Nokia China 3G phone launched

Nokia China 3G phone launched

Cellphone maker Nokia yesterday launched its first cellphone for TD-SCDMA, the Chinese-developed 3G standard, and will enhance its cooperation in application services with China Mobile Communications Corp, the world’s biggest mobile operator by subscribers.
The newly launched Nokia 6788 (N6788) mobile device is integrated with a wide range of applications including China Mobile’s online software and application store, where users will find Nokia’s Ovi Store to shop for music, gaming, and location and personal finance services.
Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia, said: “Consumers will use their cellphones in new ways, so the future device will not only provide communication but also content and we expect to have 300 million active users for content by 2011.”
These applications are device-based as users often access them through smart phones. In the smart phone market, the populous Apple iPhone is eating into Nokia’s market share.
A survey by RBC Capital Markets showed that iPhone’s smart phone market share grew to 30 percent, up 5 percentage points in the third quarter.
As Nokia reported, its smart phone market share has fallen to 35 percent in the third quarter from 41 percent in the second quarter. According to Generator Research, Nokia’s market share will drop to 20 percent by 2013, while Apple’s will rise to 33 percent.
The world’s biggest mobile device maker has sensed the threat from Apple’s iPhone and decided to catch up in the smart touch phone market.
Though Nokia reported an operating loss of 426 million euros ($630.08 million) in the third quarter, Kallasvuo said the company would still invest more in R&D for touch phones.
“In the third quarter, we have three touch phone models, and in the fourth quarter we will launch seven models.”
N6788 is expected to be available by the end of this year but the price has not been set yet. Nokia also plans to introduce more TD-SCDMA phones in the near future.
Lu Xiangdong, vice-president of China Mobile, said: “Nokia should develop as many TD-SCDMA models as its WCDMA line.”
Nokia has launched 16 3G devices in China, which support all the three standards.
China Mobile has worked with 26 cellphone makers and developed more than 60 models for TD-SCDMA. China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA service will be available in over 240 cities and its subscribers will exceed 3 million by the end of this year.
In January, the government issued three 3G licenses: the flexible TD-SCDMA to China Mobile, the proven technology of WCDMA to China Unicom, and the easy-to-upgrade CDMA2000 to China Telecom.

Baidus stumble offers rivals opportunities

Baidu’s stumble offers rivals opportunities

Baidu’s hasty move to a new Internet advertisement system marks a rare stumble for China’s dominant search engine, opening a window of opportunity for others salivating for a piece of the country’s fast-growing online market.
Baidu, whose name is practically synonymous with Internet search in China, surprised investors when it revealed transition to its new Phoenix Nest system will lead to softer revenues into next year as customers adjust, sending its stock down sharply.
The news was music to others, such as Sina Corp and global search leader Google, looking for a bigger piece of the pie in the world’s biggest Internet market with 235 million search users in June, up about a third from a year ago.
“In the short term, Baidu could possibly lose market share to Google,” said JP Morgan analyst Dick Wei.
“From the end user perspective, they aren’t going to see much of a difference, but from the advertisers perspective, if you look at monetization market share, it (Baidu’s market share) could be a bit lower in the next few months,” he said.
Baidu expects to lose some customers and have lower revenue in the near term after the system is fully rolled out.
Baidu shares, which shed 0.5 percent to close at $432.97 during regular trading hours in New York, fell over 13 percent in after-hours trade to $375.99 after the company gave its revenue forecast that was well below Wall Street estimates.
The glitch isn’t the first for Baidu, which was previously accused by some of the world’s biggest music companies of allowing illegal trading of copyrighted songs over its system.
But the stumble could have more serious implications as it relates directly to the company’s revenue generation model.
Baidu, whose name comes from an ancient Chinese poem, is just one of a growing field of upstart firms seeking to cash in on China’s rapidly growing Internet, home to a search market valued at 1.8 billion yuan ($263.60 million) in the second quarter.
Online game companies such as Shanda Games and NetEase vie for dominance in the country’s Internet gaming market worth nearly $1 billion in the second quarter, while portal operators such as Sina and Sohu.com also spar for dominance in the portal space.
In an Internet market where two or three names usually control each space, Baidu stands out because of its single-handed dominance of Internet search sector in China.
Several Chinese Internet firms such as NetEase, Perfect World and Baidu, have seen their share prices skyrocket this year. However, softer-than-expected fourth quarter guidance from two other companies may further dampen investor sentiment.
Sohu and its recently listed gaming unit Changyou.com warned on Monday that current-quarter revenue would come in below Wall Street estimates, sending shares down.
Baidu had 61.6 percent of China’s search market in the second quarter, according to Analysys International, compared with Google’s 29 percent. Baidu controls 29.4 percent of all Web advertising in China, while Google gets 13.9 percent.

