Hello from Shunyi for Thursday 27 May. Today we are looking at a short round up of China Tech, Marketing, Social Media and business news making headlines in China for week 21 of 2021. In this issue we look at China EV, from a Huawei perspective, China natural energy, and fat pigs!
Huawei and EV
Seems for most of 2020 and to some extent, this year Huawei has been in the news. Albeit, for all the wrong reasons. However, back in 2019 to offset the pressure Huawei, as everyone knows, moved to develop their own Harmony O/S in an effort to break away from dependency on US tech and fickle Gvt policies.
Generally, to try to develop a new O/S, esp in the smart phone segment, where Huawei was once Queen, go up against open source Android and Mac OS, is not a task for the fainthearted. But Huawei do have a couple of things going for them. Firstly, the early version of Harmony was reasonably well received by critics. But, as many pointed out, having a great system is no guarantee of success. Just ask Philips and Sony who fought JVC in the VCR wars.
Secondly, and more important is Huawei’s vast experience and position in the China 5G market. China has fully embraced 5G operating the words largest 5G network, closely followed by South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Source: Sept 2020. Taking the O/S out of the equation for the moment it may well be the quality and quantity of 5G software that becomes the decider. At least, we suspect, this is Huawei’s thinking.
To that end, Huawei has, for most of this year been dropping hints re its investment, involvement and, participation the the EV market. Many commentators read this to mean Huawei would eventually move into the EV auto business. Existing EV makers with whom Huawei had partnered saw their stock prices steadily increase. However this week Huawei stated it would not be moving into the EV auto market preferring to focus on the autonomic drive and related software instead. This of course, threw the fortunes of several China EV companies into reverse.
You can read the full story from Caixin premium under this heading: Huawei Vows It Won’t Make Cars or Invest in Automakers as well as the following background story links
- Huawei Finds Partner in Changan Auto’s Newly Renamed Smart Car Unit
- In Depth: Will Huawei Become China’s Tesla Challenger?
China Wind, Solar Power
As part of its commitment to green tech, cleaner energy and air, China has, for a few years heavily subsidised the Solar and Wind Power generators, such as Uengager client Goldwind, while at the same time, limiting the amount of green energy production levels. Presumably this was to give fossil fuel generators time to retrench or refocus.
However, from 2020, China is easing back the subsidies in an attempt to have the New Energy industry compete with fossil fuels. To compensate for this, and to even further level the playing field policymakers set no upper limits on how much capacity can be added to grid this year. Again the full story can be read at Caixin Global under the heading; China Allows More Wind, Solar Power This Year Even as Subsidies Fade with further background reading at the following links.
- Solar Power’s Decade of Falling Costs Is Thrown Into Reverse
- China Plans to End Some Solar Subsidies While Eyeing Price Parity With Fossil Fuel
China extends some US tariff exemptions
As talks, discussions cautiously tip toe forward in the China USA sanctions and tariffs tit for tat, both sides issued extensions to certain goods that were due to expire. The full article is available to Caixin members under the heading: China Extends Tariff Exemptions for Some U.S. Imports. Membership to Caixin is free, it just requires an email address.
Fat Chinese Pigs
No, we are not being unkind. Everyone loves cute animal stories so we finish this weeks round up with a bit of fun, a cute piggy story. Well, maybe not so cute. Unless you see bacon and pork chops as cute. Its old news now. China’s pig farms were all but destroyed by the African Swine Flue. Pork prices went through went roof. Fantastic news for European hog farmers, especially Spanish. Also did it present an opportunity for the Faux meat producers such as Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods and Green Monday? Maybe not. But that’s, potentially, another story.
As herds recover in numbers, pork prices are starting to fall. However some farmers are over feeding to deliberate increase the weight, some as the size of small hippos – holding back from market. The end game was to capitalise when prices rose again. But factors conspired to work against this as pork prices in China tumble. We have more on this meaty story under heading of: Obese Pigs in China Are Fueling Relentless Pork Price Slump And that’s a wrap. Our take on some of the China marketing, tech and business news for week 21, year 2021.
Thanks for reading our China news, marketing, tech and social media article – we hope it was useful, relative, informative, valuable.
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