China Mobile announced their third quarter results yesterday, as well as one little, small tidbit of a milestone – they just passed half a billion subscribers. However, even with 508 million users and plans to have 3G networks set up in 238 cities by the end of the year, China Mobile is still facing stiff competition from both China Telecom and China Unicom, the later gearing up to launch the iPhone 3G & 3GS in Q4 (which should be a boom for content providers such as QQ). Bloomberg has more info and analysis on the results. Continue reading “China Mobile – Half a Billion Users and Counting”
China’s GAPP (General Administration of Press and Publication) announced yesterday that foreign investment in China’s online gaming industry won’t be allowed (I presume from this point on and not retroactive). In this case, foreign investment includes foreign entrepreneurs, as the edict from the GAPP also denies foreigners from setting up wholly owned enterprises (WOEs) and/or joint ventures. Continue reading “China’s GAPP to foreign investors: You Don’t Have Game”
Everyone goes back to work today in China after 7 days of forced vacation known as a Golden Week, this one for the October 1 National Day (the other two being the first week of May and Chinese New Year). To cut right to the quick, the Golden Weeks simply have to go, and China should use the 60th anniversary as a turning point where they say that this will be the last one.
The debate over whether to end the Golden Weeks has gone on for some time within China, and to be fair, it is a complicated issue. Here are the three main reasons usually given in support of the holidays. Continue reading “When will China’s Golden Weeks End?”
