China is expected to have 20 million new broadband internet subscribers this year and a total of 250 million subscribers by the end of 2015. “Our aim is to install fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband connections for 35 million families this year,” said Industry and Information Technology Minister Miao Wei. China had 156 million internet broadband users in 2011. About 45 million families were covered by the FTTH network. China Telecom will invest CNY40 billion to build the FTTH network this year, and attract 25 million new FTTH users, bringing the total number to 55 million, said Wang Xiaochu, Chairman of China Telecom. Xi Guohua, China Mobile’s new Chairman, said the company will add 1.4 million WLAN wireless hotspots this year. China Unicom has more than 44 million broadband users. The company has injected CNY60 billion into broadband development in the past three years, said Chairman Chang Xiaobing.

Weibo, China’s most popular Twitter-like platform operated by Sina, is expected to officially release its social advertising offering to companies at its “Weibo Advertising Summit” on April 26 and 27 in Xiamen, Fujian province. Targeted advertising, in which client companies reach a specific audience based on specific user profiles and paid keywords, would serve as a major source of revenue for Sina Weibo, according to JP Morgan Securities (Asia-Pacific). Sina Weibo, which started operations in August 2009, had more than 300 million registered users in February. Of that number, 130,565 were enterprise accounts which are viewed as potential advertisers. Baidu, the market leader in internet search, had 311,000 active online marketing customers in the fourth quarter of last year. “We estimate the business will generate a net income of USD73.7 million, assuming full monetization [revenue-generating operation] for the year, which is not likely to be the case,” two JP Morgan analysts said. They also calculated Weibo’s value this year at USD1.8 billion, with an average of 320 million active users. Shanghai-based Sina has forecast that its investments in Weibo will climb to USD160 million this year, up from USD110 million last year.

Online retail sales in China will triple to more than USD360 billion by 2015, with nearly a quarter of the population shopping online, according to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). China’s e-commerce market is expected to account for 8% of the total retail sales in 2015, compared to 5% last year. China will become the largest online retail market in the world in three years. “Online buying and selling, including group buying, has been the second fastest-growing activity on the internet after micro-blogging in China,” said BCG Principal Yvonne Zhou. Suning Appliance, the largest home appliance seller in China, was a pioneer by establishing suning.com three years ago. The company’s Chairman Zhang Jindong said Suning will switch its business focus from street shops to its shopping portal this year, extending the online product categories from home appliances to books, clothing, jewelery and groceries. “To go online is not our choice but the customers’ choice. Our goal is to build Suning into China’s Wal-Mart plus Amazon,” said Zhang. According to the BCG report, China had 193 million online shoppers so far, more than any other market in the world. Online spending amounted to 14.8% of their total spending, and it is expected to grow by 15% annually before 2015. BCG expects China will add nearly 200 million internet users in three years, reaching an internet population of more than 700 million users, double the combined number of Japan and the U.S.

NetQin Mobile is poised to become the world’s number one provider of mobile security services, according to Chairman and CEO Henry Lin. Currently, only about 12% of mobile phone users worldwide are using smartphones, but that number is expected to jump to about 85% in the next three years, Lin said. NetQin Mobile had 91.5 million users in China as of the third quarter of 2011, according to a report by SINO Market Research. NetQin Mobile had a market share of 61.5%, followed by Qihoo360 with 23.4%. NetQin Mobile added 43 million subscribers in 2011 and more than doubled its revenue. But Lin said that China accounts for only 5% to 7% of the global market, and the company was eager to expand abroad. Earlier this year, NetQin announced that it had hired Omar Khan, a former senior executive at Motorola and Samsung Mobile, as the company’s co-CEO, managing the global expansion project. “Helping enterprises secure their mobile devices is a massive opportunity,” he said. Overseas markets helped NetQin generate about half of its revenue in 2011, according to its fourth quarter financial report.

The Guangdong People’s High Court heard Qihoo 360, which sells antivirus software, accuse Tencent of abusing its dominant market position in a dispute between the two companies in 2010. Qihoo is seeking CNY150 million in damages. Tencent denied dominating the instant messaging market, saying its QQ system was only one of a range of similar services available. Tencent’s lawyer said the instant messaging market was completely open, adding that QQ did not have pricing power, saying that 87% of its users would turn to other tools if it tried to charge for its service, which is now free. David Stallibrass, a former Director of the Office of Fair Trading in London, was an expert witness for Qihoo, and Jiang Qiping, Secretary General from an IT arm of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), defended for Tencent. Stallibrass said Tencent’s high market share made it difficult for others to enter the market. Zhao Ye, Qihoo’s lawyer, separately said the QQ IM system operated by Tencent had topped 70% in the past five years, and it had abused its position. He said Tencent had restricted QQ users from using Qihoo software and monopolized the market through tie-in sales of software and distributing QB, a virtual currency for purchasing services. He said this strangled competition. The companies’ dispute dates back to 2010, when Qihoo alleged that Tencent let its QQ software scan users’ computers for personal data, prompting Qihoo to issue tools to protect QQ users’ privacy, the South China Morning Post reports. Zhang Xuejun, the Court’s presiding judge, said there are issues to be clarified before a ruling could be handed down, including how to define the “market”, whether the defendant has a dominant market position and whether it has taken advantage of its market share. “No matter what the ruling is, it will have a far-reaching impact on internet development, especially for instant messaging services,” said Wang Bin, an official from Beijing’s Online Copyright Protection Association.