#Chinese smartphone company

[insightfultake]

Lava’s Billion-Dollar Gambit: A Homegrown Contender Readies for Battle Against Foreign Giants

In the grand chessboard of India’s smartphone market, where foreign players have long dominated with deep pockets and aggressive pricing, a homegrown challenger is quietly fortifying its ramparts. Lava International, the indigenous smartphone and accessories brand, is gearing up for an audacious expansion, arming itself with a war chest of ₹500 crore ($58 million) in fresh funding. As the company inches towards a public listing, it aims to carve out a formidable presence in an industry where Chinese brands have historically held sway.

[foxgirlsounds]

do ppl that talk about Chinese surveillance and data collection forget that like.

your smartphone collects more data on you than any Chinese company ever will.

I guarantee the amount of info Facebook or Google has on you is several times larger than anything any Chinese company has.

[justforbooks]

House of Huawei by Eva Dou

A fascinating insight into a Chinese telecoms giant and its detractors

Huawei is not exactly a household name. If you’ve heard of it, you either follow the smartphone market closely – it is the main China-based manufacturer of high-end phones – or else consume a lot of news, because the company is at the centre of an ongoing US-China trade war.

But this enormous business is one of the world’s biggest producers of behind-the-scenes equipment that enables fibre broadband, 4G and 5G phone networks. Its hardware is inside communications systems across the world.

That has prompted alarm from US lawmakers of both parties, who accuse Huawei of acting as an agent for China’s government and using its technology for espionage. The company insists it merely complies with the local laws wherever it operates, just like its US rivals. Nevertheless, its equipment has been ripped out of infrastructure in the UK at the behest of the government, its execs and staffers have been arrested across the world, and it has been pilloried for its involvement in China’s oppression of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

Into this murky world of allegation and counter-allegation comes the veteran telecoms reporter Eva Dou. Her book chronicles the history of Huawei since its inception, as well as the lives of founder Ren Zhengfei and his family, starting with the dramatic 2019 arrest of his daughter Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, at the behest of US authorities.

Dou’s command of her subject is indisputable and her book is meticulous and determinedly even-handed. House of Huawei reveals much, but never speculates or grandstands – leaving that to the politicians of all stripes for whom hyperbole about Huawei comes more easily.

At its core, this book is the history of a large, successful business. That doesn’t mean it’s boring, though: there’s the story of efforts to haul 5G equipment above Everest base camp in order to broadcast the Beijing Olympics torch relay. We hear about the early efforts of Ren and his team, working around the clock in stiflingly hot offices, to make analogue telephone network switches capable of routing up to 10,000 calls; and gain insights into the near-impossible political dance a company must perform in order to operate worldwide without falling foul of the changing desires of China’s ruling Communist party.

Dou makes us better equipped to consider questions including: is this a regular company, or an extension of the Chinese state? How safe should other countries feel about using Huawei equipment? Is China’s exploitation of its technology sector really that different to the way the US authorities exploited Google, Facebook and others, as revealed by Edward Snowden?

Early in Huawei’s history, Ren appeared to give the game away in remarks to the then general secretary of the Communist party. “A country without its own program-controlled switches is like one without an army,” he argued, making the case for why the authorities should support his company’s growth. “Its software must be held in the hands of the Chinese government.”

But for each damning event, there is another that introduces doubt. The book reveals an arrangement from when Huawei operated in the UK that gave GCHQ unprecedented access to its source code and operations centre. US intelligence agencies seemed as able to exploit Huawei equipment for surveillance purposes as China’s. While Huawei’s equipment was certainly used to monitor Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, it was hardware from the US company Cisco that made China’s so-called Great Firewall possible.

Anyone hoping for definitive answers will not find them here, but the journey is far from wasted. The intricate reporting of Huawei, in all its ambiguity and complexity, sheds much light on the murky nature of modern geopolitics. The people who shout loudest about Huawei don’t know more than anyone else about it. Eva Dou does.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Madeline Halpert at BBC:

US President Donald Trump's administration has exempted smartphones, computers and some other electronic devices from "reciprocal" tariffs, including the 125% levies imposed on Chinese imports. In a notice, US Customs and Border Patrol said that the goods would be excluded from Trump's 10% global tariff on most countries and the much larger Chinese import tax. It marks the first significant reprieve of any kind in Trump's tariffs on China, with one trade analyst describing it as a "game-changer scenario". Late on Saturday, while travelling to Miami, Trump said he would give more details of the exemptions at the start of next week. "We'll be very specific," he told reporters on Air Force One. "But we're taking in a lot of money. As a country we're taking in a lot of money." The move came after concerns from US tech companies that the price of gadgets could skyrocket, as many of them are made in China. Exemptions - backdated to 5 April - also include other electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells and memory cards.

"This is the dream scenario for tech investors," Dan Ives, who is the global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, posted on X. "Smartphones, chips being excluded is a game-changer scenario when it comes to China tariffs." Big tech firms such as Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft and the broader tech industry can breathe a huge sigh of relief this weekend, he added. The White House indicated the exemptions were made to ensure companies had more time to move production to the US.

Trump issues a purported exemption from his new tariffs electronic items, such as computers and smartphones.

See Also:

AP, via NewsNation: Trump administration says it will exclude some electronics from reciprocal tariffs

[mariacallous]

Tariffs, another chaotic venture of the barely four-month-old Trump administration, are set to rollick every sector of the economy and nearly all the goods and services people use across the world. But tariffs could also cause the tech in your phone and other devices you use every day to stagnate as supply chains are hit by the rise in costs and companies scramble to balance the books by cutting vital development research.

