Lei Jun, chairman and CEO of smartphone maker Xiaomi, disclosed in an internal letter that the shipment of Xiaomi Phones jumped 160% year-over-year to 18.70 million sets this year, while the company’s revenue (tax included) advanced 150% from a year earlier to 31.6 billion yuan ($5.22 billion) (via Tech Sina). Lei added that the primary […]
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Tech in China 2013: Every Hardware Turns Smart
The concept of smart device is reinvigorating hardware industry in recent years. Triggered by the trend, it is no exaggeration to say that Chinese hardware industry experienced viral growth in 2013, while a spate of new hardware mushroomed and both internet giants and startups swarmed into the sector. Wearables Apart from smartwatch which we need […]
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Chinese Taxi App Didi Secured $100 million in Series C Funding
Taxi app Didi (or Didi Dache in Chinese) has finished the $100 million round of fundraising, with $60 million from Citic and $30 million from Tencent, as reported by Tencent’s online news site QQ.com (report in Chinese). It’s also confirmed that the previous round Didi raised is $15 million and is from Tencent. Before that round the […]
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WoodEgg Releases 2014 China Startup Guide aimed at Helping Aspiring Entrepreneurs Interested in China
The ‘Startup Guide’ series is an annually published country-specific guide aimed at entrepreneurs interested to learn about the respective countries. The 2014 edition is the 2nd such annual edition with 16 books on 16 countries in Asia and one book putting together all the 16 guides. The ‘Startup Guide’ series is the brainchild of entrepreneur and TED […]
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Tech in China 2013: Digital Music Market Shuffling
Top100.cn is one of the first legitimate digital music providers in China. Its founder Gary Chen is known for managing to convince, promising to share advertising revenues, the international and local music labels to offer free downloads through Google China music search which was launched in 2008. Top100 was found shut down in April 2013, half a […]
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Shenzhen Incubated Wearable Device Startup Vigo Helps You Stay Alert and Fight Drowsiness
Vigo is a wearable device in the form of a Bluetooth headset that uses infrared to look at your eyes in order to determine signs of drowsiness, and nudges you when you are dozing off. It does so in one of three ways: a flashing light, a pulsing vibration in the ear, or a sound/alarm […]
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Huawei Shipped 50 million Smartphones in 2013
More than 50 million Huawei smartphones have been shipped in 2013, according to the year-end internal mail by the company’s Consumer Business Group (source in Chinese). That’s about 56% increase from last year. But there’s “a big room for improvement in profitability compared with industry leaders, Apple and Samsung”, the mail reads, and in brand, […]
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Tech in China 2013: WeChat Still Rules Chinese IM Industry, Rivals Mull to Catch Up
WeChat still holds a leading position in Chinese IM industry this year, but several emerging rivals are poised to attract users and snap up market share. Alibaba promotes Laiwang aggressively both internally and externally with a wild wish of 30% of the market. NetEase and China Telecom partnered up to launch EasyChat, which supports calls with both landline and mobile lines, a feature missed […]
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Dianrong, P2P Funding Service Founded by Lending Club Co-founder, Books Tens of Million Dollars from Northern Light
Dianrong, a peer-to-peer funding service, secured tens of millions of dollars in Series A financing from Northern Light Venture Capital (source in Chinese). The company is cofounded by Soul Htite, co-founder of Lending Club, and Guo Yuhang, an experienced lawyer in intellectual property and venture capital sector. Launched in March this year, the turnover of […]
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What Do The First Chinese Mobile Virtual Network Operators Plan to Offer?
Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) finally announced the first mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) last week, half a year after licenses were open for application. Of the eleven Chinese private companies that now owns licenses, there are four mobile phone distributors, four Internet infrastructure/solution providers, one carrier billing service, one bus/mobile media […]