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By znnw, 2010/01/30 13:05

Sybase set to ride mainland 3G wave

Mobile phone software maker Sybase Inc is stepping up the pace of its mobile computing business in China as the country’s 3G industry has started to blossom, a senior company executive said.
The company expects to maintain the 25-percent growth rate it achieved in the last two years in China this year also, said John Chen, chief executive of Sybase.
China has been the fastest-growing market for Sybase in the 38 countries and regions it operates in, he said.
“The 3G era will certainly see more diversified mobile applications, and there’s a lot we can do here. It’s very favorable for us,” Chen said.
Sybase will focus on developing mobile computing business, such as databases, mobile middleware, and overall software infrastructure, in an attempt to take full advantage of mobile commerce, including mobile payment and banking.
“We think that the potential of mobile commerce will be much larger than e-commerce,” Chen said.
China’s mobile middleware and mobile database markets are relatively small, but their growth would be driven by the development of the country’s mobile industry, said Liu Fei, analyst with research firm IDC.
“As mobile carriers further invest in applications and content, demand for mobile software is set to increase, and the pie of related markets will also be bigger,” said Liu.
China is planning to invest up to 58.5 billion U.S. dollars by 2011 to build 3G networks after 3G licenses were issued earlier this year. The 3G industry is also expected to generate 1 trillion yuan worth of demand in the next three years, according to officials of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Sybase has already started to cooperate with major industry players like Huawei and ZTE, and the three mobile carriers in China. It is now responsible for China Mobile’s transnational messaging infrastructure, through which users can send text messages to 19 countries.
Company officials said they are in talks with the mobile carriers for new cooperation projects.
Database, business intelligence and mobile computing are the three major engines for Sybase sales.
The company recently won a bid for providing China Mobile database products, which the carrier used to source from Oracle, the world’s second-largest software maker. But Oracle still takes up most of China’s database market share, followed by IBM and Microsoft.

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By znnw, 2010/01/30 13:05

AMD launches new PC platform brand VISION

Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the world’s second-largest chip provider, recently unveiled in China its new mainstream consumer PC platform brand, called VISION.
VISION will market the platform to consumers based on what they’ll experience with the computers, instead of on technical features.
By the end of November, there will be 19 notebook models with the VISION logo available in the Chinese market.
Rather than highlighting lots of brand names and technical specifications of individual hardware components, AMD uses VISION as the single brand and offers three levels of capabilities — VISION, VISION Premium, and VISION Ultimate. Their purpose is to simplify its brands.
“We have lots of different stickers on the PCs, and we are replacing them with just one sticker, a sticker that talks about the experience a PC gives,” said Nigel Dessau, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of AMD.
Dessau said the PC industry has overemphasized technical properties of PCs, which make no sense to most consumers. These properties tell how a PC is manufactured, but not what experience a user can get from it. AMD, he said, will try to “talk in the language of the consumer”.
Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, also simplified its brands in June. It decided to replace a set of derivatives of the Intel Core brand with shorter and less complicated names to make it easier for consumers to choose from different ones.
Experts say that consumers’ needs will play a more important role in the market and that their decisions will be based more on their own needs than technical properties of PCs in the future.

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By znnw, 2010/01/30 13:05

Shanghai Deer Jet gets nod to fly business jets

Shanghai Deer Jet Co, a subsidiary of HNA Group, China’s fourth largest commercial aviation group, has won permission from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to provide business aviation services, the Oriental Morning Post reported today.
Business aviation service is attractive to high-end customers, as it allows them to decide their own routes and departure times and can cover remote areas, compared with general commercial flights. The service is still administered by a uniformed aviation safety system, though.
Deer Jet owns two Hawker 800XP jets, which it will use for high-end customers. The jets provide meeting areas, bars, restrooms, sound equipments, DVDs, satellite telephones and Internet access, which enable passengers to work during the flight.
In recent years, many airline companies have eyed the great potential in the business aviation market.
But China’s business aviation industry is still in its infant stage. Only four domestic companies — Deer Jet, Air China Business Jet, Shanghai Airlines, and Shandong Rainbow Business Aircraft Co — operate business jet services with no more than 30 planes, mainly in Beijing and Shanghai, and over 80 percent of the flights are on international routes.
Most of the companies have mediocre performances and some have seen long-time losses.
Ma Xulun, general manager of Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines, China’s third largest carrier by fleet size, said they provide aviation services for other companies’ jets, but have no plan to introduce their own business jets within the next two years.
China Eastern is set to increase its Shanghai market share to 50 percent from the current 35 percent after taking over Shanghai Airlines. Shareholders of both companies approved the proposed merger last month.

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By znnw, 2010/01/30 13:05

Compound rubber imports set to soar

China, the world’s largest rubber consumer, is expected to import 950,000 tons of compound rubber this year, a surge of nearly 71 percent from last year, an industry report said yesterday.
Compound rubber contains 99 percent natural rubber and although prices are a few cents higher, it only attracts a 5-percent import duty in China versus up to 20 percent for natural rubber.
“Compound rubber import volume was increasing in recent years because the Customs tax was lower than (that on) natural rubber,” China’s Rubber Research Institute said in a report prepared for an international conference in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Compound rubber now competes with natural rubber in the export market, with many dealers in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia aiming to produce more to take advantage of China’s import duty structure.
China bought compound rubber mainly from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and also the United States.
The country imports about half of what it consumes and expects demand for rubber to rise 8.5 percent to 6.4 million tons in 2010 because of strong growth in the country’s auto sector, according to the China Rubber Industry Association.
Of the total demand, natural rubber will be 2.8 million tons and synthetic rubber will be 3.6 million tons, according to the association.
“The development of the auto industry is still the main driver for the development in China’s rubber industry,” said the association president Fan Rende earlier this year.
The Hainan-based research body also said that auto production was projected to rise to 12.5 million units this year from 9.1 million in 2008.
Domestic tire demand could help offset a drop in China’s tire exports in 2010 and 2011, especially after the United States slapped new duties – a move which could also cut demand by 300,000 tons.
In September the United States imposed an additional duty of 35 percent on Chinese tires, besides an existing 4 percent duty. The extra duty would fall to 30 percent in the second year and 25 percent in the third year.
China has been a rare bright spot in the struggling global auto industry as government incentives spurred an increase in demand. China overtook the United States as the world’s biggest automaker in January.
China consumes 16 percent of the world’s natural rubber.
It imported 1.68 million tons of rubber in 2008, up 2.07 percent from the previous year, in which nearly half came from main producer Thailand, according to Customs data.

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By znnw, 2010/01/30 13:05

Petrobras gets $10b loan from Chinese bank

Petrobras, a Brazilian multinational energy company, signed a 10-year contract on Tuesday for a $10 billion financing from the China Development Bank Corporation, the company source confirmed Wednesday.
The fund would be used to finance the Petrobras Business Plan 2009-2013 and would be made available to the company in several stages, according to Petrobras.
The company said the contracts had been under negotiation since May 2009.
“This funding has become symbolic because of the amount involved and because it represents a new stage for relations between developing countries’ markets,” the company said in the statement.
When the first withdrawal is made, Petrobras said, a long-term agreement on the export of Petrobras oil to UNIPEC Asia, a subsidiary of Sinopec (China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation), would take effect. It forecasts the export of 150,000 barrels of oil a day in the first year, and 200,000 barrels in the nine subsequent years.