Nuro CEO Dave Ferguson at TC Sessions: Mobility on July 10 in San Jose

Autonomous delivery startup Nuro, fresh with nearly $1 billion in capital from SoftBank, is bursting with ideas — as some recent patent filings (and our recent deep dive into the company) suggest. And we can’t wait to learn more about what Nuro has planned. It’s only fitting that Nuro co-founder and CEO Dave Ferguson is […]

View More Nuro CEO Dave Ferguson at TC Sessions: Mobility on July 10 in San Jose

How Nuro plans to spend Softbank’s $940 million

Autonomous delivery startup Nuro is bursting with ideas since SoftBank invested nearly $1 billion in February, new filings reveal. A recent patent application details how its R1 self-driving vehicle could carry smaller robots to cross lawns or climb stairs to drop off packages. The company has even taken the step of trademarking the name “Fido” […]

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Spotify rival Tencent Music posts maiden quarter loss of $130M on one-off costs

Tencent Music Entertainment Group, the Chinese answer to Spotify that Tencent spun out and floated on the New York Stock Exchange in December, reported a net loss of 876 million yuan ($127 million) in its first set of quarterly results since going public. The loss, which TME forecasted in its prospectus filed ahead of the IPO, […]

View More Spotify rival Tencent Music posts maiden quarter loss of $130M on one-off costs

Spotify rival Tencent Music posts maiden quarter loss of $130M on one-off costs

Tencent Music Entertainment Group, the Chinese answer to Spotify that Tencent spun out and floated on the New York Stock Exchange in December, reported a net loss of 876 million yuan ($127 million) in its first set of quarterly results since going public. The loss, which TME forecasted in its prospectus filed ahead of the IPO, […]

View More Spotify rival Tencent Music posts maiden quarter loss of $130M on one-off costs

China’s Qutoutiao is burning millions of dollars to take on TikTok parent

Chinese startup Bytedance is finding itself surrounded by challengers as its empire of new media products, including global video app TikTok and Chinese news aggregator Jinri Toutiao, gather steam. Tencent tried to play catch-up with a handful of new short-video services, and a Facebook clone of TikTok was reportedly in the making. Less famous players also […]

View More China’s Qutoutiao is burning millions of dollars to take on TikTok parent

JD.com shares take off despite slowing revenue growth

Shares of JD.com, the Chinese e-commerce service that rivals Alibaba, are on the rise today after the online retailer announced better than expected results for Q4 2018, bucking uncertainty around tech companies in China. The company reported net revenue of RMB 134.8 billion ($219.6 billion) for the final quarter of last year. Despite representing the […]

View More JD.com shares take off despite slowing revenue growth

NetEase is the latest Chinese tech giant to lay off a big chunk of its staff

NetEase, China’s second-biggest online games publisher with a growing ecommerce segment, is laying off a significant number of its employees, adding to a list of Chinese tech giants that have shed staff following the Lunar New Year. A NetEase employee who was recently let go confirmed with TechCrunch that the company had fired a large […]

View More NetEase is the latest Chinese tech giant to lay off a big chunk of its staff

Alibaba challenger Pinduoduo is bringing imported goods to rural homes

Pinduoduo, the latest challenger to China’s ecommerce dominators Alibaba and JD.com, wants to bring affordable, imported items to shoppers in China’s smaller cities and rural areas. The three-year-old Tencent-backed ecommerce upstart is recruiting importers to set up shop on its marketplace, shows a message on its website. The business is known for offering cheap, sometimes […]

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Selfie app maker Meitu eyes overseas gaming market with $340 million deal

China’s largest selfie app maker Meitu has been busy working to diversify itself beyond the beauty arena in China. On Wednesday, the Hong Kong-listed company announced in a filing that it has agreed to pay about HK$2.7 billion ($340 million) for a 31 percent stake in game publishing company Dreamscape Horizon. Dreamscape Horizon, a subsidiary of […]

View More Selfie app maker Meitu eyes overseas gaming market with $340 million deal

Amazon is reportedly merging its China import unit with NetEase

You’d be forgiven for not knowing Amazon has operated in China for more than a decade, but perhaps not for much longer. The company is reportedly in talks to merge its China-based import business with local peer Kaola, the cross-border shopping platform run by Chinese internet behemoth NetEase, Caijing reported (link in Chinese) on Tuesday. The deal, […]

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China tells teachers to quit assigning homework through WeChat

China’s education authorities are about to take some burden off parents with school-aged children. A proposal posted last week by the Department of Education in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang said teachers should be banned from using WeChat, QQ or other mobile apps to assign homework or ask parents to grade students’ assignments. As mobile internet […]

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Winter is ending: China to restart game approvals

As 2018 draws to a close, China’s gaming industry — which has been beaten by a nine-month-long freeze in license approvals — woke up to exhilarating news as officials announced that they have started to review new titles again. The much-coveted game licenses are essential for developers to legally monetize their work in China. “We’ve […]

View More Winter is ending: China to restart game approvals