5 posts and columns on mainland

Apple’s Really Good Quarter Was Really, Really Good in China

in Mobile on January 19, 2011 at 5:45 am PT

The iPhone and iPad maker saw sales of $2.6 billion for the December quarter, four times the business it was doing there a year earlier. Its four stores in China produce more sales and attract more visitors, on average, than any of the company’s other retail locations.

News Byte

China's Baidu Launches Its Own Version of Groupon

in News on December 2, 2010 at 11:15 am PT

While Google was making headlines this week for reportedly trying to acquire Groupon, Baidu–its biggest Chinese rival–was busy launching its own version of the group buying site. Youa Tuangou, which means “group buy” in Chinese, went live yesterday on Baidu’s Youa e-commerce platform. Any merchant listed on the company’s Baidu Shenbian consumer review site can create discounted offerings to be promoted on the new service. Groupon, meanwhile, has acquired three Web sites in Asia, but none of them operate in mainland China.

News Byte

Alibaba May Re-Evaluate Its Ties With Yahoo

in News on September 9, 2010 at 10:59 am PT

Yahoo owns 40 percent of China’s Alibaba Group, but since Yahoo Hong Kong’s Managing Director Alfred Tsoi Po-tak was quoted Monday as saying that the company wants to lure smaller mainland advertisers onto its site, the relationship has entered questionable territory. The move would put the two companies in direct competition, and as such, the alliance would need to be re-evaluated, according to John Spelich, a spokesman for Alibaba Group. Yahoo couldn’t be reached for comment.

Google Shutters Google.cn

in News on March 22, 2010 at 12:08 pm PT

Google has finally adopted the “New Approach to China” that it announced back in January, making good on its threat to end censorship of its services in the country. Earlier today, the company begun redirecting Internet traffic away from its Chinese-language site at google.cn to google.com.hk in Hong Kong.