Shadow banking + more news

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Shadow banking

Expect wild 2014 with China crackdown on shadow banking – I am not so convinced given the vested interests in shadow banking. Shadow banking ‘wealth management products’ are sold by state banks like ICBC. Local government is funded by land sales to real estate developers, who are funded by shadow banking. The article is assuming that the government reform programme works. Xi is asserting his authority to be able to push through change, however getting rid of shadow banking will take a lot of time

Business

China’s games console ban lift pleases Ubisoft and Nintendo- The Inquirer – but PC games are already huge there

Quantas at junk status – gutted by discount airlines, I thought that long haul would have been a bigger part of their business

Arkr brings Vitamine under its fold – Campaign Asia – the capabilities of these two would be a good fit with Blue Focus

Clients pushed back investments or launches in Q4 2013, says Maurice Lévy – some of its clients pushed back new launches or media spend into 2014.

Consumer behaviour

Young Americans are smartphone reliant – not terribly surprising but good to see it confirmed

Economics

UK temporary hiring growing faster | RTHK – plan for uncertainty and the business efficiencies of zero-hour working

Lure Of China’s Gray Economy Reaches Rich And Poor : NPR – a problem since the time of Confucius

HSBC China services PMI falls to lowest since August 2011 | South China Morning Post – (paywall) there are some issues with the data, including that it only includes private companies rather than state owned enterprises, but interesting none-the-less

Ideas

Where’s that Black Swan when we need one? – I, Cringely

High-end CNC machines can’t be moved without manufacturers’ permission – Boing Boing – brings into question the very idea of ownership and makes the machines easier to be malevolently hacked

Innovation

Production Methods: Metal Injection Molding (MIM) – Core77 – 3D printing will probably take a while to displace this method

Global spending on tech will fall this year – where is the innovation?

What “viable search engine competition” really looks like.

Media

China Online Video Market Report for 2013 – China online video market kept growing fast, partly because television is so bad and YouKu has been doing deals like Sherlock and Big Bang Theory

Online

wearesocial’s global summary of statistics makes interesting reading

Social, Digital & Mobile Around The World (January 2014) from We Are Social Singapore

Retailing

Tencent, Jingdong In Rumored Tie-Up Talks | Young’s China Business Blog – interesting larger confluence in China going on between social and commerce rather than advertising as in the west

Jing Daily: Baidu set to shake up China’s online travel market – it will be interestingt to see how this plays with CTrip

China’s Total Delivery Packages May Reach 9 Billion in 2013 – Total number of China’s annual delivery packages might rank the number one in the world in 2013, according to China Post official data.

Social commerce, the influence of China and other tech trends for Southeast Asia in 2014 – The Next Web

Security

US BACKDOORED our satellites, claim UAE • The Register – which will adversely affect US technology sales

Software

Closing Windows: Microsoft and its platforms are nowhere to be found at CES | The Verge – the margins are hollowed out so third parties aren’t pushing it, just look at the performance of HP as an example

First prescription-only app – may mean that other apps currently on the stores aimed at physicians will be forced to retrofit a similar mechanism

Technology

Gartner: PC shipments slip 6.9% to 82.6m units in Q4, as 2013 sees the worst yearly decline in history (Emil Protalinski/The Next Web) – the seventh consecutive quarter of decline

CES Booth Battle: Intel and Qualcomm Wary Neighbors – Barrons.com – Intel’s booth looks cooler due to the lighting on it

Wireless

ZTE shows off its own Project Ara alternative, Eco-Mobius – interesting idea from ZTE

Price wars in China hitting Samsung – race to the bottom in the marketplace

Apple’s mobile sales in Europe grow in strength | City A.M.