Himalaya Airlines and Huawei Cloud join hands to form a strategic partnership

Himalaya Airlines and Huawei Cloud, Chinese multinational technology company, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for strategic cooperation today during a signing ceremony held at Huawei company office in Kathmandu.
Leveraging its advantages in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) products and solutions, Huawei, a leading global provider of information and communications technology, will provide Himalaya with competitive products and services to enable Himalaya to provide its passengers, better ticketing options and travel experience, according to a press note issued by the company. “The agreement is expected to promote the construction of smart aviation and trans-Himalaya multi-dimensional connectivity to achieve more substantial results, opening up opportunities for Himalaya to be a leading airline in South Asia.”
 The event was virtually graced by Economic and Commercial Counsellor at the Embassy of China to Nepal Zhang Fan, deputy director of the Department of Commerce of the Tibet Autonomous Region Wang Ping and president of Huawei Technology Cloud and AI business group of Asia Pacific Region Zhou Danjin. The MoU was signed by president of Himalaya Airlines Zhou Enyong and chief executive officer of Huawei Technologies Nepal Deng Shuigen.
Congratulating both the parties, Economic and Commercial Counselor of Embassy of China to Nepal Zhang Fan expressed that the collaboration between the two parties is indeed a proactive effort to cope with the new challenges and circumstances of post-pandemic international aviation, international communication and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) cooperation. He also hoped the two companies as well as the other companies with Chinese investment in Nepal can break the barriers of conventional mindset, adopt more innovative methods to create suitable business models for the post-pandemic period and thereby make meaningful contributions to the BRI cooperation between China and Nepal.
While delivering his remarks, Wang Ping affirmed Himalaya’s contribution to the establishment of an important aviation channel to South Asia for the Tibet Autonomous Region. He also hoped Himalaya will achieve smarter management, operation and win-win development with the help of Huawei's advanced information solutions. He promised that the Tibet Autonomous Region will continue to support the development of overseas investment enterprises.
Addressing the event president of the Himalaya Airlines Zhou Enyong said that he believes the cooperation with Huawei will speed up the digital transformation and informatisation of the company, optimise the ticketing and travelling experience for customers, and will contribute to the overall development of the entire civil aviation industry of Nepal. He also welcomed the third party cooperation based on the bilateral cooperation in software, instruments, and other service areas through united innovation and exploring solutions for betterment of the industry in this region.
Likewise, president of Huawei technology Cloud and AI business group of Asia Pacific Region Zhou Danjin shared that they will take this opportunity to employ Himalaya Airlines’ expertise in aviation field together with their strength in technology to push ahead the process of ‘Intelligentisation]. Through digital transformation for Himalaya and improve its competitiveness to realize the business potential.
Himalaya and Huawei will cooperate in ICT technologies represented by Huawei Cloud and AI, in order to achieve mutual benefits and common development. It will also include building the Cloud platform for Himalaya's sales and finance system, set up Business Intelligent (BI) system, and push ahead the upgrade and renovation of existing ICT equipment. Himalaya also is ready to explore all-round cooperation possibilities with Huawei and third parties in passenger and freight transportation systems in the future.

Nepali envoy urges China to help reduce trade deficit

There has been significant growth in trade, investment, cultural, political and people-to-people exchanges between Nepal and China in the recent years, Nepali envoy to China Leela Mani Paudyal said, addressing the second China-South Asia Cooperation Forum in Yuxi City of Yunnan Province, today.
“But with the growing trade volume, the trade deficit is also widening between the two neighbours,” he said, seeking China’s support for promoting concessional market access for Nepal, transferring technology and enhancing production capacity.
Last year, the Yunnan Provincial People’s Government had announced that it would provide a permanent place for the exhibition of Nepal products in Kunming to promote Nepal products in Yunnan, which could reduce increasing trade deficit between the two nations, he said.
Ambassador Poudyal said that many big Chinese companies including Huawei, ZTE, SinoHydro, China Gezhouba, CAMC, Hongshi Cement, Huaxin Cement and Sichuan Investment Group have invested in Nepal. China is, currently, is the largest foreign direct investor, the second largest trading partner and the second largest source of tourism of Nepal.
Nepal is considered as a virgin land where many potential sectors for investment are awaiting modern technology and management, he said, adding that hydropower, physical infrastructure including railways, digital technology, medicinal herbs processing, agriculture, tourism and mining are the potential priority areas for investment.
Likewise, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Nepal grew by almost 47 per cent in 2018, Poudyal said, shedding light on Nepal’s China policy. He also noted that it had been consistently adhering to One-China policy and never tolerated any anti-Chinese activities on its soil. “On the other hand, China has always supported Nepal’s sovereign independence, territorial integrity and peace, providing much-needed development assistance without preconditions.”
Though Nepal accounts for only 0.1 per cent of the global landmass, the Himalayan nation has eight of the world’s tallest 14 peaks, including Sagaramatha (Mt Everest), 600 indigenous plant families, 8 per cent of the total population of birds, and 4 per cent of the mammals on earth, he added.
The Trip Advisor, Lonely Planet, Rough Guide, BBC and CNN have rated Nepal as the best value of money destination, in several consecutive years in the past including the year 2019.
Inviting them to visit Nepal during Visit Nepal Year 2020, he said that as a goodwill gesture the Nepal government offers free of cost on arrival visa to the Chinese citizens. “With these landmark achievements, Nepal-China relations have entered a new era of common development and shared prosperity.”
Governor of Yunnan Province Ruan Chengfa, on the occasion, said that China and its South Asian neighbours had the confidence to take the lead in the policy communication, infrastructure connectivity, smooth trade and financial integration between them. “We will jointly implement the cooperation projects, creating sound atmosphere for economic and trade cooperation in the region,” he said, adding that opening up is the only way a country to prosper and develop. “Yunnan is sparing no efforts in building the world’s first class clean energy, green food and healthy life industry.”

TeliaSonera trials Huawei's G.Fast platform

Huawei announced that TeliaSonera is the first network operator in the Nordics to perform a field trial using Huawei G.fast copper broadband technology.

The platform has been deployed in the TeliaSonera network in Helsinki, Finland with live customers and is delivering real services. With this technology, TeliaSonera can provide up to 1Gbps bandwidth to customers connected by the legacy copper network, improving the customer experience of fixed network broadband services such as TV.

G.Fast technology is a faster version of DSL that can offer speeds of 1Gbps over a distance of up to 250 metres using copper. TeliaSonera has focused on TV and entertainment services, and the demand for capacity from customers is constantly increasing as a result. The field trial demonstrates that the G.Fast technology meets not only the requirement of current services, but also offers the bandwidth for future broadband and video services, such as 4KTV, which has four times the resolution of HDTV and consumes 100Mbps bandwidth per channel.

Smartphone shipments pass one billion units in 2013

The worldwide smartphone market shipped 1.004 billion units last year, up by 38.4 per cent from the 725.3 million units in 2012, according to estimates from IDC.

In the fourth quarter of 2013, vendors shipped a total 284.4 million smartphones worldwide, up by 24.2 per cent from a year earlier. 

Smartphones accounted for 55.1 per cent of all mobile phone shipments in 2013, up from 41.7 per cent in 2012. In the broader mobile phone market, global shipments reached 1.822 billion units in 2013, up by 4.8 per cent from a year earlier. Fourth-quarter shipments reached 488.4 million, an increase of 0.9 per cent year-on-year. 

Samsung added one per cent point of market share in smartphones, to strengthen its lead at 31.3 per cent of shipments. It also grew by almost one per cent in the broader market, taking 24.6 per cent of the total mobile market. Nokia's share of the total market dropped to 13.8 per cent from 19.3 in 2012, and it did not make the top five smartphone makers. 

Apple was in second place in smartphones, although its share dropped to 15.3 per cent from 18.7 in 2012. Apple took 8.4 per cent of the total mobile phone market. LG ranked fourth in the total market with a 3.8 per cent share and fifth in smartphones with 4.8 per cent, both up on a year earlier. 

Huawei came third in smartphones, growing its share to 5.8 per cent, and Lenovo moved to fourth in the smartphone rankings, taking 4.9 per cent of shipments.

Huawei to invest $600 million in 5G research

Huawei will invest a minimum of $600 million in research and innovation for 5G technologies by 2018.

The investment will cover a range of key enabling technologies, including the research of air-interface technology, it said, predicting that the first 5G networks will be ready for commercial deployment starting in 2020 and will deliver peak data rates of over 10Gbps.
To date, Huawei has participated in the EU's 5G research projects, worked on the establishment of the 5G Innovation Center (5GIC) in the UK, and participated in joint research programmes with over twenty universities around the world.
Huawei said it will be an active contributor in building 5G standards and ecosystems to drive a globally consistent standard across the industry.

Smart mobile device shipments top 300 million

Total smart mobile device (notebook, tablet and smartphone) shipments for this year’s first quarter exceeded 308.7 million units, according to a report from Canalys. This represents a year-on-year growth of 37.4 per cent.

The report also shows that, in terms of OS vendors, the Open Handset Alliance continues to dominate, with Android the OS of choice on 59.5 per cent of all smart mobile devices shipped.

Of the other OS vendors, Apple holds a 19.3 per cent share in the smartphone and tablet PC markets, while Microsoft’s 18.1 per cent share reflects its relative strength in the PC market but continued challenger status in the smartphone space.

Of the three, the tablet market continues to grow the fastest. Worldwide, tablet shipments grew 106.1 per cent year-on-year to 41.9 million units. Though Apple continues to lead in the tablet space with a 46.4 per cent share, it lost share to its Android-based rivals for the third consecutive quarter.

The study found that smartphone shipments came in at around 216.3 million for the quarter, maintaining the strong growth (47.9 per cent this quarter) that the market saw throughout 2012. Android handsets accounted for 75.6 per cent of total smartphone shipments, and Samsung dominated once again, growing its volume by 64.3 per cent year-on-year, which helped its market share exceed 32 per cent. In contrast, Apple saw modest annual growth (6.7 per cent) in its smartphone shipments — the lowest level since the launch of the original iPhone back in 2007.

Huawei, LG and ZTE completed the top five smartphone vendors, all with less than five per cent market share each. Once again, Huawei and ZTE benefited from their strength in their home market, with 84 per cent and 71 per cent of their shipments respectively in mainland China.

Notebook PC shipments amounted to 50.5 million units, declining by 13.1 per cent during the quarter compared with the same period in 2012. The biggest decline was in western Europe, where shipments fell by 25.2 per cent on an annual basis.

Nepal Telecom signs pact with Huawei to extend 5.2 million mobile lines in first phase

Nepal Telecom (NT) has signed $119 million agreement with Huawei Technologies for adding 5.2 million mobile lines— for the first phase of its 10 million mobile lines – expansion project.
The Chinese telecom vendor Huawei will install equipment, commission service and provide managed service for up to five years, according to the agreement signed here today. Nepal Telecom managing director Amar Nath Singh and Huawei solution manager Huang Ahua and account manager Roshendra Khadka signed the agreement on behalf of their respective institutions.

The largest telecom service provider had called the tender for the 10 million mobile lines expansion last year, when Huawei had quoted the lowest $122 million for the Package A that will add 5.2 million mobile lines in Central, Eastern, Mid-western and Far-Western development regions within the next two years, except Kathmandu Valley.
The signing of agreement delayed as the Nepal Telecom had to follow the tender conditions and the Public Procurement Act being a government-owned company.

The project would help expand the market with quality service as according to the recent data private telecom service provider Ncell has been leading the market.

However, the Nepse listed Nepal Telecom claimed the complete package of projects including A and B will give it a strong hold in the local market amid growing competition from private sector players. The project also includes 3G and 4G mobile lines capable of providing high-speed wireless data service.
The project will help provide quality service as the vendor bagging the contract will also work as managed service provider for maintenance of the network to be installed. In both the packages, Huawei will provide maintenance facility for five years after the lines become operational.

Likewise, the company is also planning to outsource sim card distribution under the 10 million lines project for ensuring easy availability of the service.