China.
The smartphone market in China is undoubtedly huge — Jolla’s CEO describes it as a “300 million device market”. China also passed the U.S. as the world’s top country for active Android and iOS smartphones and tablets last month so it’s also a growing market. But while Android undoubtedly dominates the OS landscape not all Chinese Android-powered device are equal since a large proportion of homegrown mobile makers heavily customise Android and do not carry any of the standard Google services such as its Play store.
Analyst Enders Analysis created the below chart last year depicting Android page view data, sourced from Baidu, which illustrates how smaller Chinese device makers are increasingly dominating China’s device landscape — accounting for 39 per cent of the page views on Baidu properties in September 2012 vs just 22 per cent for the otherwise globally dominant Android OEM Samsung:
“Almost none” of the ‘other’ category of devices in this chart have Google services on them, according to Enders analyst Benedict Evans — so you could say that while Google’s platform is huge in China, Google itself may have far less influence than Android’s spread suggests because such a large swathe of locally made Androids are cut off from its services and thus can’t generate advertising sales for Mountain View.
In a recent blog post discussing Google’s failure to deliver any Android activation data since September 2012, Evans also notes that: “The great majority of Android devices sold in China, which are probably a third of total Android sales, come with no Google services installed, including no Google Play, and hence are not even included in Google’s activation numbers, since signing into Google Play is what counts as ‘activation’.”
A cursory look at the ZTE Grand S might leave you worrying that it will fetch quite the premium for that 5-inch screen, LTE and quad-core performance. Not so, according to mobile division lead He Shiyou. He estimates that the smartphone’s price in mainland China will hover between ¥3,000 to ¥3,500 ($ 481 to $ 561), depending on market conditions — a reasonable bargain for a high-end model expected to ship before the first quarter of the year is out. We’re just left wondering whether the value-minded pricing will hold if and when the Grand S goes on a world tour.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Via: GizChina
Source: MyDrivers (translated)
Related Posts:
Fired? I would have given him a raise for ingenuity.
A software developer was recently fired after his employer discovered he had secretly outsourced his entire job to China for a mere 20% of what he was making. And, since brobro had so much free time on his hands, he also accepted a bunch of freelance gigs and outsourced all of those too. Clearly we have some sort of business genius on our hands.
…relying on a case study presented by the security team at Verizon, the gentleman in question was very interested in Reddit, eBay shopping, and watching cat videos during working hours.
So he allegedly outsourced his work to China. Yes, all of his work. He did nothing at all — workwise, that is, according to Verizon.
However, the Verizon folks say he also attempted to perform this liberating ploy simultaneously on other companies — presumably he was accepting freelance projects on the side.
What some might find amusing — or even dispiriting — is that his employers valued him highly, as the work was of an excellent standard.
Ahahahahahaha, they loved the quality of work he turned in. That’s beautiful. I bet they’re just embarrassed this dude figured out how to cut their costs by 80% and they didn’t think of it first. Screw firing him, I say make him president of the company. God willing he’ll outsource that too.
Thanks to LupusYonderboy, who was bragging about outsourcing this tip. Oh yeah — WELL GUESS WHO WROTE THIS ARTICLE?
Apple’s iPhone 5 is a “hit” according to English-language Chinese newspaper Shanghai Daily, despite the fact that there were not huge lineups or riots in the streets as there were on iPhone 4S launch day. That’s because most of the new phones were sold at China Unicom and China Telecom stores, the newspaper reports, rather than at Apple’s three Shanghai stores. In Shanghai alone, the newspaper puts first day sales at around 20,000 iPhone 5s through brick and mortar retail.
That includes around 15,000 sold through carrier outlets, making for a “robust” launch according to market watchers speaking to the Shanghai Daily, and adds to the 300,000 pre-orders seen through Apple’s China Unicom alone, which the carrier itself reported earlier this week. China Telecom wasn’t as transparent about its overall pre-order numbers but a Beijing subsidiary did reveal amazing 5,000 reservations for Apple’s new smartphone.
Other outlets also report strong iPhone 5 sales, including 100,000 pre-orders from home appliance retailer Suning, which also sold 20,000 handsets through its retail channels in China. It’s hard to compare this to data from previous launches, as last year riots halted sales early with the iPhone 4S. The iPhone 4 sold 60,000 units (across the entire country, not just in Shanghai) on launch day, however, with over 200,000 pre-orders through China Unicom, then the exclusive iPhone carrier in the country. The 3GS did far worse, netting 100,000 sales only after six weeks of availability, but it also came to China two years after it had been available in the U.S.
Jay Yarow at Business Insider points out some reasons why this launch appears on the surface to be weaker than others have in the past, including the implementation of a tightly regulated reservation system by Apple to defray the kind of trouble it ran into with the 4S, and also to prevent grey market resale. Apple is also using a lot more third-party resale partners than it has in the past, and as noted above, buyers seem to be flocking to those outlets.
This launch is definitely a much more muted affair than what we saw last year, but those proclaiming that they’re a sign of a weak opening in China could be jumping to conclusions before all the data is on the table.
Microsoft’s vice president for the Greater China region has revealed that the company’s Windows Phone 7.8 upgrade will begin rolling out in the country in the “coming weeks,” backing up a previous promise to release the software before the end of the year. Speaking to Chinese newspaper BJD, the executive also confirmed that Windows Phone 8 handsets will go on sale in the country next month.
