Business briefs

Telecom

Trials for TD-LTE planned in 7 cities

China Mobile Communications Co, the parent of world's largest telecom carrier by subscriber numbers, said on March 7 that seven major Chinese cities will run a commercial trial of the TD-LTE network by the second quarter of 2012.

TD-LTE, which stands for Time Division-Long Term Evolution technology, is the next generation (4G) telecommunication standard that has been in development by China Mobile since late 2007.

The technology can easily reach a download speed of more than 100 megabytes a second, according to China Mobile.

The seven cities are Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Xiamen.

Auto

Weak motor vehicle sales in February

China's passenger vehicle sales dropped slightly in February from last year, the first fall in more than two years, giving rise to uncertainty about the entire year's sales.

Domestic sales of cars, sports utility vehicles, multipurpose vehicles and minivans dipped by 0.4 percent year-on-year to 880,027 units in February, a 37.3 percent fall from the previous month's figure, according to data released by the China Passenger Car Association.

"February is not a good indicator of overall market growth due to various factors, such as the Chinese New Year, consumers getting used to changes in policies and the rise in sales in January in advance of the Spring Festival," said Lin Huaibin, the manager responsible for China vehicle sales forecast of consulting company IHS Automotive.

Daimler drives to take advantage of prospects

German automaker Daimler AG intends to invest 3 billion euros to leap forward in the Chinese auto market.

"We expect China's economic growth to maintain high speed in the coming years, resulting in more people being able to afford cars, especially luxury cars," CEO Dieter Zetsche said.

The investment over five years is Daimler's largest in an overseas market and at least triple what it has put into China so far, the company said. In return, Daimler aims to sell 300,000 cars annually in China by the end of 2015.

The Chinese authorities have recently granted a business license to Shenzhen BYD Daimler New Technology Co Ltd - Daimler's joint venture with Chinese battery and automaker BYD Co - to develop electric vehicles.