Boosted by strong interest in environmentally friendly businesses, the mainland has overtaken Taiwan for the first time as the market with the most fast-growing technology companies in the Asia-Pacific. Global advisory firm Deloitte’s ninth annual ranking of such companies shows the mainland had 147 firms in the top 500, compared with 97 last year and 72 in 2008. Taiwan, which ruled Deloitte’s “Fast 500” lists for the past two years, had 86 firms on the list this year, including top-ranked Giga Solar Materials Corp. Half the companies ranked in the Top 20 are from the mainland, while three are from Taiwan. The mainland dominated the green technology sector, with 15 of the 26 green tech companies in this year’s list. Founded in 2005, Giga produces thick film-metalization pastes used to make photovoltaic solar cells. Third-ranked China United Cleaning Technology is focused on crystal-silicon solar cells and photovoltaic cells and modules. At No 5 is Guodian United Power Technology, China’s largest wind power generation operator. According to Deloitte, Chinese companies also led in several other Fast 500 sectors, including software, telecommunications and networking, biotech, pharmaceutical and medical equipment, and media and entertainment. It said the overall revenue growth across all the ranked firms was 374% cent this year, the South China Morning Post reports.

China Unicom warned that from December 1 users of the iPhone service bundle who break the service contracts would be penalized. A new contract on iPhone services was being used, stating that if users’ iPhones are not used with the China Unicom numbers, severe penalties would be imposed. If someone is found to be using an iPhone with another operator’s SIM card, the user’s number and mobile phone will be locked and a penalty will be imposed. If the user doesn’t re-activate the number and iPhone within 90 days, the penalty will be taken from the user’s account, and the profile and account will be deleted. Xiang Ligang, a telecom expert, said the new regulation has two purposes: mainly to curb speculative reselling of iPhones and partly to beat back China Mobile in the domestic market. China Unicom said that some people signed bundle service contracts, which include iPhones and related 3G services, but later resold the mobile phones and the services at a high price – even higher than the total value of the service bundle, which disturbs the market order. Xiang said that China Unicom’s iPhone 4 service bundle includes an iPhone 4 and a CNY5,880 deposit. The iPhone 4 has a price of around CNY6,000 on the black market, and the services valued at CNY5,880 could also be sold to other China Unicom users. As China Unicom is the sole partner of iPhone in China, domestically sold iPhones are expected to belong to China Unicom’s network. Rival China Mobile is also trying to attract iPhone users although it can provide them only 2G services due to a different 3G standard. China Unicom and iPhone use the WCDMA 3G standard, while China Mobile uses TD-SCDMA. Li Gang, Vice President of China Unicom, said that 1.5 million iPhones have been imported into China, 30% of which don’t run on China Unicom. Taking smuggled iPhones into account, 70% of the iPhones in China are using China Mobile’s network, the Global Times reports.

China Mobile added 1.85 million 3G users in November to reach a total of 18.83 million 3G users, both phone and data card users, half of the country’s total. By the end of November, the number of China Mobile’s users hit 579 million, ranking it the world’s No 1 telco by subscribers. Rival China Unicom said it added 1.12 million new 3G subscribers in November, with an aggregate 3G subscriber base of 12.78 million. The country’s second-biggest telco reported net additions of 2G subscribers of 604,000 in November, bringing its total 2G user numbers to 152.749 million. China Unicom lost 734,000 wire-line subscribers in November, reducing the total number of wire-line subscribers to 98.55 million. The company added 300,000 broadband subscribers in the same month to bring the total to 46.93 million users.

China’s software piracy rate has fallen sharply as Chinese firms are increasingly using authorized software due to awareness and enhanced intellectual property rights (IPR) protection. The unauthorized software installation rate, which includes piracy, tumbled from 66% in 2005 to 45% in 2009, said Luo Yizhi, Ernst & Young’s Telecommunications and Technology Industry Partner, citing figures from Beijing-based research firm Chinalabs. Every 2% drop in the piracy software rate will boost the output of the entire industry by USD2 billion to USD3 billion and create 50,000 new jobs, according to Ernst & Young. Meanwhile 92% of Chinese firms will spend more on IT security next year, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said, with information security being a priority.

Symantec expects to triple its revenue in China within five years by expanding distribution channels, seeking opportunities in cloud computing and mobile internet, as well as possible acquisitions. But the company will not offer free consumer-oriented products in China where many companies, including Qihoo 360 and Kingsoft, have provided free services, it said during the Symantec Vision 2010 conference held in Beijing. Symantec plans to establish offices in six cities — Wuhan, Urumqi, Xian, Shenyang, Jinan and Fuzhou in addition to its current seven branches, all located in big cities. The major Chinese security software provider, Kingsoft, and a smaller player, Keniu, merged last month. The new company, operating under the name of Kingsoft Network, is offering permanent free use of its security product. Meanwhile, European security company Kaspersky also said in November that it will provide free security software in China for one year. The moves were seen as a means of fending off competition from Qihoo 360, a Chinese company that quickly rose from a start-up to one with more than 70% of China’s security market after it provided free security software. Symantec has more than 1,000 employees in China and said it will also hire more staff, without specifying numbers. It also plans to accelerate the international expansion of its joint venture with Huawei Technologies. “Greater China represents the single-largest opportunity for Symantec,” said Enrique Salem, the company’s President and Chief Executive.