Computer maker Lenovo spent serious money to become a sponsor of the Beijing Olympics, not only designing the Olympic torch but sponsoring athletes and supplying computers for the games’ data and media teams.

It cost serious money. Some may come back from like Olympic-themed USB flash drives that cost serious money.

Lenovo announced the Olympic torch design, also featured on a Lenovo laptop, in early 2008. The 4GB flash drive sells for the equivalent of around $142.

Other patterns from Lenovo feature the adorable cartoon mascots of the Beijing Olympics: Beibei, JingJing, HuanHuan, YingYing, and NiNi.

A medallion style is currently sold out on Lenovo’s Chinese site, while a $29 4GB stick, and a $58 256MB oval-shaped drive, are for sale, with inexplicable price differences. The last of Lenovo’s designs is a $58, 1GB oval flash-drive sporting the Olympic rings.

Apparently Lenovo also makes a set of titanium Olympic flash drives engraved with the Olympic mascots and sold in a mahogany box. The price would not be insignificant although it has not been announced.
Source: Crave

Sony has begun selling what are called built-to-order personal computers in China and will probably eventually go world wide.

It hopes to increase its PC sales by 30% this fiscal year.

This ‘built-to-order label’ is somewhat misleading. All you are doing is changing the specifications within fairly restricted boundaties.

Basically you can chose between four processors, built-in software and two body designs and a few colors.

In other words Sony does not build a computer for you from scratch. (There are some small boutique companies that will do this for you — at a price.) Instead it lets you select from a fairly restricted list.

Dell probably pioneered it and made it into the center part of its marketing plan. And NEC and a few other PC makers also sell tailor-made models.

The downside is you order today and get delivery in two weeks.

Sony plans to make customization a core element of the sales experience in China although this may be difficult.
Source: Trading Markets

China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has released a report on Internet development in China in 2008: Investigation Report on Internet in Rural Area. The number of people connected in rural areas reached 52.62 million by the end of last year, an annual increase rate of 127.7%, much higher than the 38.2% annual increase rate in cities.

There is an emerging force to drive the continuous growth of Internet in China. Investigation shows that 40% (29.17 million) of the 73 million new users come from rural areas.

However, the development gap of Internet between rural areas and cities is still great.

The prevalence rate of Internet in cities is 27.3%.
In rural areas 7.1%.
Reasons for this are:

The education and income level of residents in rural areas are relatively low
Lack of knowledge about computers and the Internet, 53.3%
Lack of equipment to access Internet, 23.1%
The average weekly use of Internet by rural areas users is 12.3 hours, 5.6 hours less than in cities.

A key project led by the government and driven by various parties to support the telecommunication and Internet in rural areas is underway.
Source: China Economic Net

Three containers with suspected toxic electronic waste from the United States were detained by Hong Kong inspectors after environmental activists boarded a cargo ship.

The activists from Greenpeace placed a giant banner across three containers that said ‘Toxic Waste Not Welcomed Here’ aboard a ship that was due to unload the containers in Hong Kong.

The e-waste would then have been trucked to nearby Guangdong province in southern China, where it would have been dismantled.

Edward Chan, a Greenpeace campaigner, said, ‘The Environmental Protection Department and customs have detained the suspect containers and we hope that they send them back the United States.’ The shipment was from a company in Oakland, California.

He said, ‘Hong Kong has always been the transit point for illegal toxic waste into China because there are legal loopholes.’

Greenpeace had tracked the loading of the waste in California.

Southern China has become a world center for the processing of illegal e-waste, with much of the world’s unwanted computers broken down for constituent parts. Without strong safety precautions, workers are exposed to dangerous fumes from parts such as cadmium, lead and mercury.
Source: AFP

According to the median estimate of 11 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News Taiwan’s export growth probably accelerated in May as demand from other, mainly China, tempered weakening sales to the U.S.and Europe.

Peter Kurz, head of Taiwan research at Citigroup, said on Bloomberg Television, ‘There will be some influence from the U.S. for sure. But the growing exports to emerging markets in China, Russia, India and elsewhere will help mitigate the impact of a slowdown in the U.S.’

China’s economy expanded 10.6% in the first quarter, compared with 11.9% for the whole of last year, an easing its central bank described as ‘moderate.’

Sales of electronics to the world’s fastest growing major economy have helped Taiwan weather fallout from the U.S. financial crisis, which has cut demand for Asian exports.

Tony Phoo, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Taipei said, ‘We continue to expect robust sales to mainland China to keep overall growth supported. Electronics shipments and sales to Europe and the U.S. are expected to ’stay soft.’

The mainland and the U.S. are Taiwan’s two biggest overseas markets. Overseas shipments are equivalent to about 50% of Taiwan’s gross domestic product.
Source: Bloomberg

Taiwan computer giant ASUSTeK Computer Inc. (ASUS) has recently laid the foundation for a RMB3 billion ($428.6 million) factory in Jianxi Province in the Chinese mainland.

In the preliminary stage the factory in Ji’an city will produce copper wire yarn and computer accessories. It will produce mainboards and assemble notebook computers in the future.

Annual production at the factory is expected to reach RMB10 billion.

ASUS has a global staff of more than 100,000. Revenue for 2007 reached $6.9 billion
The illustration was not chosen for the model — atlthough that helped — but for the new sub-mini Asus which is selling at very low prices and is creating a new market.

The 900 is based around an 8.9in, 1024 x 600 display.