Let’s get a couple important caveats out of the way here, starting with the possibility that the US might just come to its senses and back down on tariffs after all. President Trump promises he won't, of course, but he has now enacted a 90-day delay on higher tariffs for all countries except China, which has had its tariffs hiked from 34 to 145 percent.

While the tariff reprieve may ease pressures elsewhere, it is terrible news for Big Tech, which has supply chains that rely heavily on Chinese companies and Chinese-made components. Some companies have already gotten very creative about trying to dodge those additional costs, like Apple, which Reuters reports airlifted about 600 tons of iPhones to India in an effort to avoid Trump’s tariffs.

Whether tech leaders more broadly can yet negotiate special exemptions that allow their products to swerve these costs remains to be seen, but if they don’t, sky-high tariffs are likely to limit what new technologies companies can cram into their devices while keeping costs low.

“There's absolutely a threat to innovation,” says Anshel Sag, a principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategies. “Companies have to cut back on spending, which generally means cutting back on everything.”

Smartphones in particular are at risk of soaring in price, given that they are the single largest product category that the US imports from China. Moving the wide variety of manufacturing capabilities needed to produce them in the US would cost an amount of money that’s almost impossible to calculate—if the move would even be possible at all.

The trouble tariffs cause smartphone makers will come as they try to battle rising costs while making their products ever more capable. Apple spent nearly $32 billion on research and development costs in 2024. Samsung spent $24 billion on R&D that same year. Phone companies need their devices to dazzle and excite users so they upgrade to the shiny new edition each and every year. But people also need to be able to afford these now near essential products, so striking a balance in the face of exponentially high tariffs creates problems.

“As companies shift their engineering teams to focus on cost reductions rather than creating the next best thing, the newest innovation—does that hurt US manufacturers?” asks Shawn DuBravac, chief economist at the trade association IPC. “Are we creating an environment where foreign manufacturers can out innovate US manufacturers because they are not having to allocate engineering resources to cost reduction?”

If that’s how it goes down, the result will be almost the exact opposite effect of what Trump claims he intended to do by implementing tariffs in the first place. Yet sadly it’s a well-known fact of business that R&D is one of the first budgets to be cut when profits are at risk. If US manufacturers are forced to keep costs low enough to entice customers in this new regime, it’ll more than likely mean innovation falters.

“Rather than focusing on some new AI application, they might want to focus on reengineering this product so that they're able to shave pennies here and pennies there and reduce production cost,” DuBravac says. “What ends up happening is you say, ‘Ah, you know what? We're not going to launch that this year. We're going to wait 12 months. We’re going to wait for the cost to fall.’”

Sag says that a lower demand—likely caused because people will have less money as we potentially careen toward a recession—also leads to a slowdown of the refresh cycle of a product. Less people buying a thing means less need to make more of the thing. Some products may get to the point where there is just no market for them anymore.

He points to product categories such as folding phones, which after six years of adjustment and experimentation at high price points have finally started to come into their own. The prices have come down as well, meaning folding phones are nearly at the phase of being at an attractive price point for more regular buyers.

It has been rumored that Apple has a folding phone close to debuting, but who knows how that plays out in a world where Apple is subject to the same trade tariffs as everyone else with a heavy reliability on China production? A complicated or potentially risky device might be delayed, or be deemed too ambitious, because tariff costs forced budgets elsewhere.

“It definitely affects product cycles and which features get made—and even which configurations of which chips get shipped,” Sag says. “The ones that are more cost optimized will probably get used more.”

[thistransient]

More musings on Naha:

- My Japan-visiting history includes Naha in 2018 and Tokyo in 2023 (each for 3 nights). I loved Naha the first time, but did not really have the same feeling about Tokyo (which I chalked up to insufficient planning, sprained ribs, and having gotten over the first-time-in-Japan thrill). But I also loved my second time in Naha! The factors I think are at play:

1. Public transport: there's a singular monorail, no need to navigate Tokyo's convoluted two-company labyrinth of an MRT system. It was also a brisk 12 minute ride from the station nearest my hotel to Naha International, unlike the commute from the city center to the airports servicing Tokyo. It's also only a 1 hr 30 minute flight from Taipei, can't really beat that.

2. Walkability: to get anywhere else in Okinawa one must rent a car, but it's perfectly possible to stroll around Naha center on foot. I spent quite a bit of time on the train in Tokyo (and all that that entailed) trying to explore different neighborhoods, which was tiring. I didn't feel threatened by motorised traffic in either city but I found myself jumping out of the way of bicycles in Tokyo a few times.

3. Shīsā (シーサー, 風獅爺, 獅子): "a traditional Ryukyuan cultural artifact and decoration derived from Chinese guardian lions, often seen in similar pairs, resembling a cross between a lion and a dog, from Okinawan mythology. Shisa are wards, believed to protect from some evils. People place pairs of shisa on their rooftops or flanking the gates to their houses, with the left shisa traditionally having a closed mouth, the right one an open mouth. The open mouth shisa traditionally wards off evil spirits, and the closed mouth shisa keeps good spirits in." I love these things so much, they are so fun to spot while walking around, people even dress them up in little outfits depending on the season!

(At this point I should optimally visit a third city to triangulate my experiences a bit.)

- I find if I only go somewhere for a few days, it can be really nice to not buy a SIM card, just download an offline map, save some restaurant locations, and wander around looking at stuff almost like the pre-smartphone days.