First announced back in June, Windows Phone 7.8 is seen as a compromise between versions 7.5 and 8, providing a revamped start screen with fully resizable tiles. It will be available as an upgrade for older handsets such as Nokia’s Lumia 900, as well as powering new low-end devices, and is expected to roll out to the rest of the world following its…
Motorola created quite some buzz with its first “Intel inside” Android phone, the RAZR i, back in September, so it’s only natural to see the company tapping into the Chinese market with a localized variant. Dubbed the RAZR i MT788, this China Mobile device bears much similarity to its Western sibling on paper: 2GHz Intel Atom Z2480, 4.3-inch 960 x 540 AMOLED display (with Gorilla Glass), eight-megapixel camera, microSD expansion (up to 32GB) and Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
The difference? Well, the chassis is the most obvious one: instead of using the same design as the original RAZR i, the new MT788 looks identical to the MSM8625-powered dual-SIM XT788 on China Telecom. On top of that, the battery is rated at just 1,735mAh instead of the RAZR i’s 2,000mAh, and there’s just 4GB of built-in memory instead 16GB; but the front-facing camera’s bumped up from 0.3 megapixels to 1.3. There’s no price just yet, but interested buyers can pick one up in China starting in mid-December. Will the world’s largest carrier help Intel take a significant bite out of the mobile phone market? Only time will tell.
Gallery: Motorola’s RAZR i MT788 announced with 2GHz Intel chip, heading to China Mobile next month
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Motorola’s RAZR i MT788 announced with 2GHz Intel chip, heading to China Mobile next month originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Nov 2012 06:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Related Posts: 
Ever since 2000, game consoles have effectively (if not very assertively) been banned in China. There’s already been signs of a warming attitude with official plans for the Nintendo 3DS XL coming this December, but Sony may have slipped out hints of a fuller thaw without anyone noticing until now. A Sina Weibo user just discovered that the 160GB and 320GB versions of the previous-generation PlayStation 3, the CECH-3012, passed through China Compulsory Certificate approval in July — an odd move when the console couldn’t actually go on sale in an official capacity in current conditions. Certification is still far from a guarantee that Sony will actually sell the PS3 in the country, most of all when it’s a slightly outdated model of a console line that’s edging ever nearer to a replacement. The government certainly hasn’t commented on what the regulatory clearance means. If it ultimately leads to more gamers in Chengdu or Shanghai, however, we’re all for it.
Sony quietly gets PlayStation 3 certification in China, we hope for a few more Dynasty Warriors players originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Nov 2012 10:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink 
Engadget Spanish (translated), Eurogamer | 
Tech in Asia | Email this | Comments
Nokia has announced its lowest priced Windows Phone to date: the WP7.5 Nokia Lumia 510 replaces the Lumia 610 as the entry level WP handset — with an estimated retail price of $ 199 (excluding taxes and subsidies). India and China are the initial target markets, starting in November, “followed closely” by other Asia-Pac countries and South America.
The announcement by Nokia of a new device running Microsoft’s older OS, WP7.5 — rather than the high end, forthcoming WP8 platform — is the clearest sign yet Nokia is committed to trying to use Windows Phone as a low end smartphone platform, either alongside its Series 40 Asha line of devices or perhaps as a future replacement OS. If Nokia does choose to focus its low end efforts solely on WP7.5, Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza believes that could help Microsoft gain significant smartphone market share in future — predicting WP could gain a fifth of the market by 2016.
The Lumia 510 is still double the price of Nokia’s cheapest full-touchscreen Ashas — which carry a $ 99 price-tag. Non-touchscreen Asha are cheaper still so WP7.5 has a long way to go to achieve the same deep low end reach as Series 40. But every little helps to compete against Android’s sprawling mid-tier.
Gartner’s Cozza told TechCrunch: “It is critical for Nokia at this stage to drive volumes and fill the void quickly they have in their low to mid tier smartphone portfolio and so they need to broaden further the Lumia range. This should enable Nokia to better fend off competitive pressure coming from low cost Android offerings which are increasing at a very rapid pace in emerging markets. In these markets Nokia has market reach and still a desirable brand, and can offer differentiated and value services.”
Comment on the Lumia 510 launch in a statement, Jo Harlow, executive vice president of Nokia Smart Devices, said: “With the Nokia Lumia 510 we continue to meet our commitment to bring Windows Phone to new, lower price points. People who use Windows Phone quickly realize how much more intuitive it is than other smartphone platforms, and Nokia Lumia is the best embodiment of the Windows Phone experience. With the Nokia Lumia 510 we’re looking forward to welcoming more people into the Windows Phone experience.”
The Lumia 510 has a 4 inch capacitive touchscreen, with a resolution of 800×480 pixels. The phone is powered by a Snapdragon S1 chip, has 256MB of RAM, and 4GB of user accessible memory plus 7GB of free SkyDrive storage (Microsoft’s cloud storage service) — however there’s no Micro SD card slot to expand on board storage further. On the back is a five megapixel camera. The battery is rated at 1,300mAh.
To bulk out the Lumia 510′s software offerings, Nokia has included a Camera Extras app — to add changeable, digital lens/filters to the camera — plus its Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive and Nokia Transport apps, which are also found on high end Lumias.
China Mobile will be getting a variant of the Lumia 920, placing Nokia’s upcoming flagship device on the world’s largest carrier. As shown by Winp.cn, the device, known as the Lumia 920T, has the carrier’s signature G3 logo on the upper-left corner of the handset, and is expected to launch in November. Little else is known about how the variant differs from the version that AT&T will be selling, except that it is built to support China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE bands.
The existence of the Lumia 920T suggests that Nokia is willing to make changes to their flagship under certain circumstances. Whether or not this means that a variant will be released in the United States remains to be seen, but AT&T’s alleged six month exclusivity…
Question by Zombia likes sun people: Do you think we should of turned to the age of robotics instead of outsourcing to China? Oh wait! The movie terminator scared everyone. Right!
Best answer:
Answer by Kyle HaywoodUnion cost scare me more than the Terminator.
Add your own answer in the comments!
Related Posts: