There are rumors of a deal for China Mobile to handle the new iPhone in China, but here's a post putting the iPhone in Hong Kong at a very reasonable USD24/month:

Some comparisons (all expressed in U.S. dollars for the equivalent of a 2-year contract):
* Hutchison in Hong Kong: $955 (500MB voice and data) to $1,532 (unlimited voice and data)
* O2 (TEF) in the U.K.: $1,698 (75 minutes, unlimited data) to $3,588 (3000 min., unlimited data)
* AT&T (T) in the U.S.: $1,879 (450 min., unlimited data) to $3,318 (unlimited voice and data)
* T-Mobile (DT) in Germany: $1,366 (500MB data) to $3,374 (5GB data)
* Rogers (RCI) in Canada: $1,624 (150 min., 400 MB data) to $2,932 (800 min., 2GB data)

Apple's first direct-operated retail outlet in China is aimed at the Sanlitun area and should open soon.

Sanlitun has outlived rumors of its demise. Eleven years ago I wrote an article for a Beijing magazine about the impending closure of Sanlitun because local residents couldn't handle the noise caused by all the pubs, restaurants, and clothing stalls. Sanlitun's bars, at that point, were going to be moved to Chaoyang Park's south gate, and a few bars did move. A fellow named Richard, who had returned to China after staying in London a few years, opened the first bar at Chaoyang Park called "The Slowboat" — he had imported real English grass to create an authentic feel of England in back of his pub. The name of the bar was apt, as few quality F&B outlets moved with him to Chaoyang Park. So Sanlitun continued to grow, and more rumors always surfaced about its demise, until in recent years the outdoor clothing markets were placed inside a nearby building, the south road of Sanlitun's bar street was finally demolished, and many bars did move to nearby areas.

So now Sanlitun has some of the old bars, but it has elevated (devolved??) into more of a shopping area — the wife of one of my colleagues at BDL Media even opened a small boutique in one of the Sanlitun malls — that has the PCCW, Nokia, and IBM buildings at the fringes. The area is close to some of the new transportation links coming online, near many embassies, and has been a second home to many expats and Beijing citizens over the years.

I have not posted in two weeks because I've been traveling around Asia and I'm now in the USA — been to Omaha, Chicago, and need to be in San Francisco, Las Vegas and Seattle in the next 10 days. Staying now in New York where I just bought into a co-op apartment — if you are working in China, your Chinese yuan has gained about 20-25% of its value against the U.S. dollar (if you also integrate black market prices into that calculation), plus real estate prices have thundered down the last year making real estate a perfect, cheap investment. Sure, New York has not dropped as much as places like Las Vegas, but it's still a great buy — and I worked briefly in Las Vegas in 1997 before moving to China and plan to go there in the next few days for a possible second property purchase. With my small purchases in the USA I feel like Lenovo buying up the American dream (which, btw, reminds me that I hear rumors of a Chinese company that is going to make a move on buying Dell soon).

No, this does not mean I'm moving back to the USA — these are just strategic investments in a cheap market. Even with the added USA tax headaches of being an expatriate in China and owning property in the USA, it's worth the buy. One of my colleagues in China is buying investment property in Southeast Asia, so the China boom is making itself felt in all geographic areas. On the flip side, China real estate is incredibly over-valued right now in the main cities — I should have bought 10 years ago.

But I digress. I was sent this press release for the USA Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about how dog bites are a top concern for travelers to China during the Olympics. While dog bites are a problem in rural parts of China, with Beijing's final solution over the last decade of cleansing the city of large dogs within certain ring roads, a mosquito can do more harm and cause more aggravation in Beijing than the bite from a puny Canis lupis familiaris. And, hey, if a traveler is bitten, he/she can bite back in one of the restaurants that caters to serving poached puppy. Bottom line: Beijing-bound travelers have little to fear from dog bites.

In Hong Kong this week and just finished downloading (much faster than on mainland) and watching Steve Jobs' 105-minute presentation on the great new 3G iPhone. He listed 70 "countries" and named Macau and Hong Kong as two of those "countries". Seeing as mainland China doesn't consider either of those two self-administered regions as countries and often gets quite upset when companies do make the faux pas, maybe this is indicative of Apple's continued naive troubles to get Apple into the country in the late 90s and current issues with getting the iPhone a partner in China?

I just hope Apple can get their phone into China asap so I can use its full features!