- At some point I was also thinking to myself "wow, sometimes it's nice being in a country with minimal hawkers, hustlers, and touts! No one is trying to sell me stuff unsolicited!" Then I accidentally wandered into the red light district while taking a roundabout stroll to a shrine on the edge of town. The deserted back streets of Naha sprang to life and suddenly I was very popular (I suppose it must get boring for them at noon on a Sunday, but I felt like a lone gazelle on the savanna and made a hasty escape with a lot of head shaking and staring intently at the pavement). Perhaps they intentionally put the brothels near the temple to ensnare wayward tourists, who knows.

- The silence of Naha streets compared to the incessant scooter-revving in Taipei made me wonder how much psychic damage the noise pollution is really dealing me on a daily basis. I was also operating with a Taiwanese mindset when jaywalking across a median to get to a supermarket (only because I'd seen some locals doing it), and stepped back cautiously to wait for an oncoming bus which I was sure would otherwise punch me a one-way ticket to the afterlife. Instead, it STOPPED. There wasn't even a cross-walk! I waved somewhat guiltily and scampered away full of wonderment. Frankly I did not really want to come back from pedestrian heaven where there are zero scooters on the unobstructed sidewalks and crossing the street is not a hair-raising experience.

- By sheer, strange coincidence I ran into a friend on the street (as she was getting off a bus), who definitely should not have been in Japan (she told me she was moving back, probably to Tokyo, only after Christmas)- she was in Okinawa for approximately 24 hours to look at real estate and didn't have time to hang out but it was very surreal to catch up for a couple minutes.

To be honest I had had some ambitions for trying out more Duolingo-learnt phrases, but in the moment chickened out and ended up just pointing at stuff lest I give the impression I was capable of more in-depth conversation beyond これをください³. I've had vague thoughts about language school (for the purpose of being able to communicate about print-making and/or shibari, but also to test the waters beyond the tourist experience), and I feel in theory knowing Mandarin first should help with learning kanji, but on the other hand I look at this

- I was a bit surprised when the airline queue employee in International Departures started talking to me in Japanese off the bat (something that has never happened in TPE with Mandarin, they see a westerner and have real low linguistic expectations), so I eyed her a bit blankly til she was done and then tested out my Duolingo skills with 日本語が話せませ¹ to which she responded 英語?², I said "yeah" and she told me I needed to use the kiosk first, to which I protested that I'm always prompted to go to the counter for document verification, but then for once the thing actually didn't (take note if you're doing visa runs, Peach Aviation evidently gives no shits about exit flights).

¹ I don't speak Japanese

² English?

- Last but not least, I flew back south only to find Taipei 5 degrees Celsius colder than Naha, the bidet frostier than ever. 再見琉球，等我回來 T_T

and in my mind it says "Jiùmìng dòngyī wa zuòxí no xià ni arimasu". I think I will stay in Taiwan for now. (Also apparently immigration is not super keen on people over 30 with dubious employment history rocking up for language school in Japan, but that's a bridge to cross when one comes to it).

³ Please give me this

[nuadox]

LiDAR reveals vast ancient Maya city and complex networks hidden in Mexico's Campeche forest

- By Nuadox Crew -

Archaeologists have uncovered thousands of ancient Maya structures and a large city named Valeriana in Campeche, Mexico, using aerial LiDAR technology to penetrate dense forest cover.

The discovery, which spans around 47 square miles, includes urban and rural settlements with reservoirs, temples, and roads, resembling other major Maya cities.

Previously overlooked due to its inaccessibility, Campeche is now recognized as a vital part of the Maya Lowlands, revealing complex urban planning and extensive connectivity among Maya cities.

The findings challenge the view of Maya cities as isolated entities, instead suggesting a vast, interconnected network.

Experts consider LiDAR a transformative tool, reshaping understanding of ancient Maya civilization and its environmental adaptation, organization, and conservation needs.

Image header: Core details of the Valeriana site. Credit: Luke Auld-Thomas et Al, Cambridge University Press.

Read more at CNN

Scientific paper: Auld-Thomas L, Canuto MA, Morlet AV, et al. Running out of empty space: environmental lidar and the crowded ancient landscape of Campeche, Mexico. Antiquity. 2024;98(401):1340-1358. doi:10.15184/aqy.2024.148

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

#1yrago Kickstarting "The Bezzle" audiobook, sequel to Red Team Blues https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/10/the-bezzle/#marty-hench

#5yrsago The Monsters Know What They’re Doing: an RPG sourcebook for DMs who want to imbue monsters with deep, smart tactics https://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/10/the-monsters-know-what-theyre-doing-an-rpg-sourcebook-for-dms-who-want-to-imbue-monsters-with-deep-smart-tactics/

#5yrsago For the first time, you can search the database of money that publicly funded researchers in Illinois received from pharma companies https://www.propublica.org/article/dollars-for-profs-illinois-professors-conflicts-of-interest

#5yrsago A company that makes spy-tech for cops threatened to sue Vice for publishing its sales literature (because Iran!) https://www.vice.com/en/article/this-secretive-surveillance-company-is-selling-cops-cameras-hidden-in-gravestones/

#5yrsago Virgin’s subsidized smartphones come with unremovable Chinese malware https://www.zdnet.com/article/unremovable-malware-found-preinstalled-on-low-end-smartphone-sold-in-the-us/

#5yrsago Pranksters produce enlistment ads featuring Trump Jr: “I’m not enlisting but YOU should” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-jr-army-enlisting-sign-pranksters_n_5e1874f1c5b650c621dd0041