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 Baidu eyes 3G wireless Internet technologyBaidu, which will discontinue its old keyword bidding system and fully implement its new Phoenix Nest advertising system on Dec 1, said its fourth-quarter revenue will come in at $174-180 million, more than 10 percent below analyst’s estimate of $204.7 million.
“We still feel that in Q1 there will be a material impact from this switch,” a top Baidu executive said in an earnings conference call yesterday after the company reported its results, adding it will take a few quarters for the situation to normalize.
Baidu’s shares have more than tripled since the start of the year, as the company appeared positioned to benefit from the economic recovery and a pick-up in advertising spending in China, the world’s largest Internet market.
Revenue in the three months ended Sept 30 totaled $187.3 million, a tad below the average analyst estimate of $189 million but nearly 40 percent higher than the $135.4 million a year earlier. Third-quarter net income rose to $72.2 million, from $51.2 million a share, a year ago.

Sinovac gets additional H1N1 vaccine order

Sinovac gets additional H1N1 vaccine order

Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech Ltd said on Tuesday that it had received an additional order for 5.19 million doses of its H1N1 influenza vaccine from the government.
Sinovac said in a statement on its website that it was required to produce the new batch of the Panflu 1 vaccine for the central government by Dec 12.
The company added that it had already completed production of its first batch of 6.3 million doses.

Sinovac was the first company worldwide to complete clinical trials for a vaccine to treat the new H1N1 strain, commonly known as swine flu.
China has to date reported 35,664 H1N1 infections, including three deaths.
Health Minister Chen Zhu warned last month that China faced a grim situation in containing the disease as schools started up again and the number of cases rose.
Sinovac said in September that its vaccine protected patients with a single dose.

Sinopec discovers super large gas field in Chongqing

Sinopec discovers super large gas field in Chongqing

A subsidiary of China Petrochemical Corporation, also known as the Sinopec Group, has discovered a super-large gas field in Chongqing in southwest China, xinhuanet.com reported Monday, citing a statement from the group.

Sinopec group estimates that the gas field contains a reserve of 120 billion cubic meters of natural gas. It may be the largest gas field in Asia, Sinopec employees said.
The company anticipates beginning drilling in the field soon.

IBM grows its consulting services

IBM grows its consulting services

The IBM Building is a well-known fixture on Madison Avenue in New York City. IBM Global Business Services this year opened six new offices in Shenyang, Wuhan, Nanjing and other Chinese cities. [Agencies]