If you are planning to market a service (or the website itself) on a website domain with a .HK or .CN name, think again. A new McAfee security report details some of the same issues with these domains that I mentioned 6 weeks ago and that have been furiously flying around on security/hacking newsgroups for quite some time. One of the big problems with .CN domains is that their essential goodness has been diluted by rock-bottom prices that have allowed hackers and spammers to buy .CN domains in bulk. Some email admins around the world are starting to block access to .CN domains for their users because of the phishing and spamming problems associated with .CN domains.

If you are a digital marketer who has been wondering why emails sent from .CN domains bounce so often, now you know.

This also reminds me of a post I wrote a couple years ago:

In fact, different ISPs in the USA have been blocking Chinese users for many years. I wrote back in 2001 (not linkable) how the (now deceased) Excite@Home routinely blocked email from Shanghai and Beijing ISPs and also blocked incoming HTTP requests from a number of places in China (therefore not allowing users in China access to websites hosted by Excite@Home). We had email communication with Excite@Home's legal department up until they went bust, then the problem went away…

An aging Chinese factory owner uses his guanxi and business license to save scores of laowai from being shipped out of the country. That would be a good premise for a movie about some of the worries many people have in China these days. Lots of visa hassles. Lots of headaches.

I mentioned in the past how Beijing hotels are not expecting great Q3 financial returns because an Olympic host city usually has decreased business pre- and post-Olympics. Plus, China has banned many conferences from Beijing for about 3 months around the time of the Olympics.

Now with the visa hassles, hotels outside of Beijing are also being affected. One of my colleagues had a meeting with a 5-star hotel in Shanghai this morning and the general manager of the hotel was complaining about a 80+ person conference had canceled because many of the overseas visitors could not secure visas to enter China. We are hearing of other situations around China where hotels are seeing loss of business because of visa hassles for conference/exhibition attendees. A typical 4-star or 5-star hotel might only earn 50% of its revenue from hotel rooms, and the other part of its income comes from F&B and MICE (meetings, incentive travel, conferences, and exhibitions).

Isn't Visa a sponsor for the Olympics? Seems like a bevy of creative commercials could come from that relationship coupled with the current state of affairs.

Just finishing the final day at the Asia Society's conference in Tianjin and then flying back to Shanghai tonight. It's been a mamahuhu event with highlights such as speeches from Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and actor Jet Li, on behalf of his "Red Cross Society of China Jet Li One Foundation Project". One of the main topics of the event is "sustainability", and shark's fin soup was served last night during a meal hosted by the Tianjin government — the irony was not lost on the diners at my table.

Many charities don't like to accept clothing/blankets because of sanitary reasons, but now there is a way to help send goods to Sichuan for those wanting to do more than just writing a cheque. Two organizations we work closely with — Care for Children and Shangri-La Hotels — are putting together a hygiene kit initiative for Chengdu. More information about how you can help send important daily hygiene necessities, as well as a picture of the goods, here.

Heading to Beijing today for a few days of meeting's and then to Tianjin for the Asia Society conference. Back in Shanghai next Friday night.

I was talking a few days ago with a visiting MBA student about balance sheets and standard payment cycles companies face. Mind you, these thoughts below only apply to my company's advertising and direct marketing technology services, but over the years from talking to others I think in general other companies see the same trends.

This list goes from the shortest cycle to the longest cycle. And they are quite general as I think to make them any more definitive we'd all need to sign a non-disclosure agreement:
Travel agencies - 30-60 days
Big multinationals (non-travel related) - 60 days
Hotels & airlines - 60-90 days
Consulting companies (law firms, accountants, market research) - 120 days
Ad/PR agencies - 120-150 days
Telecom companies - 120-180 days

The above is a simplistic view of things. Biggest headaches are from advertising/PR companies who often need to be paid first by their client before a service provider is then paid — and sometimes they might need to meet their own payroll before service providers are paid. I've heard that some ad companies for some clients go up to a year for receivables, but that's not as bad as dealing with telecom companies. A colleague of mine has a friend who exclusively deals with the Chinese telecoms and he has a 12+ monthly cycle. He was able to take out a bank loan based on telecom receivables just to get him through some periods of non-payment.

Consulting companies are sometimes problematic. Many are rep offices in China, and so they often need to pay offshore. This means their China offices need to coordinate with their overseas office to make an overseas payment. This all takes time. I think law firms will delay payment just because they can — same with accounting firms.

I'm not an accountant and I don't monitor if these stats are similar with what one might find overseas, but I think they are pretty standard for China. I'd love to be in a 100% cash business.