It will contain 1GB of DDR 2 memory and a choice of 12GB or 20GB of solid-state storage, depending on which operating system you opt for. Both capacities are configured as two partitions: one 4GB space and either 8GB or 16GB.

The 20GB model will come with Linux, Asus said, while the 12GB version will be pre-loaded with Windows XP Home Edition.

Source: China View

PC manufacturer Dell announced this month that it will add several new laptops designed specifically for China and India. The company also intends to expand its distribution in China this year.

In 2007, Dell computers were sold in 45 cities in China. By the end of 2008, stores in some 1,200 cities will carry Dell products. That’s in addition to the company’s online sales of custom computers which, as a percentage of sales, is much lower in China than elsewhere.

Michael Dell, the company’s CEO, said the struggling economy in the U.S. won’t have too much impact on sales of computers. But he expects the most growth in Asian markets, and Dell is anticipating a 27% increase in its China sales in 2008, to $23 billion.

In a press conference, Michael Dell mentioned that the company will introduce products ‘aimed exactly at Chinese customer needs,’ though he wouldn’t specify what that meant.

However, in 2007 Dell introduced the EC280, a beginner PC that costs about $335. The EC280 has up to 515 megabytes of memory and Windows XP Home Edition. It was intended to be a first computer for the millions of Chinese without Internet access.

This is not a marketing policy that has worked anywhere else in the world and it is difficult to see that it will change anything very much in China.

Sub-standard computers — no matter how you wrap them up — have little appeal. If they will not handle high speed graphics they simply will not sell.
Dell also announced the purchase of $70 billion worth of hardware from Chinese companies between 2007 and 2009. It will also invest $242,000 to connect schools in rural China to the Internet.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, it has plans to save as much as $3 billion over the next three years as it cuts costs and lays off 8,800 workers. The company also plans to close its desktop manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas.

Dell has already cut 3,200 jobs in the United States since it announced the 8,800 layoff plan last year, affecting about 10% of its workforce.
Source: InventorsSpot

Dell, the world’s second largest PC maker, said it will source 28% more components from China this year to fuel growth in emerging markets.

Michael Dell, chief executive of Dell and shown here, said in Beijing that the company plans to buy $23 billion of components from Chinese suppliers this year, up from $18 billion in 2007.

He said, ‘Including last year, this year and expected purchases next year, Dell will purchase $70 billion worth of computer-related supplies and equipment from China.’

Dell posted revenue of $16 billion in the fourth quarter ending Feb 1, an increase of 10% compared with the year-earlier period. Dell wants to cut costs by buying more components from China so it can take on rivals like HP, Acer and Lenovo in the emerging markets.

According to research firm IDC Dell held 7.9% of China’s PC market in the fourth quarter last year — behind Lenovo, HP and Founder Technology,

Dell’s direct sales model is hindering the manufacturer from making inroads into China’s growing rural consumer market in that it is not a typical nor yet traditional way of making such a purchase.

Dell yesterday denied speculation that it’s looking for acquisition targets in China. Amit Midha, president of Dell (Greater China), said the company doesn’t have plans to acquire smaller players in the country.
Source: China Daily

One way of growing quickly is m&A — mergers and acquisitions. Now Lenovo, China’s biggest personal-computer maker, is ‘interested’ in buying companies overseas to expand share outside its main domestic market.

Chairman Yang Yuanqing told reporters in Beijing, where he is attending the annual meeting of the Chinese legislature that ‘If there is a good opportunity and it offers good returns to shareholders, we will definitely consider it.’

Lenovo, which gets more than half of sales from Asia, is seeking acquisitions after Acer last year foiled its plans to buy Netherlands-based Packard Bell BV to increase its footprint in Europe.

Chairman Yang said Lenovo, which sells computers to companies in Japan, plans to enter the consumer market there, without giving a timeframe. He said any acquisition by Lenovo won’t be in Japan.

Lenovo has increased its distribution networks in India and eastern Europe and sold more notebooks in China, expanding in emerging markets to narrow the gap with Hewlett-Packard and Dell. Lenovo in January said it will sell its moble phonet unit for $100 million after shipments slumped 31%, while PCs climbed 22%.

He said the slowing U.S. economy will hurt demand for personal computers: ‘However, it will hurt us less than our competitors as our main markets are outside the U.S. Domestic demand is still strong.’

Source: Bloomberg

China Center for Information Industry Development (CCID) Consulting, a market research company under the Ministry of Information Industry, has released a report which shows that sales of personal computers in China grew steadily in 2007, driven by a price war.

Last year, 27.94 million desktop PCs, laptops and servers were sold nationwide, up 19.5% over the previous year. Owing to price cuts, sales value, which stood at RMB147.2 billion (about $20.59 billion), rose by 12.8%.

CCID Consulting Chief Executive Officer Li Jun said, ‘Since price-cutting has spread from desktop PCs to laptops, enterprises failed to make more profits.’

He said some major brands sold for RMB4,000 per unit and the average price for laptops fell from RMB8,000 to RMB7,000 in 2007.

Li Jun said large price reductions caused many buyers to favor laptops to desktop PCs, particularly in cities and on campus. He also predicted demand from smaller enterprises, families and rural areas would continue to drive China’s PC market over the next few years.

According to CCID Consulting, the market will reach RMB170.4 billion in 2008 and RMB263.87 billion in 2012.
Source: China View