Most companies tend to reduce their spending during the economic slowdown. But US technology giant International Business Machines (IBM) seems to regard the downturn as a critical time to invest.
Marc Chapman, general manager of IBM Global Business Services for the Greater China Group, said the demand for consulting has actually increased during the current economic slowdown, since many companies in bad times tend to focus more efforts on integrating their existing operations.
“Many companies were just building up their scale during the past few years when markets were growing,” he said.
“But the economic slowdown is giving many companies opportunities to turn their efforts to integrating infrastructure and information technology to get more productivity, which allows them to create a foundation for the next cycle of business growth,” Chapman said.
IBM Global Business Services this year opened six new offices in Shenyang, Wuhan, Nanjing and other Chinese cities – nearly doubling its number of offices in the country.
The company in August also opened a new Analytic Solution Center in China to help local companies build smarter business systems and drive improved decision-making strategies.
Chapman said China still has great potential to grow, since most provinces each boasts a population that is much bigger than that of a European country.
He said many Chinese companies such as Huawei Technologies and ZTE are growing to be international in size.
“We are totally convinced that by 2020, there will be as many Chinese companies on the Fortune 500 as US companies,” Chapman said.
After phasing out hardware manufacturing in the past decade, IBM has been refocusing on software and information services.
In 2002, the company acquired PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, making a foray into the business consulting business.
Last year, 82 percent of IBM revenues came from software and service sales. Revenues generated from its Global Business Services segment were $19.6 billion, roughly 19 percent of IBM’s total revenues.
In its third-quarter report this month, IBM announced a 14 percent increase in net income, beating earlier estimates from analysts.
The company also improved its profit margin in the service business by shifting more work to emerging markets such as China.
Chapman said IBM sees tremendous opportunities in China.

“We have already started to move workloads to China. That will give us an extra advantage when we grow in the country,” he said.
China’s 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) economic stimulus package, which was announced late last year, is expected to invest huge sums in infrastructure projects such as railways and ports.
That, Chapman said, gives IBM a great opportunity to bring its “Smarter Planet” strategy to China.
IBM earlier this year announced the Smarter Planet campaign, which will use information technology to help companies and government organizations run more efficiently.
“Using the Internet and technology, we can solve traffic problems or water or population problems,” Chapman said.
Chapman said that during earlier technology booms, a period of “infrastructure build-up” would be followed by a crash.
“But right after the crash, there was a sustained period of innovation to use the infrastructure that had been built,” he said.
Chapman said the crash of the computing and communications sectors is now going to lead to a sustainable period of growth that will capitalize on that infrastructure.

Danish firm grows R&D for diabetes

Danish firm grows R&D for diabetes

A Novo Nordisk worker checks vials of insulin at a company factory in Kalundborg, Denmark. Novo Nordisk is investing more in China to serve a population suffering higher rates of diabetes. [Bloomberg]

With 86 years of history and around three-fourths of its business engaged in diabetes care, Novo Nordisk maintains more than 50 percent of the insulin market by volume around the world, thanks to its focused strategy.
The Denmark-based company said that it will continue this approach in China, which is its fastest-growing market.
“We have made a long-term strategic commitment to China, from building up our organization for sales and marketing to investing in local manufacturing and research and development,” said Lars Rebien Sorensen, president and CEO of Novo Nordisk.
Sorensen told China Business Weekly that the company’s efforts in China are focused on diabetes, given poor public awareness about this chronic disease.
Educating medical professionals and patients is a priority, Sorensen said.
A diabetes-focused sales strategy helped the healthcare company obtain a positive performance despite the global economic downturn.

