Apple has signed an agreement with three Chinese distributors to provide more sites to sell the iPad. Up until now, iPads were sold only in a limited number of Apple-operated retail stores and authorized resellers in the largest cities. Apple now has only four retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai. The three distributors are ECS Technology, Changhong IT and Highly Information Industry Co, a subsidiary of TCL Corp. The three firms are also distributors for Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo and have thousands of stores in cities such as Chengdu and Xian. Apple plans to expand its retail store network to 25 in China as soon as possible, said Ron Johnson, Apple’s Senior Vice President for Retail. On September 17, Apple started selling iPads in China, with a starting price of CNY3,988 for a 16G Wi-Fi model. The 3G model is not yet available in China. Apple is in talks with China Unicom, its domestic iPhone partner, to offer 3G iPad models in China.

Intel’s new USD2.5 billion chip plant, the most advanced semiconductor facility in China, started production in Dalian. It is Intel’s first wafer fabrication facility in Asia and the largest high-tech single investment in China. Intel’s plant, which covers 163,000 square meters or as big as 23 football fields, brings the world’s biggest chip maker’s investment in China to USD4.7 billion. Intel adopts 65-nanometer technology at the plant, one generation more advanced than envisaged in the original plan released when the plant broke ground in 2007. Initial production at the plant includes chipsets for laptops, high-performance desktop PCs and Intel Xeon servers. In the first half of the year, revenue of China’s IC industry was CNY66.60 billion, an annual 45.1% growth, according to the China Semiconductor Industry Association.

Hou Xiaoqiang, Chief Executive of Shanda Literature warned that Amazon.com’s Kindle is unlikely to grab a significant market share in China. Piracy, fierce competition and the lack of support from domestic publishers will hamper the success of Amazon’s e-book reader. Shanda Literature launched its own e-book reader, Bambook. Wang Hanhua, President of the Chinese division of Amazon said that the company would be extremely wary of introducing Kindle in the Chinese market. “China’s publishing sector hasn’t been aware of the importance of digital copyrights until very recently, and many publishing houses have concerns over the digitalization of their books,” he said. He added that the company is still examining the market and does not have a timetable for the product’s launch. Several Chinese companies have already launched e-book readers,  including Hanwang, Founder and Shanda. Most of them are backed by domestic content providers and are available at a lower price than Kindle. According to the IT research firm DisplaySearch, e-reader sales in China will soar from 800,000 units in 2009 to 3 million units this year, accounting for about 20% of global sales.

Option has been accusing Huawei of dumping wireless modems on the European market and even successfully lobbied the European Commission to launch an investigation. It also said that Huawei received subsidies from the Chinese government. On October 27, however, both companies signed a cooperation agreement. Huawei is acquiring a license for Option’s connection manager software. It will pay Option €27 million next year, which will help Option finance its transformation from a mass producer of wireless modems into a service company focused on certain niche markets. Both companies will also set up a joint research center in Belgium. Huawei is acquiring Option’s subsidiary M4S for €8 million. Option is rescinding its complaints about dumping and subsidies and has asked the Belgian government and the European Commission not to pursue the anti-dumping investigations. The Belgian telecom operators Base, Mobistar and Belgacom are all customers of Huawei, which has 95,000 employees worldwide, including about 100 in Belgium.

China Unicom is better acquiring higher-value subscribers compared to its competitors. Unicom’s 3G market share is 30%, behind China Mobile’s 42% and ahead of China Telecom’s 28%. Macquarie analysts estimated that Unicom captured 32% of total 3G subscribers added on the mainland during the first six months of the year and incurred just 10% of the industry’s total 3G handset subsidy spending during the same period. China Mobile, which is the world’s biggest wireless network operator with 564,356 users as of August, captured 47% of total 3G subscribers added in the first half, but accounted for 40% of total 3G handset subsidy spending. China Telecom managed to lure only 21% of the 3G additions, but accounted for 50% of total 3G handset subsidy spending in that period. Unicom posted the mainland’s highest monthly 3G average revenue per user (ARPU) of CNY134 in the first half, compared with CNY110 for China Telecom. China Mobile did not disclose its 3G ARPU. The Macquarie report also found that Unicom had a market-leading 45% 3G handset subscriber share in the first half, ahead of China Mobile’s 40% share and China Telecom’s 15%. This means more 3G subscribers may be connecting to the high-speed networks of China Mobile and China Telecom using 3G data cards on their laptop computers. The Macquarie report estimated Unicom’s net income to reach CNY10.11 billion next year, up from CNY5.04 billion this year, and CNY17.18 billion in 2012, the South China Morning Post reports.