#5yrsago Howto: file your taxes for free without getting defrauded into paying a big tax-prep firm https://www.propublica.org/article/how-to-file-state-federal-taxes-free-2020#175169

#5yrsago Boris the Babybot: a picture book about resisting surveillance https://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/10/boris-the-babybot-a-picture-book-about-resisting-surveillance/

#5yrsago NYPD ordered to disclose records of secret X-ray vans https://www.propublica.org/article/judge-orders-nypd-to-release-records-on-x-ray-vans

#15yrsago If HP Lovecraft wrote C manuals http://www.bobhobbs.com/files/kr_lovecraft.html

#15yrsago Britain’s Digital Economy Bill will cost ISPs £500M, knock 40K poor households offline https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-surcharge-set-to-force-40000-households-offline-091228/

#15yrsago Bugs in the Arroyo: sf podcast about metal-eating bug apocalypse https://reactormag.com/bugs-in-the-arroyo/

#15yrsago Slovak aviation cops sneak explosives into travellers’ luggage, jailarity ensues http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8441891.stm

#15yrsago Orson Welles on privacy, prescient remarks from 1955 https://web.archive.org/web/20100114060742/http://www.thejanuarist.com/orson-welles-on-privacy-the-passport-and-personal-rights/

#20yrsago Desperate Ken Lay paying search-engines to return links to his “version” of Enron https://web.archive.org/web/20050108125640/https://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2982765/

#20yrsago EFF defends bloggers’ rights to keep informants’ identities secret https://web.archive.org/web/20050105112953/http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_01.php#002190

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

[frank-olivier]

Semiconductors: The Driving Force Behind Technological Advancements

The semiconductor industry is a crucial part of our modern society, powering everything from smartphones to supercomputers. The industry is a complex web of global interests, with multiple players vying for dominance.

Taiwan has long been the dominant player in the semiconductor industry, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) accounting for 54% of the market in 2020. TSMC's dominance is due in part to the company's expertise in semiconductor manufacturing, as well as its strategic location in Taiwan. Taiwan's proximity to China and its well-developed infrastructure make it an ideal location for semiconductor manufacturing.

However, Taiwan's dominance also brings challenges. The company faces strong competition from other semiconductor manufacturers, including those from China and South Korea. In addition, Taiwan's semiconductor industry is heavily dependent on imports, which can make it vulnerable to supply chain disruptions.

China is rapidly expanding its presence in the semiconductor industry, with the government investing heavily in research and development (R&D) and manufacturing. China's semiconductor industry is led by companies such as SMIC and Tsinghua Unigroup, which are rapidly expanding their capacity. However, China's industry still lags behind Taiwan's in terms of expertise and capacity.

South Korea is another major player in the semiconductor industry, with companies like Samsung and SK Hynix owning a significant market share. South Korea's semiconductor industry is known for its expertise in memory chips such as DRAM and NAND flash. However, the industry is heavily dependent on imports, which can make it vulnerable to supply chain disruptions.

The semiconductor industry is experiencing significant trends, including the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), and the increasing demand for 5G technology. These trends are driving semiconductor demand, which is expected to continue to grow in the coming years.

However, the industry also faces major challenges, including a shortage of skilled workers, the increasing complexity of semiconductor manufacturing and the need for more sustainable and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes.

To overcome the challenges facing the industry, it is essential to invest in research and development, increase the availability of skilled workers and develop more sustainable and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes. By working together, governments, companies and individuals can ensure that the semiconductor industry remains competitive and sustainable, and continues to drive innovation and economic growth in the years to come.

Chip War, the Race for Semiconductor Supremacy (2023) (TaiwanPlus Docs, October 2024)

Dr. Keyu Jin, a tenured professor of economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, argues that many in the West misunderstand China’s economic and political models. She maintains that China became the most successful economic story of our time by shifting from primarily state-owned enterprises to an economy more focused on entrepreneurship and participation in the global economy.

Dr. Keyu Jin: Understanding a Global Superpower - Another Look at the Chinese Economy (Wheeler Institute for Economy, October 2024)

Dr. Keyu Jin: China's Economic Prospects and Global Impact (Global Institute For Tomorrow, July 2024)

The following conversation highlights the complexity and nuance of Xi Jinping's ideology and its relationship to traditional Chinese thought, and emphasizes the importance of understanding the internal dynamics of the Chinese Communist Party and the ongoing debates within the Chinese system.

Dr. Kevin Rudd: On Xi Jinping - How Xi's Marxist Nationalism Is Shaping China and the World (Asia Society, October 2024)

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

idk why but I though of you when having this issue so here goes nothing. I need a new mobile, and I make a point of getting myself one with removable battery. The thing is, I can't seem to find a single smartphone with removable battery that's not from a Chinese manufacturer. I'm really tired of companies being so obsessed with planned obsolence. Do you happen to know any smartphone with removable battery that's not from a Chinese brand, by any chance? My current mobile is 8 years old and it is begging for retirememnt.

Here are a few I found. There are some Chinese ones thrown in, like the TCL, but most seem to be Japanese or Korean. They're all old though, and some are hard to get in the US. The thing about phones is they all have Chinese parts, though, since the rare Earth minerals that are used to make phones pretty much all come from China. So it's very hard to divest fully from China when getting a phone.

[thatstormygeek]

Q: How did the AI hype start? A: OpenAI became the first American company to demonstrate that if you take a snapshot of the whole known internet and all digitized books in existence without worrying too much about copyright law, you can create a model so good that its output would be almost indistinguishable from that of a DC bureaucrat with mediocre intelligence.

