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
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.
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