China

Tim Cook visited Beijing-based bike-sharing company ofo on Tuesday, according to Reuters. The Apple CEO has been in China since at least Saturday, when he gave a wide-ranging talk at the China Development Forum. During his ofo stop, Cook met with founding members including CEO Dai Wei, and posed for pictures of him riding a yellow ofo bike. "Thanks for welcoming me today, ofo team! Great...

Apple CEO Tim Cook gave a talk on Saturday to attendees of the China Development Forum 2017, where he offered commentary on a range of issues including globalization, economics, and data privacy. The annual forum is a high-profile conference in which senior Chinese government officials, global corporation leaders, institutions, and scholars gather to discuss major issues including Chinese...

Apple announced today that it will set up two additional research and development centers in China, to go with the two locations in the country that it announced last year. The new R&D centers will open in Shanghai and Suzhou, the company said in a statement on its Chinese website on Friday. Apple hopes the centers will help it to attract graduates from institutes such as Peking University,...

Qualcomm, ZTE, and China Mobile have announced plans to start interoperability testing and outdoor trials for the new 5G radio specifications being developed by the 3GPP group (via DigiTimes). The interoperability testing and trials will launch in China starting in the second half of 2017, with the goal of the trials being to showcase how 5G NR technologies can efficiently achieve multi-gigabit...

Apple has fallen to fifth place in China's booming smartphone market, where combined sales reached 131.6 million units in the fourth quarter of 2016, accounting for nearly a third of worldwide shipments. The Q4 figure confirmed the highest ever annual amount of smartphones sold in China, according to market research firm Canalys, with shipments for the year reaching 476.5 million units, rising...

Apple remained the fourth largest smartphone vendor in China in 2016, beaten out by Oppo, Huawei, and Vivo in first, second, and third places, respectively, according to new data from research firm IDC. As a whole, IDC said it was a good year for the smartphone market in China, which saw a 19 percent year-over-year growth in 2016, and a 17 percent quarter-over-quarter growth in the fourth quarter ...

Xiaomi vice president Hugo Barra today announced that he will be leaving the Chinese smartphone maker next month. The former senior Android executive at Google said he will be returning to Silicon Valley in February after the Chinese New Year to reunite with friends and family. He described moving to Beijing, some "6,500 miles out of his comfort zone," as the "greatest and most challenging...

Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn is planning to build a new facility next to the iPhone maker's upcoming research and development center in Shenzhen, China, according to Nikkei Asian Review. The report cites an unnamed source who claims the facility will enable Foxconn to "better help Apple create prototypes of new products in this new campus," set to open in 2017. Apple's own facility in ...

Apple is planning to open a flagship retail store underneath Piazza del Liberty, or Liberty Square, in Milan, the most populous metropolitan area in Italy, according to preliminary guidelines approved by the city's planning department last month. Render of planned flagship Apple Store in Milan, Italy The retail store will be developed by architecture firm Foster and Partners, who have...

Popular Chinese mobile app company WeChat [Direct Link] congratulated Apple on ten years of the iPhone earlier this morning, with founder Allan Zhang posting photos online from the iPhone's unveiling in January 2007. Simultaneously, WeChat parent company Tencent Holdings launched a suite of cloud-based smartphone apps that analysts believe suggests WeChat intends to "play a leading role in...

In a lengthy new article posted online today, The New York Times has delved into the inner workings of Foxconn's major iPhone manufacturing plant in Zhengzhou, China, referred to locally as "iPhone City." The article describes how the facility became one of Apple's major global manufacturing plants, as well as the "hidden bounty of perks, tax breaks, and subsidies" uncovered behind the scenes of...

Apple recently struck a deal with Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology, known as the world's largest wind turbine maker, which will bring clean energy into the production processes and manufacturing plants of Apple's partner facilities in China (via South China Morning Post). Specifically, Goldwind's wholly-owned subsidiary Beijing Tianrun New Energy Investment will transfer a 30 percent...

As Apple's iPhone 6s is facing scrutiny in China over a battery issue that causes unexpected shutdowns, a Chinese consumer group has complained of a separate problem with the iPhone 6 - spontaneous battery fires. According to the The Wall Street Journal, the Shanghai Consumer Council says it received eight reports from Chinese users claiming their smartphones spontaneously caught on fire, but...

Apple has announced it will be opening a new retail store at Vanke Mall in Qibao, an ancient town and popular tourist destination in the suburbs of Shanghai, China, on Saturday, December 10 at 10:00 a.m. local time. The location will become Apple's seventh retail store in Shanghai and its 489th store overall. Apple is closing in on 500 retail stores worldwide following the grand openings of...

Apple has hired a former reporter and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Wei Gu, to its public relations department in Shanghai, China. Gu's role, per LinkedIn (via TechCrunch) will be PR Director, which she began this month. Gu's professional history spans 18 years and includes jobs at CNN and Reuters, working as a video journalist and reporter to break news regarding technology companies ...

A collection of companies based in the United States could face "impaired" blowback if President-elect Donald Trump follows through with his campaign plan of imposing a 45 percent tariff on imports from China, as well as considering China "a currency manipulator." According to Chinese newspaper Global Times, these actions will not only negatively affect China's reputation, but "the trade...

Xiaomi surprised at its Beijing event today by announcing the Mi Mix, the "world's first edgeless display" phone, alongside the company's new Mi Note 2. Designed by French designer Philippe Starck, the Mi Mix is a 6.4-inch device that features a 2040x1080 pixel, 17:9 aspect ratio borderless display that takes up 91.3 percent of the front of the handset. The only significant bezel sits at the...

Xiaomi unveiled its latest phablet phone, the Mi Note 2, at an event in Beijing today, with the clear intention of filling the void left by the ill-fated Samsung Galaxy Note 7. The Note 2 is the newest model in Xiaomi's premium Mi line and features a 5.7-inch flexible OLED display that sits under a panel of wraparound glass and curves around the sides of the handset. On the rear is a...

China has "shattered" records with the highest iOS revenue quarter reported to date, for any country that has been tracked by app intelligence firm App Annie. In total, the country is now the number one largest market in the world for App Store revenue on Apple's iPhone and iPad devices, with its record-breaking number sitting at $1.7 billion for Q3 2016. China is now 15 percent ahead of the...

Apple announced tonight that it would open a new research and development center in Shenzhen, China, continuing attempts to boost its presence in the country, reports Reuters. The move comes a couple weeks after Apple opened a Beijing R&D center, which was announced in August. Shenzhen's High-Tech Industrial Park, >Photo by Brucke Osteuropa Cook announced the new Shenzhen plan during a...