Q: How is China involved? A: As a part of its larger effort to contain China, the U.S. government has been on a mission of stopping Chinese companies from becoming leaders in different areas of technology. It has done so by wielding control over global supply chains and protecting American tech companies from competition in the process. The U.S. blocked Huawei’s entry into the United States just as it was overtaking Apple to become the second biggest smartphone manufacturer in the world; it stopped European countries from installing Huawei manufactured 5G infrastructure when it was clearly more economical; and most recently, it passed legislation banning TikTok, a Chinese social media app that had become massively popular in United States and whose recommendation algorithm no American social media app had been able to outperform. The U.S. claim that Huawei and other Chinese tech companies are inextricably linked to China’s geopolitical strategy and put Western companies and people at heightened risk of surveillance and corporate espionage is, of course, grounded in reality. DeepSeek isn’t shy about how much data it collects on its platform, including even your keystrokes ... However, because DeepSeek is open source and can run locally on a separate device, Chairman Xi Jinping’s prying eyes can be shielded. Maintaining global technological dominance is one of the key concerns U.S. policymakers have repeatedly cited, and have identified AI as a crucial technology in maintaining that dominance. In 2018, when the U.S. government was in the process of banning Huawei, it realized that it would need to do the same with downstream technologies like semiconductor chips, the main component used in CPUs and GPUs. The severe chip shortage due to global supply chain disruptions during Covid-19 showed that advanced chips are a global supply chain bottleneck and a scarce resource. By 2022 the Biden administration had put comprehensive sanctions on China, stopping the export of these chips to the country and preventing Chinese AI companies from accessing the latest and most efficient GPUs. At the same time, it passed the CHIPS act, subsidizing national semiconductor manufacturing with over $50 billion.

[darkmaga-returns]

Trump tariffs live updates. Bank Accounts still being frozen in Canada. The Future of Europe. Trump: I'll solve the problem of Iran. Islamic Conquest in Texas. The “Monster Earthquake” in SoCal

Lioness of Judah Ministry

Apr 15, 2025

Trump tariffs live updates: Possible tech, auto exemptions in focus as Trump team sows confusion

President Trump maintained that tariffs will soon hit phones, computers, and major consumer tech products, as investor focus turns to products and companies that could garner at least temporary exemptions.

Trump and his top advisers sowed confusion this weekend, when it was revealed that the US had excluded smartphones, computers, and other consumer electronics from tariffs. But Trump said in a lengthy Sunday post on social media that there was "no exception" for those products. "We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations," he said.

Mizuho: "Pretty High" Confidence Data Will Show China Dumping US Treasuries

"There’s clearly some sort of smoothing going on in the FX market, and to do that a central bank has to sell the US Treasuries and others to fund that FX intervention"

Now that even the shoeshine boy is speculating whether China is selling its US treasuries (to kill three birds with one stone: i) hammer the dollar, ii) push yields higher and iii) prop up the yuan, if only to give the impression that China is winning the trade war something we described here), Mizuho has a “pretty high” degree of confidence that data will eventually show if China has been selling US Treasuries, according to Jordan Rochester, EMEA head of FICC strategy at the bank. “Annoyingly we don’t get the data quickly enough, the data’s always lagged,” Rochester said on Monday in an interview with Bloomberg TV when asked if the Chinese have been selling US debt.

China Limits Stock Sales To Maintain Impression Of Stability, As Bessent Hints At Boosting Treasury Buybacks If Fed Does Nothing

If the Fed won't do anything, the Treasury will take matters into its own hands...

Last week we explained how the escalating trade war between the US and China has gradually transformed into a theatrical war of who has the upper hand on any given day. And since it takes a long time for trade obstructions to hit the underlying economy, investors are keenly eyeing the stock, and especially FX, markets for any and every (early) indications of who has the upper hand (even if they are, as we show below, completely false).

Trump Tariffs Spur NVIDIA to Manufacture AI Supercomputers ‘Entirely in the U.S.’

NVIDIA is bringing the production of its artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers and Blackwell chips to the United States, spurred by President Donald J. Trump’s tariff policies that incentivize domestic manufacturing.

The company has partnered with TSMC, Foxconn, Wistron, Amkor, and SPIL, securing over a million square feet of manufacturing space in Arizona and Texas to build and test these advanced technologies. In Arizona, TSMC’s Phoenix plants have begun producing NVIDIA Blackwell chips, while Foxconn in Houston and Wistron in Dallas are constructing supercomputer manufacturing facilities. Mass production is slated to scale up within the next 12-15 months. NVIDIA anticipates producing up to half a trillion dollars of AI infrastructure in the U.S. over the next four years, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and driving trillions in economic growth.

[voiceofentrepreneurlife]

Tim Cook Announces Apple's China Expansion

In a meeting with Chinese government officials in Beijing, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that the U.S. company plans to boost its investment in China, contributing to the growth of the supply chain, according to a report from state news agency Xinhua on Thursday. On Wednesday, the ministry confirmed that Cook met with Jin Zhuanglong, Minister for Industry and Information Technology.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment via email.

This is Cook’s second visit to the world’s largest smartphone market this year, where the iPhone maker has recently seen a decline in market share to domestic competitors.

Xinhua quoted Cook as saying, “Apple is keen to leverage the opportunities created by China’s economic opening and will continue increasing investment in the country, thereby supporting the high-quality development of its industrial and supply chains.” Read More-https://voiceofentrepreneur.life/apple-ceo-tim-cook-announces-the-companys-plans-to-boost-investments-in-china/

[denmark-street]

How Osama bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ reached millions online

By Wednesday night, the letter had become a point of discussion among left-wing creators on the video app, with some saying its critiques of American foreign policy had opened their eyes to a history they’d never learned.

