Qualcomm chipping in for China's smart tech future

That is one of the high points of his second stint with Qualcomm China. During his first stint from 2003 to 2010, he served as Qualcomm China's president, and led the company into major deals with Chinese hardware manufacturers.

During that period, Qualcomm became one of the biggest suppliers of CDMA chipsets, a mainstream 3G technology used in China. "Chinese vendors started to export 3G phones in 2005. We thought it was a great opportunity for us to fuel the trend."

Qualcomm offered a wider-tiered product portfolio than Taiwan-based competitors such as MediaTek Inc. That helped Chinese smartphone manufacturers to boost their sales manifold over the last decade, as demand for 3G and 4G devices soared.

For its part, to reinforce its commitment to the China market, Qualcomm pledged a $150-million venture investment fund, to support Chinese startups in areas such as Internet, e-commerce, semi-conductors and health.

The US company was also one of the earliest investors in Xiaomi.

Around the time Meng returned to the company, a Qualcomm affiliate formed a joint venture with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, the largest chip foundry in China together with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, a telecom equipment maker, and imec, one of the world's leading nano-electronics research and development centers, to develop the next-generation integrated circuits.

Industry research firm IDC said joint ventures with local players could be an efficient way for overseas tech companies such as Qualcomm to penetrate the Chinese market further in coming years.

To prepare for the future, Meng-led Qualcomm China announced another JV in late January, this time with Southwest China's Guizhou province, to develop and manufacture server chips.

Qualcomm took a 45 percent stake in the 1.85-billion-yuan ($280-million) joint venture, while the rest was held by the investment arm of the Guizhou provincial government.

Xu Shaoshi, head of the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planner, said cross-border technological innovation will play a key role in China's economic growth. "China welcomes foreign investment (in the IT sector)," Xu said.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Chinese IT manufacturing segment grew by a healthy 10.5 percent year-on-year in December 2015. The ministry said IT will drive growth as the export-oriented manufacturing sector continues to wither. Meng is confident China is a huge market where domestic consumption of electronics is set to grow.