Lars Rebien Sorensen 

Novo Nordisk generated year-on-year sales growth and operating profit increases of 12 percent and 38 percent, respectively, last year. The company has reported 29 consecutive quarters of double-digit sales growth.
Sorensen said the figures in China were even higher, citing 30 percent sales growth over the last few years.
“We focus on areas where we have leading expertise, so we are best able to develop new products and services. Our focus is our strength,” Sorensen said.
Novo Nordisk established a research and development (R&D) presence as a long-term growth strategy in the competitive pharmaceutical industry.
Novo Nordisk in 2002 established the first R&D center in China built by an international pharmaceutical company. The center in Beijing was also the first facility run by Novo Nordisk outside its headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Value chain
The 70 professionals and 11 staff members focus on research and manufacturing capabilities as an important segment of the company’s worldwide value chain, Sorensen said. The company runs two similar facilities in Denmark and the United States.
Novo Nordisk plans to double its activities at the Beijing R&D center over the next three years, making it a larger recipient of Novo Nordisk’s global annual R&D investment of $1.5 billion.
The China R&D center also partners with Chinese research institutes. The latest partnership is with the Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences (SIBS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The SIBS-Novo Nordisk Translational Research Center for Pre-diabetes in Shanghai will investigate new ways of predicting, preventing and treating diabetes with diagnostic tools, medicines and lifestyle changes.
“The focus is on the early stages of the disease,” said Wu Jiarui, vice-president of SIBS and director of the new center.
“We hope we will discover bio-markers that will enable us to intervene early in the development of obesity and diabetes, as well as identify new drug targets and proteins relevant to the prevention or treatment of obesity and diabetes,” Wu said.
Novo Nordisk was founded in 1923 by a doctor who was the first to bring insulin to Europe to save the life of his wife.
“Diabetes is a very complex disease, and there is still no cure. We are proud to be at the forefront of developing new approaches to address the unmet medical needs of people living with diabetes,” said Sorensen, 55, a 27-year veteran of the world’s largest insulin maker.
The disease was first seen in developed regions such as the United States and Europe and is now spreading in developing countries such as China.
Among emerging economies, China has the second-largest number of diabetes patients after India.
More than 40 million Chinese people suffer from diabetes, and the number is likely to double by 2025.
“The need is unfortunately becoming larger and larger. An increasing number of people will need medication and education,” Sorensen said.
Focus on expansion
Novo Nordisk set up a manufacturing plant in Tianjin in 1996. Late last year, the company announced an investment of $400 million to establish a new facility next to the old one.
Covering 880,000 sq m and producing insulin cartridges for Chinese and global markets, the new plant is the largest single investment outside Copenhagen.
The facility will be completed by 2012, creating 500 new jobs, according to the company.
Novo Nordisk has built a sales team with more 1,600 staff members – three-fourths of its 2,200 employees in China. The company will expand its force by 20 percent in coming years.
“We are expanding in China in all aspects to meet the growing needs for quality diabetes treatment.” Sorensen said.
China’s pharmaceutical market grew at a compounded annual rate of 22.6 percent from 2003 to 2008, reaching $24.5 billion in sales in 2008, according to IMS, a US-based international pharmaceutical market research company.
According to IMS, China already is the world’s sixth-largest pharmaceutical market and will become the third-largest market by 2011.
Such a large market is driving drug makers, including Novo Nordisk’s competitors such as Bayer, Eli Lilly and Sanofi-Aventis, to gain a larger share.
“We have two key advantages. One is the large scale of production, which means that we can make insulin at a low cost,” Sorensen said.
“The other advantage is our R&D leadership that makes it possible to develop new and modern drugs,” he said.
Novo Nordisk is the only drug maker with a full portfolio of short-acting, mixed and long-acting insulin analogs, he said.
China is the third-largest market for Novo Nordisk after the United States and Japan.
Education outreach
Novo Nordisk also has been focusing on public and professional education in China as a way to increase awareness and the company’s influence in this sector.
So far, the company has helped train more than 150,000 healthcare professionals in China.
Its public education and community initiatives include educational bus tours in rural areas.
The company also supports high-level international meetings such as the Diabetes Leadership Forum, which was held in New York in 2007 and in Moscow last year.
This year’s meeting, hosted by the Chinese Ministry of Health and the World Diabetes Foundation, will take place in Beijing later this month.

Siemens to pursue wind power tech for growth

Siemens to pursue wind power tech for growth

It was a sunny and windy afternoon in Beijing. Richard Hausmann, president and CEO of Siemens China, could hear the wind whistling outside his office located in the northern part of the city.
“China has rich wind energy resources, and Siemens is now taking an active role in the country’s wind power sector,” said Hausmann, who is also CEO of Siemens Northeast Asia.
The German company started construction on a 581 million yuan wind power equipment factory in Shanghai in May. The move marks its entry into China’s wind power market.
The plant will first produce blades for wind turbines with capacities of 2.3 megawatts and 3.6 megawatts. The plant is expected to begin operations in the second half of next year.
 
