NewsPage index：Home > News > Details page

Chinese tech companies chip away at foreign rivals

Update Date：2016-1-4 11:31:05 Source：BeiJing Tannet Views：912

WASHINGTON -- China will seek to maintain the country's currency renminbi, or the yuan, relative stable to a basket of currencies in 2016 as investors adjust to the start of a new rate hike cycle in the United States, US experts said.

The US Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rates to a range of 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent on Dec 16 of 2015, the first rate hike in nearly a decade, marking the end of the central bank's extraordinary monetary easing measures in response to the recent global financial crisis and the beginning of a new era of a Fed tightening cycle.

While the Fed's initial rate hike was welcomed in the United States as the central bank is confidence about the underlying strength of the world's largest economy, it poses challenges for emerging market economies like China to balance currency stability with economic growth.

From modern literature to history and international politics－President Xi Jinping may have inspired Chinese readers to turn a new leaf after his "reading list" went viral online over the weekend.
The list was produced by netizens and some Chinese media after the president's annual new year address from his office in Beijing was broadcast on Thursday night.

One of the positive outcomes of the government's decision to support local innovation is that many Chinese firms have announced plans to make their own chips and software products for mobile devices.

Chinese firms, it seems, are intent on gaining market share in these areas where they have been lagging for long.

The development follows Chinese tech majors' taking of nearly 80 percent share of the country's smartphone market.

Telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, which is also China's biggest smartphone vendor by shipments, is the staunchest advocate of made-in-China chips.

Huawei has already used a home-made processor, the Kirin 950, in its latest flagship device Mate 8, a 3,000-yuan smartphone which is trying to take on the iPhone 6S and Samsung Electronics Co's Galaxy series.

In November, Kirin 950 was one of the hottest topics at the Mate 8 launch. "The processing power of Mate 8 will make other vendors' devices look weak," said Yu Chengdong, head of Huawei's consumer division.

Kirin 950 was produced by HiSilicon Technologies Co Ltd, a chipmaking subsidiary of Huawei. The long-awaited chip received the market's thumbs-up because of its processing speed and power-efficient design.

But Huawei is looking for more than positive reviews. The company hopes the Kirin series will become a top contender in the mobile chip market, challenging Qualcomm Inc of the United States and MediaTek Inc of Taiwan, which dominate the market now.

Qualcomm has been the biggest high-end mobile chip supplier to Chinese handset makers, including Xiaomi Corp and Lenovo Group Ltd. MediaTek used to focus on the lower-end market, but it, too, has begun producing chipsets for high-end devices.

The two giants accounted for about 60 percent share of Android devices in 2015, according to AnTuTu, a smartphone performance review company.

The article transsshipment from China Daily

Previous：Saudi Arabia cuts ties with Iran after embassy in Tehran attacked

Next：Readers digest Xi's bookshelf