BizChina

Research In Motion and Chinese telecoms provider China Mobile will expand BlackBerry services to smaller companies and individual users, allowing RIM to boost use of the "smartphones" in the potentially huge market.

The greater cooperation announced by China Mobile and RIM on Tuesday in Beijing includes plans to support China's indigenous TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE technologies for BlackBerry devices used in China, the companies said in a statement.

China Mobile, the world's biggest phone carrier by subscribers, has provided BlackBerry services in China since 2006, but use of the devices was limited mainly to employees of a few major corporations. The companies intend to expand that to smaller companies and "professional consumers," it said.

More than 87 million Chinese bought goods on the Internet this year, about 24 million more than last year and an increase of 38.9 percent year-on-year, the Beijing Times reported, citing a recent report by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).

Most online shoppers are students or white-collar workers between the ages of 18 and 30, with a monthly income of 1,000 yuan (146 U.S. dollars) to 3,000 yuan (439 U.S. dollars). More women shop online than men, and clothing and home-use products are the most popular goods bought online.

According to the "Report on China's Online Shopping 2009", the total sum of national online consumption for the first half of the year was 119.5 billion yuan (17.5 billion U.S. dollars), 89 percent of which through consumer to consumer websites like Taobao.com.

CNNIC estimates the total sum of annual online shopping will reach 250 billion yuan (36.6 billion U.S. dollars) this year.

Global innovative technology leader Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) said yesterday that China could become the company's largest single market within the next two years, boosted by the country's booming rural market and increasing demand for notebooks.

The observation came from AMD president and chief executive officer Dirk Meyer, whose company now stands as the world's second largest chipmaker.

"There are speculations that China will become the world's largest PC market by 2012, but for us, China could become our largest market sooner than that, as we have a higher market share in the country," he said.

China's PC market has showed signs of recovery during the past few months, as the government's economic stimulus package and efforts to subsidize rural computer buyers took effect.

According to figures from research firm Gartner, the PC market in China is estimated to have grown 28.5 percent in the third quarter of 2009, compared with a worldwide average growth of 0.5 percent in the same period.

AMD senior vice president and president of AMD Greater China Karen Guo said China's PC market has shown great potential during the financial crisis. She said the company's growth in the country is expected to come from rural areas and demand for notebooks in the future.

Since the company's entry into China in 1993, it has maintained sustained growth as it successfully won local customers such as Lenovo, Founder, Tongfang and Dawning.

The company also established a close relationship with key Chinese government organizations by transferring key x86 microprocessor technology and helping China develop its own supercomputing capability.

Lagging behind market leader Intel, AMD accounts for about 25 to 30 percent of desktop computers around the world, according to the company. In the emerging notebook market, the company's share is about 10 to 15 percent.

Guo said in China AMD's market share is relatively higher. She said the company would work closely with local governments and its partners in China to cash in on the plan to sell more computers in rural areas.

AMD now has nearly 2,000 employees in China and has the company's second largest research center in the country. The company also has a microprocessor test, mark and pack (TMP) facility in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu province.

Last month, the giant chipmaker Intel announced that it would pay $1.25 billion to settle its long-running disputes with AMD, ending the industry's most bitter legal war that covers both antitrust and patent claims.

Dirk said yesterday that most of the payment it received from Intel would be used to pay the company's current debt. "But we will assuredly increase our investment in emerging markets such as China where most of the PC shipment growth comes from," he said.

In the past few years, AMD has challenged its biggest rival Intel Corp as never before in the company's 40-year history.

Earlier this year, AMD decided to drop its "Smarter Choice" tagline in exchange for "The future is fusion", as it tries to highlight the combination of its microprocessor and graphics technologies.
 

China announced Wednesday a regulation to standardize and encourage the establishment of joint venture enterprises by overseas investors.

According to the regulation, which will take effect from March next year, the government is to encourage overseas investors with advanced technology and management experience to set up joint ventures in an effort to promote the development of industries such as the modern service sector.

The regulation defines those joint venture enterprises as those set up by more than two overseas investors or by an overseas investor and a Chinese investor.

The regulation, issued by the State Council, the cabinet, covers both enterprise and individual investors.

It also applies to investors from the Hong Kong special administrative region (SAR), Macao SAR and Taiwan.

The amount of foreign direct investment into China rose for the third consecutive month in October, up 5.7 percent year-on-year to $7.1 billion, according to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce.