China expressed its concern about the European Union’s anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese-made wireless wide area networking (WWAN) modems, following two earlier investigations. The EU’s investigations will disrupt normal trade and hurt the interests of EU consumers, said Ministry of Commerce Spokesman Yao Jian. The move also ran counter to the deepening China-EU friendship, he added. “We believe Option’s complaints are wholly inaccurate and reject any accusations of injurious dumping or illegal subsidies,” a Huawei Spokesman said. “It is puzzling that Option should file a complaint against Chinese producers, when it has by its own admission moved all its production to China. We question Option’s motives in filing such a complaint.” “We believe Option’s complaints are groundless and object to any accusations of dumping or illegal subsidies,” said Zhang Wuxiao, Legal Representative of Huawei. “The company’s success is based on a high level of product innovation and ability to predict the take-off of the 3G market in Europe,” Zhang said. Guo Jianjun, Legal Director of ZTE, said: “Option’s failure in the modem business has been due to high operating costs and sluggish reaction to the changing market. It has not been caused by Chinese exporters,” the China Daily reports.

Samsung Electronics expects its China manufacturing operations to help drive the rapid global development of its digital camera business. “We have invested a lot in terms of manufacturing cameras in China, where most of our compact cameras are produced in Tianjin,” said Park Sang-jin, President of Samsung Electronics’ digital imaging business. Samsung Electronics, the No 3 global supplier of compact digital cameras, may make additional investments depending on the next trends in the industry. Since 1993 the company has invested about USD1.6 billion in establishing 12 manufacturing and research and development (R&D) enterprises in the Tianjin Economic and Technological Development Zone. Products include mobile telephones, digital cameras, television sets and various electronic components. “Our aim is to dominate the mirrorless camera market,” Park said. “Although we are late in this area, we expect this business to grow very quickly.” Samsung Electronics aims to achieve a global digital camera market share of 20% by 2012.

The Chinese mainland’s biggest e-book maker, Hanvon Technology, opened a subsidiary in Taiwan in Taipei’s 101 Tower and launched its latest model on the island. The subsidiary will develop products, do research, sell Hanvon’s products,as well as seek opportunities to work with the island’s content providers so as to “expand its share of Chinese-language markets together with its Taiwan partners,” said Ray Zhang, Chief Strategist of Hanvon Technology. The screens of its e-book readers are made by Taiwanese firms. Hanvon has assigned a Taiwanese company, Xander, with selling its newest product, the 6-inch N620 e-book reader, in Taiwan. The reader will sell for NTD12,000. Xander will also help Hanvon to gradually establish its sales network on the island. Hanvon also opened the Taiwan site of its online bookstore.

China Telecom has emerged as a formidable challenger to the two larger and more experienced domestic mobile network operators, China Mobile and China Unicom. The number of its 3G subscribers rose by 76.4% to 7.18 million as of June 30 this year from 4.07 million at the end of last year. Its 3G user base is still smaller than rival China Mobile’s 10.5 million and China Unicom’s 7.5 million at the end of June. Chairman and Chief Executive Wang Xiaochu said the carrier would boost capital spending this year to CNY44 billion from the original budget of CNY39 billion to step up its nationwide broadband coverage after posting solid earnings in the first six months of the year to beat analysts’ estimates. China Telecom recorded a 4.7% increase in first-half net profit to CNY8.81 billion on solid gains from its mobile and fixed-line broadband businesses. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (ebitda) climbed 5.6% to CNY45.76 billion. China Telecom had 58.33 million broadband users in the first half and plans to add another 20 million users by next year. The total number of 2G and 3G subscribers with China Telecom advanced 32.9% to 74.52 million in the first half. China Mobile remains the country’s dominant cellular services provider with a total of 558.93 million subscribers as of July.

China Unicom is pinning its hopes on the launch of Apple’s iPhone 4 and the iPad to reverse its fortunes this year after reporting a 62% slump in first-half profit to CNY2.53 billion owing to the high cost of introducing its 3G business. China Unicom is the only telecom operator offering Apple’s iPhone. Revenue climbed 7.6% to CNY82.11 billion. China Unicom said it had budgeted for CNY3 billion to CNY5 billion on subsidies for 3G users this year and had spent CNY1.17 billion in the first half. During that period it had added 4.81 million subscribers, taking the total to 7.56 million. Unicom signed up more than 40,000 iPhone 4 subscribers with 3G tariff plans over the launch weekend of September 25, which was much better than the 6,000 who signed up over the iPhone 3GS launch weekend in October last year when the carrier started selling a version without Wi-fi support. Unicom had taken pre-orders for 400,000 iPhone 4 handsets on September 17 and swiftly exhausted its supply to meet the demand.