Tech Insider: Xiaomi Tops Indonesia Smartphone Market, German Company to Make Flying Cars in China

Welcome to Caixin’s Tech Insider, your twice-weekly wrap on the movers, shakers and deal-makers in China’s tech scene.

Xiaomi’s smartphones now No. 1 in Indonesia

With a market share of 26%, Xiaomi became Indonesia’s No. 1 smartphone brand in the second quarter of 2021, according to new figures from Counterpoint Research. Four of the five top sellers were Chinese brands.

Glen Cardoza, a senior analyst at the consultancy, said value for money underpinned Xiaomi’s success in the market, as well as a strong online presence and relatively lean inventory management. “Xiaomi… also topped in online sales, grabbing around 30% share during the quarter,” Cardoza said.

Vivo, Oppo, Samsung and Realme followed sequentially, with market shares of 21%, 20%, 13% and 11%, according to the report.

Smartphone shipments in China fall 10% in August amid microchip crunch

New figures released this week show China’s smartphone shipments totaled 23.1 million units in August, down 9.9% year-on-year, according to a report from a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. That came even as smartphone companies released 51 new models last month, an increase of four-fifths on the previous August.

About 24.3 million mobile phones were shipped in China last month, down 9.7% year on year. More than two-thirds were 5G-enabled, up 9.4% year-on-year, the report said. It did not break the figures down by operating system.

A global semiconductor shortage is continuing to rattle supply chains of manufacturers of everything from consumer electronics and smart vehicles.

Germany’s Volocopter signs deal to produce flying cars in China

German air taxi startup Volocopter announced a deal that allows it to produce its flying vehicles in China, which the German firm sees as the biggest single market for urban air mobility (UAM) services.

The firm also said on Wednesday that it will sell 150 of its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles to its Chengdu-headquartered joint venture formed with a subsidiary of Geely Technology Group, as competition in the so-called UAM market heats up.

The UAM project focuses on using eVTOL vehicles to carry people and parcels around cities, according to Volocopter, which says this will ease traffic congestion.

NetEase-owned online learning firm makes push into gaming

As the edtech sector reels from Beijing’s crackdown, one firm has taken a novel approach. Youdao Ads, a unit of NetEase-owned online learning and dictionary provider Youdao, has partnered with Japan’s Blue Ocean to use online influencers to market Chinese gaming companies in Japan.

Blue Ocean is a “multichannel network,” a kind of middleman that sits between streaming platforms and content-makers and deals with digital rights management, audience development, product development and sponsorships.

Youdao Ads said that it had established ties with over 100,000 online influencers around the world and provided digital marketing services to more than 500 companies in the gaming, e-commerce and social media sectors to support their expansion into overseas markets such as North America, Europe, the Middle East, Japan and South Korea.

General Motors to invest $300 million in Chinese self-driving startup

U.S. carmaker General Motors on Thursday announced plans to invest $300 million in China’s Momenta in order to access the firm’s next-generation self-driving technologies for vehicles sold in China. The deal marks General Motors’ confidence in the R&D capabilities of Momenta, which also counts automakers including SAIC Motor and Toyota Motor as financial backers. It also hints at how international firms might deal with new Chinese restrictions on cross-border data flows.

In March last year, Momenta agreed to provide Toyota with its camera-based high-definition mapping technology, which the Japanese carmaker said it would use to develop its automated mapping platform.

Augmented reality glasses startup Nreal bags $100 million in new funding

Chinese augmented reality startup Nreal said on Thursday that it has secured more than $100 million in a series C funding round to bankroll research. Last year, Nreal launched its first-generation consumer-facing mixed reality glasses, the Nreal Light.

Unlike virtual reality, augmented reality devices are designed to blend with the physical world, such as placing a small digital map in someone’s field of view.

This Caixin Tech Insider was compiled by Ding Yi (yiding@caixin.com) and edited by Flynn Murphy (flynnmurphy@caixin.com). Send us your tips and feedback.

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