Ericsson’s China chief said the Swedish telecoms equipment giant’s operations in the country have been affected by geopolitical tensions after Sweden banned equipment made by Huawei Technologies Co from its 5G network but the company remains optimistic on its prospects.“Companies don’t want to be taken hostage by politics, we hope to run businesses according to logic and the rules of the market, but unfortunately that’s not the reality,” said Zhao Juntao, Ericsson China CEO, in a press…

China’s power restrictions threaten to disrupt production at Apple’s supply chain in the country and the broader domestic electronics manufacturing industry, including semiconductors, ahead of the busy Christmas shopping season.The power shortage, which has turned critical in recent days, has come at the most inopportune time, as manufacturers scramble to meet orders across the globe, according to Gu Wenjun, chief analyst at Chinese semiconductor and electronics market research firm ICwise, in…

WeChat, the ubiquitous super app operated by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings, has launched a new “Care Mode” for elderly users that implements larger fonts and other modifications, answering Beijing’s call for tech companies to make their products and services more friendly to the country’s ageing population.In addition to enlarging text, activating Care Mode also changes the colour scheme to make certain objects more recognisable and gives the app’s main functions larger buttons. The move…

Alibaba Group Holding has started to allow consumers to use WeChat Pay, the payment service operated by its rival Tencent Holdings, on a number of its platforms amid the Chinese government’s major push to encourage competition and curb monopolistic behaviour among Big Tech.A number of Alibaba services – including food delivery platform Ele.me, video-streaming platform Youku, online ticketing platform Damai and cross-border e-commerce platform Kaola – now include WeChat Pay as one of their…

Microsoft Corp chief executive Satya Nadella said the company’s bid last year to acquire the US assets of hit short video-sharing app TikTok was the “strangest thing I’ve ever worked on”.Speaking at the Code Conference in Beverly Hills, California, on Monday, Nadella said he was looking forward at the time to bringing Microsoft’s security, child safety and cloud expertise to TikTok.TikTok had been ordered by then-US President Donald Trump to separate its US assets from Chinese parent ByteDance…

Facebook is putting a hold on the development of a kids’ version of Instagram, geared toward children under 13, to address concerns that have been raised about the vulnerability of younger users.“I still firmly believe that it’s a good thing to build a version of Instagram that is designed to be safe for tweens, but we want to take the time to talk to parents and researchers and safety experts and get to more consensus about how to move forward,” said Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, in an…

Beijing taxi operators have launched a new ride-hailing service with the help of Alibaba Group Holding that will not challenge the municipal authority’s monopoly on taxi service licensing, setting an example that could be applied in other cities and possibly undermine private ride-hailing operations like Didi Chuxing.The service called Beijing Taxi is being offered through AutoNavi, the digital maps service provider owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba, which also owns the South China Morning Post…