With the plant, Siemens has gained a foothold in China’s booming wind energy market, Hausmann said.
Besides providing equipment to domestic customers, Siemens can also supply a full range of services in the wind power area, he added.
Although wind power still accounts for a small part of Siemens’ portfolio in China wind power, Hausmann said he is confident about the future.
“Wind power will continue to see rapid growth in China in the future, as the government is encouraging the use of more clean energy in total energy consumption,” Hausmann said.
“As a market leader, we will bring our most advanced products and solutions to the Chinese market,” he said.
Siemens began wind turbine production through its acquisition of the Danish wind power developer Bonus Energy in 2004. The company has since developed into the leading company in the offshore wind power arena, Hausmann said.
“We are now also talking with some Chinese companies on some offshore wind power projects,” he said.
Solar energy
In addition to wind power, Siemens is also looking closely at investment opportunities in solar energy in China.
The company’s recent acquisition of an Israeli solar power company can further facilitate its entry into the domestic market, Hausmann said.
The company agreed to buy the solar thermal power company Solel Solar Systems Ltd (Solel) for about $418 million earlier this month.
Solel, based in Beit Shemesh, Israel, develops and builds solar thermal power plants and makes solar receivers. The receivers are main components for the facilities that collect sunlight with mirrors to generate steam to power turbines.
“With the deal, we have strengthened our portfolio in solar energy. We are also very interested in the sector in the Chinese market,” Hausmann said.
To develop more renewable energy business is in line with Siemens’ strategy to place more focus on energy-efficient and environmentally friendly technologies, Hausmann said.
“The percentage of our company’s revenue generated by our green portfolio will increase significantly,” he told reporters at a recent press conference.
“China’s demand for environmentally friendly technologies will remain robust. This will continue to be a strong growth area for Siemens in China,” he said.
The company earlier announced it expected to receive orders totaling 20 billion yuan from China’s economic stimulus package in the next three years.
Of those expected orders, half would go to energy-efficient and environmentally friendly technologies, the company said.
Green business
As Europe’s largest engineering company, Siemens has reorganized its portfolio into three business groups: industry, energy and healthcare.
In addition to energy, the company’s industry divisions also have accelerated their pace in doing green business in China.
For instance, Siemens’ home appliances division launched its 3D air-drying washer-dryer in the Chinese market last month.
Compared with traditional washer-dryers, the new product can save 30 liters to 90 liters of water during the drying processes.
“Water conservation has become an important issue for China. With this product, we will help our customers better conserve the natural resource,” said Roland Gerke, president and CEO of BSH Home Appliances (China) Co Ltd, a 50-50 venture between Siemens and Bosch.
BSH since 1990 has succeeded in cutting the average energy consumption of its products by more than 40 percent, Gerke said.
Gerke said the company is also developing a refrigerator that uses solar power. The product, a hybrid, can use solar power and also electricity when there is no sun.
BSH began research and development work for the product last year. It will be launched first in China, Gerke said.
Siemens’ metals technologies division is also expanding its presence in the Chinese market with green solutions.
It has provided a new technology, called Corex C-3000, to Baosteel, China’s leading steel company. The technology can eliminate the need for coking plants in the production process, significantly reducing raw material costs and environmental emissions.
It has also signed another agreement with Ma’anshan Iron & Steel Co Ltd (Masteel) in Anhui province to build a MEROS (Maximized Emission Reduction Of Sintering) plant to reduce emissions. Sintering is a method for making objects from powder by heating the material until its particles adhere to each other.
Today, energy and raw materials account for 70 percent of the total costs incurred by steel plants. Reducing operating costs and making more efficient use of input materials are attracting an increasing amount of interest, said Richard Pfeiffer, CEO of Siemens VAI metals technologies.
Siemens China CEO Hausmann said more than 50 percent of the future growth of Siemens China would be related to green technology.Siemens’ green portfolio of business in China will generate orders valued at $6 billion for Siemens next year — 40 percent of the company’s total orders in China for 2010, the company said.