But the letter didn’t rank among TikTok’s top trends. Videos with the #lettertoamerica hashtag had been seen about 2 million times — a relatively low count on a wildly popular app with 150 million accounts in the United States alone.

Then that evening, the journalist Yashar Ali shared a compilation he’d made of the TikTok videos in a post on X, formerly Twitter. That post has been viewed more than 38 million times. By Thursday afternoon, when TikTok announced it had banned the hashtag and dozens of similar variations, TikTok videos tagged #lettertoamerica had gained more than 15 million views.

The letter’s spread sparked a deluge of commentary, with some worrying that TikTok’s users were being radicalized by a terrorist manifesto, and TikTok’s critics arguing it was evidence that the app, owned by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance, had been secretly boosting propaganda to a captive audience of American youth.

But the letter’s spread also reflected the bedeviling realities of modern social media, where young people — many of whom were born after 9/11 — share and receive information on fast-paced smartphone apps designed to make videos go viral, regardless of their content.

It also showed how efforts to suppress such information can backfire. Many of the videos on TikTok were posted after the British newspaper the Guardian, which had hosted a copy of bin Laden’s letter, removed it. Some TikTokers said the removal was proof of the letter’s wisdom and importance, leading them to further amplify it as a result.

“Don’t turn the long-public ravings of a terrorist into forbidden knowledge, something people feel excited to go rediscover,” Renee DiResta, a research manager at the Stanford internet Observatory who has advised Congress on online disinformation, wrote Thursday in a post on Threads. “Let people read the murderer’s demands — this is the man some TikTok fools chose to glorify. Add more context.”

TikTok spokesman Alex Haurek said Thursday that the company was “proactively and aggressively” removing videos promoting the letter for violating the company’s rules on “supporting any form of terrorism” and said it was “investigating” how the videos got onto its platform.

Haurek said that the #lettertoamerica hashtag had been attached to 274 videos that had garnered 1.8 million views on Tuesday and Wednesday, before “the tweets and media coverage drove people to the hashtag.” Other hashtags, for comparison, dwarfed discussion of the letter on the platform: During a recent 24-hour period, #travel videos had 137 million views, #skincare videos had 252 million views and #anime videos had 611 million views, Haurek said.

Ali said he made the compilation video Wednesday after seeing “thousands” of the videos and intentionally left out the “most incendiary examples” because he didn’t want the compilation to be removed from Instagram, where he also posted it.

He agreed the hashtag had never trended on TikTok but disputed the idea that the number of videos posted there had been “small,” saying, “Sure, in the context of a global platform. But not small enough to be minuscule or not important.”

Most of the videos have since been removed by TikTok, making it difficult to get a full tally. But a search for the letter Thursday morning by a Washington Post reporter revealed around 700 TikTok videos, only a few of which got more than 1 million views.

Such high view counts are common on TikTok, where videos are served up in rapid fashion and the average U.S. user watches for more than an hour a day. One viral video last month, in which a young woman discussed the pain of a 9-to-5 job, has more than 3 million views and 280,000 likes.

The videos featured many people saying they’d known little about bin Laden and were questioning what they’d been taught about American involvement around the world. Some said they were “trying to go back to life as normal” after reading it; in one video, a user scrolled through the full letter and said, “We’ve been lied to our entire lives.”

But while many pointed to bin Laden’s comments on the Palestinian issue, few highlighted the letter’s more extreme criticism of Western “immorality and debauchery,” including “acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling and trading with interest.”

Many commenters also criticized giving the letter attention or worked to remind people that bin Laden had preached an antisemitic, sexist ideology that led to thousands of deaths. On the “_monix2” video, one commenter said, “You guys Bin Laden wrote this. Do y’all know what he did. What is wrong with y’all [oh my God. I guess] we’re supporting terrorism these days.” (Attempts to reach the @_monix2 account were unsuccessful.)

Charlie Winter, a specialist in Islamist militant affairs and director of research at the intelligence platform ExTrac, said in an interview Thursday that he was “frankly really quite surprised at the response” to the letter, which he described as “a kind of core doctrinal text” for both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State terrorist group.

In addition to long-standing grievances, the letter contains “blatant language that is clearly calling for acts of genocide … [and] for killing noncombatants in any nation that is democratic and is fighting against a Muslim-majority state,” he said.

“It’s not the letter that is going viral. It’s a selective reading of parts of the letter that’s going viral,” he said. “And I don’t know whether it’s because people aren’t actually reading it or, when they’re reading it, they’re reading the bits that they want to see.”

The letter’s spread online was celebrated Thursday by users on al-Qaeda forums, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online extremism. One user Thursday wrote that Islamist militants should capitalize on the opportunity, saying, “I hope you all are seeing ongoing storm on Social Media. … We should post more and more content.”

Some of the TikTok creators who shared the letter posted follow-up videos saying they did not support terrorism or violence. One of the first TikTok creators to share it, and who spoke to The Post on the condition that her name not be included in the story, said she had encouraged people to read it for “educational purposes.”

She said she did not “condone nor justify” bin Laden’s actions and was “distancing [herself] from this entire situation.” “It’s a sad world if we cannot even read a public document, simply to educate ourselves, without being smeared online,” she said.

TikTok has faced criticism and calls for a nationwide ban due to the popularity of pro-Palestinian videos on the app compared with pro-Israel content, even though Facebook and Instagram show a similar gap. In a video call organized by TikTok on Wednesday, first reported by the New York Times, some Hollywood actors and TikTok creators pushed company executives to do more to crack down on antisemitic content.

But the idea that the “Letter to America” discussion solely began on TikTok is challenged by Google data, which show that search interest in the “bin Laden letter” began gathering last week, days before it became a topic of TikTok conversation.

And TikTok is far from the only place where the letter has been discussed. Though Instagram blocked searches for some hashtags, some videos related to the letter — including those critical of it — remained publicly viewable Thursday on the Meta-owned app.

On Thursday afternoon, searches for “letter to America” on Instagram were still being given a “Popular” tag. One post, a series of screenshots of the letter, had more than 10,000 likes as of Thursday afternoon.

On Thursday, the letter and bin Laden’s name were also “trending topics” on X, the social network owned by Elon Musk. One tweet there from Wednesday — in which the writer said reading the letter was like feeling a “glass wall shatter,” and asks, “Is this what ex cult members feel like when they become self aware” — remained online Thursday, with nearly 3 million views.

The letter — a nearly 4,000-word translation of the al-Qaeda leader’s comments — had been originally posted in Arabic on a Saudi Arabian website used to disseminate al-Qaeda messages. The Guardian originally published an English translation in 2002 alongside a news article that offered more detail on how it had begun circulating among “British Islamic extremists.”

Though the Guardian removed the letter on Wednesday, its replacement, a page called “Removed: document,” had by Thursday become one of the most-viewed stories on the newspaper’s website. Some TikTokers voiced anger at the newspaper for, in the words of one, “actively censoring” information.

A spokesperson for the Guardian said in a statement that the letter had been removed after it was “widely shared on social media without the full context.”

The editors of the Guardian faced a “no-win scenario” once interest in bin Laden’s letter began to grow, Marco Bastos, a senior lecturer in media and communication at City, University of London, said in a phone interview.

“If they don’t take down the content, the content will be leveraged and it will be discussed, potentially shared and is going to go viral — if not out of context, then certainly outside of the scope of the original piece,” Bastos said. “If they take it down, they’re going to be accused, as they are right now, of censorship.”

At the time of publication, the editors “expected that this letter would be read critically, you know, adversarially … that you would process this within the view ��� or the bias, if you prefer — of the Western side of the events,” Bastos added. “And now it’s being consumed, distributed and shared to push an agenda that’s precisely the opposite of the one that it was originally intended for.”

Winter, the Islamist militant affairs specialist, said he found it “kind of ironic” that the letter was being shared uncritically around the web.

“People who consider themselves to be critical consumers of mainstream media are consuming this very uncritically and not thinking about the context around it,” he said. “Not thinking about everything that happened just over a year before it was published as well, in any meaningful way.”

Bisset reported from London.

[mariacallous]

The Chinese government announced Tuesday it is opening an investigation into Google in response to 10 percent tariffs imposed on Chinese imports by US president Donald Trump. Minutes after the tariffs went into effect, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation said it was probing the American tech giant for potentially violating the country’s anti-monopoly law.

The Chinese government may have strategically chosen to go after Google because it has limited operations in the country, ensuring the hit to the US tech giant would be relatively minimal. The move gives China plenty of room to escalate if the Trump administration announces further tariffs or other trade measures. Google declined to comment.

China also announced it was putting more restrictions on the sale of some critical minerals like tungsten and slapping additional tariffs on farm equipment, pickup trucks, liquified natural gas, coal, and other goods from the US. While the US isn’t reliant on China for all of the impacted minerals, the country does control the majority of the world’s tungsten supply, which is used in light bulbs, semiconductors, and ammunition.

“China’s position is firm and consistent. Trade and tariff wars have no winners,” China’s Ministry of Foreign affairs said in a statement Sunday shortly after the tariffs were announced. “This move cannot solve the US’s problems at home and, more importantly, does not benefit either side, still less the world.”

China has kept Google in its crosshairs during the ongoing trade war with the US over the last few years. In 2020, the government reportedly considered opening an antitrust investigation into Google's Android business, according to Reuters. The deliberations followed a complaint from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, which was targeted by Trump during his first term.

Because of US sanctions, Huawei is unable to use American-made software like Google Mobile Services, a suite of tools widely used across the smartphone industry. The restrictions forced the company to develop its own operating system called Harmony OS.

But most smartphones around the world still run on Android, which has sparked competition investigations in a number of countries, some of which have led to concessionary changes designed to give consumers and app developers more choices and lower fees. In China, several smartphone makers continue to rely on an open source version of Android.

This past December, Chinese authorities also opened an anti-monopoly investigation into Nvidia, the chipmaker whose GPUs play a crucial role in the development of generative AI and have become a significant source of trade sparring between the US and China. The announcement came soon after the Biden administration further tightened China’s access to high-end semiconductors.

About 15 years ago, Google stopped offering a search experience tailored for China following a series of Chinese government-linked cyberattacks against it and other US companies. Google debated reentering China with a search engine about seven years ago, but the project was scuttled following protests from some employees concerned about supporting Chinese surveillance and censorship.

Google has also stopped short of directly selling cloud technologies in China, as local laws could threaten the privacy and security assurances it offers to customers in other markets. Other Google services such as YouTube are blocked by Chinese internet regulators.