Shanghai Electric to help build Vietnam power plant

Shanghai Electric to help build Vietnam power plant

Chinese Shanghai Electric Group signed an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract with Electricity of Vietnam Friday in Hanoi to help it build a thermal power plant.
Under the contract, the Shanghai Electric Group will conduct the designs, construction, installation and equipment supply for the Vinh Tan thermal power plant in Vietnamese northern province of Binh Thuan. The contract is valued at $1.3 billion.

The Vinh Tan thermal power plant is expected to provide between 7.5 and 8 billion kWh of electricity a year, said Zhou Zhizhu, vice president of the Shanghai Electric Power Generation Group at the signing ceremony.
The plant is an important project, which would help meet the country’s demand for electricity in the coming years, said Pham LeThanh, General Director of the EVN.
The plant is scheduled to be put into operation in 2013. The Export-Import Bank of China will provide a preferential loan for building the plant.

Chinese rolling mill firm in talks with INTFOR

Chinese rolling mill firm in talks with INTFOR

Zhengzhou Top Rolling Technology Co Ltd (Zhengzhou Top), a leading Chinese rolling mill firm, is in talks with Romanian INTFOR to boost cooperation in steel production projects, the Chinese firm said in Zhengzhou on Friday.
“No contract has been signed. We are doing our best to get the opportunity of cooperation on the future steel projects from Romania INTFOR,” said Zhao Linzhen, general manager of Zhengzhou Top based in this capital of central China’s Henan province.

Zhao said media reports in July saying the company had reached the export deal with INTFOR on retrofitting an old steel-rolling production line and providing complete equipment for a new steel-rolling production line to the Romania metallurgical manufacturer were not correct. Zhengzhou Top was still in talk with INTFOR to get involved in the projects.

CNPC: Talks not begun on Repsol arm buy

CNPC: Talks not begun on Repsol arm buy

China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) hasn’t started formal talks with Repsol YPF SA on acquiring a stake in the Spanish company’s Argentine unit, Bloomberg reported yesterday, citing a company official.
CNPC is not at that stage yet, Wang Dongjin, vice-president of CNPC told reporters at a conference in Beijing yesterday, Bloomberg reported.
Repsol, Spain’s largest oil company, is maintaining a plan to cut exposure to Argentina and its “preferred” means to do that is through a public offering of a stake in its YPF unit, spokesman Kristian Rix said in a telephone interview this month.
While the Madrid-based company was pursuing talks to sell a stake in the unit to CNPC, it hasn’t received any formal offers, two people familiar with the matter said in August.
CNPC had proposed offering $13 billion to $14.5 billion for a controlling stake in the YPF SA unit, three people familiar with the matter said in July.
This year State-owned companies have successfully made seven acquisitions of overseas oil and gas assets cumulatively worth 82 billion yuan ($12.01 billion), CNPC said in an earlier report.
This represents an 80-percent increase compared with the same period last year, it said.
Of the deals, the largest was China’s second largest oil company Sinopec Group’s $7.51-billion takeover of Geneva-based oil and gas producer Addax Petroleum Corp. This is currently the largest overseas takeover by a single Chinese company.
Domestic companies have paid increasing attention to regions such as the Middle East, Africa and South America while scouting for overseas assets, Andy Brogan, global oil and gas transaction advisory leader at Ernst & Young told China Daily in an interview.
China’s sound relations with countries in the regions may help domestic companies succeed in making deals in the area, he added.
According to a recent report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 64.5 percent of the country’s oil consumption is likely to be met by imports in 2020.