China has allowed domestic companies to buy advertisements through Google so that they can market to customers abroad. But the revenue from those deals is relatively small, and China didn't even garner a mention in parent company Alphabet's annual financial report last year. That stands in contrast to Meta, which lists China among its biggest markets in terms of advertiser location and said last year that China-based advertisers account for 10 percent of its annual revenue.

[seairexim]

The Surge of Mobile Exports from India in 2024

In recent years, India has emerged as a formidable player in the global electronics landscape, particularly in the realm of mobile exports. As of 2024, the Indian mobile export industry is witnessing significant growth, driven by favorable government policies, foreign direct investment, and a burgeoning domestic market. This article explores the current state of mobile export from India, the key players involved, and the implications for the global smartphone market.

Overview of Mobile Exports from India

The mobile export from India has seen a meteoric rise, with projections indicating that exports could exceed $12 billion in value by the end of 2024. This impressive growth can be attributed to several factors, including the government’s "Make in India" initiative and the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, both designed to bolster domestic manufacturing and attract international investments.

Growth Drivers

Several factors are propelling the growth of mobile exports in India:

1. Government Initiatives

The Indian government has introduced various programs to promote local manufacturing, such as tax breaks, subsidies, and the establishment of electronics manufacturing clusters. These initiatives aim to attract both domestic and foreign manufacturers to set up production facilities in India, which has proven effective in enhancing the mobile export sector.

2. Investment in Infrastructure

Investment in infrastructure has also played a critical role in boosting mobile exports. Improved logistics, reliable power supply, and streamlined regulatory processes make India an attractive destination for mobile manufacturers. This investment is crucial for facilitating large-scale production and ensuring timely exports.

3. Technological Advancements

The rapid advancement of technology has enabled Indian manufacturers to produce high-quality smartphones that meet global standards. Companies are increasingly investing in research and development to innovate and improve their product offerings, further enhancing their competitiveness in the international market.

4. Skilled Workforce

India’s vast pool of skilled labor is another significant factor driving mobile exports. The country boasts a workforce proficient in electronics manufacturing and engineering, enabling companies to maintain high production standards and innovate effectively. This skilled labor force is essential for both domestic and foreign companies seeking to enhance their manufacturing capabilities in India.

Key Mobile Exporters in India

Several major players dominate the mobile export landscape in India, Leading mobile exporter in India are:

1. Apple Inc.

Apple has been a trailblazer in the Indian mobile export sector, establishing manufacturing facilities through its contract manufacturers like Foxconn and Wistron. The production of iPhones in India has not only bolstered local employment but has also significantly contributed to India’s mobile export data.

2. Samsung Electronics

Samsung operates one of the largest smartphone manufacturing plants in Noida, where it produces a wide range of devices, from budget models to flagship smartphones. The company has ramped up its export operations, making it a critical player in the Indian mobile export market.

3. Xiaomi

Xiaomi has rapidly gained a significant market share in India, thanks to its affordable smartphones. The company has invested heavily in local manufacturing, exporting a considerable volume of devices to countries across Southeast Asia and Africa.

4. Vivo and Oppo

Both Vivo and Oppo, Chinese smartphone manufacturers, have established substantial production facilities in India. They focus on catering to the growing demand for mid-range smartphones, further enhancing India’s export capabilities.

5. Lava International

As a homegrown brand, Lava International has also made strides in mobile exports. The company primarily targets budget-conscious markets, exporting feature phones and affordable smartphones to various countries.

Analyzing Mobile Export Data

The mobile export data for 2024 indicates robust growth, with significant exports to key markets including:

1. North America

India has become an essential supplier of smartphones to North America, with Apple’s production in India catering to a large portion of the U.S. market. This trend is expected to continue as more brands establish manufacturing operations in India.

2. European Union

Countries in the EU, particularly Germany and the UK, have seen increased imports of Indian-manufactured smartphones. Samsung and Xiaomi lead this charge, exporting a diverse range of devices to meet consumer demand.

3. Southeast Asia

Indian smartphone manufacturers are tapping into the growing demand in Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand. Competitive pricing and quality have made Indian smartphones increasingly popular in these regions.

4. Middle East and Africa

The demand for affordable smartphones in the Middle East and Africa has surged, making these regions vital markets for Indian manufacturers. Brands like Lava and Xiaomi are successfully exporting budget-friendly smartphones, addressing the needs of price-sensitive consumers.

Understanding Mobile Phone HS Code

The Harmonized System (HS) code plays a crucial role in facilitating international trade. The mobile phone hs code is 8517.12, which covers smartphones capable of connecting to cellular networks. Accurate classification using the HS code is essential for mobile exporters in India to ensure compliance with customs regulations and to expedite the export process.

Conclusion

The mobile export landscape in India is poised for significant growth in 2024, with the country solidifying its position as a key player in the global smartphone market. Supported by government initiatives, foreign investments, and a skilled workforce, India is well-equipped to meet the growing demand for mobile devices worldwide.

As Indian manufacturers continue to innovate and expand their production capabilities, the outlook for mobile exports remains positive. By leveraging its strengths and addressing challenges, India can capitalize on its position in the global supply chain, ensuring sustainable growth and economic benefits for years to come. The future of mobile exports from India is bright, and the country is set to make its mark on the international stage. However if you need the list of smartphone exports by country, mobile phone HS code or global trade data connect with import and export data provider platforms like Seair Exim solutions.

Post By:

Seair Exim Solutions

Phone No.: 099900 20716

Address: B1/E3 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Estate Near Mohan Estate Metro Station Opposite Metro Pillar No:-336, NH-19, New Delhi, Delhi 110044

Also Read : A Comprehensive Guide to Garment Exports from India in 2024