Retail News CRM

Tag: data

  • DBS Announces More Tech Job Openings

    DBS Announces More Tech Job Openings

    DBS continues to add tech talent with plans to hire around 150 related positions via a virtual hackathon.

    DBS will hire for around 150 technology positions through a virtual hackathon, Hack2Hire, an annual program in its fourth edition, according to a statement.

    The positions will be for 14 developer and engineering roles across artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and blockchain technologies.

    Successful candidates from the hackathon will be invited for a final interview during the event.

    The latest expansion follows 140 job openings previously announced in May during the bank’s female-focused virtual career fair.

    With Covid-19 greatly accelerating the pace of digital adoption, it is now more important than ever to ensure that our digital offerings continue to stay ahead of our customers’ needs, said DBS’ group head of big data/AI and consumer banking technology Soh Siew Choo.

  • Facebook, Google, Twitter considering quiting Hong Kong

    Facebook, Google, Twitter considering quiting Hong Kong

    US tech giants Facebook, Google, and Twitter have privately warned the Hong Kong government that they could stop offering their services in the city if authorities proceed with planned changes to data protection laws, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing a letter.

    The laws could make the tech companies liable for the malicious sharing of individuals’ information online, the newspaper added.

    A letter sent by an industry group that includes the internet firms said companies are concerned that the planned rules to address “doxing” could put their staff at risk of criminal investigations or prosecutions related to what the firms’ users post online, Journal reported.

    Doxing is an act of revealing people’s personal information such as real name, home address or workplace online without the user’s permission.

    Facebook, Google, and Twitter did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

    Hong Kong’s Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau in May proposed amendments to the city’s data-protection laws that it said were needed to combat doxing, a practice that was prevalent during 2019 protests in the city, the newspaper said.

    According to the newspaper, the letter dated June 25 was sent by the Singapore-based Asia Internet Coalition.

    “The only way to avoid these sanctions for technology companies would be to refrain from investing and offering the services in Hong Kong,” the Journal reported, quoting the letter.

    Lees ook:

  • Volvo Cars To Harness Real-Time Data From Customer Cars To Set New Safety Standards

    Volvo Cars To Harness Real-Time Data From Customer Cars To Set New Safety Standards

    The next generation of Volvo cars are set to be the company’s safest ever, thanks to cutting-edge software and hardware levels, coupled with continuous and more rapid improvements to safety features with the help of real-time data. Volvo Cars has always taken a data-driven approach to safety, using traffic data from real-life situations to develop new safety technologies and make its cars even safer. For its next generation of cars, Volvo Cars is now looking towards processing data from customer cars in real-time, if customers choose to share data and help Volvo Cars make its cars safer.

    Volvo Cars and Zenseact are investing in a data factory that will contain over 200 PebiBytes (225 million gigabytes) of data within the next few years.

    By allowing customers to choose and be a part of improving safety levels and traffic safety in this way, Volvo Cars can make continuous and much faster improvements to its cars, constantly improving safety levels. This data would include continuous inputs on the car’s environment from sensors like the high-resolution LiDAR delivered by technology company Luminar.

    Volvo Cars engineers would be able to validate and verify autonomous drive (AD) features quicker, to promote a safe roll-out of AD technology. Thanks to the data generated from millions of kilometers driven by tens of thousands of Volvo drivers around the globe, engineers would be able to validate AD features for specific geographic locations much quicker than with a limited number of cars on a test track.

    Verified updates to existing systems and new features can be rolled out rapidly through over-the-air updates, increasing the safety of Volvo cars step by step. The first car to benefit from this new approach to safety development is the company’s first SUV on a completely new electric-only technology base.

    To process the real-time traffic data they will collect, Volvo Cars and Zenseact are investing in a data factory that will contain over 200 PebiBytes (225 million gigabytes) of data within the next few years. By using artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, data can be crunched at record times. Customers will be able to choose whether this data is collected about them, and all collected data will be aggregated with adequate safeguards for customer privacy.

    Volvo Cars engineers would be able to validate and verify autonomous drive (AD) features quicker, to promote a safe roll-out of AD technology.

    The use of real-time data is part of Volvo Cars’ longer-term vision for a future where collisions simply no longer happen, by equipping its cars with some of the best sensors available and advanced, continuously improving safety and autonomous drive systems.

    Volvo Cars’ forthcoming fully electric flagship SUV will have industry-leading safety technology as standard, helping the company to save even more lives as it sets a new standard for automotive safety. It will come with state-of-the-art sensors, including a LiDAR developed by Luminar and an autonomous driving computer powered by the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin system-on-a-chip, as standard.

    By combining this state-of-the-art hardware with software by Volvo Cars, Zenseact and Luminar for the next generation of its well-established collision avoidance technology, Volvo Cars expect its new safety package to reduce fatalities and accidents as a whole.

    Over time the car will improve and have the hardware and software capabilities to allow the car to take over on its own, in case the driver does not respond in life-threatening situations after repeated warnings. So while the driver always remains in ultimate control, the car and its safety technology can both support and watch over the driver like an extra pair of eyes and brains.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • India’s mobile data service revenue to record 14.7% CAGR over next five years

    India’s mobile data service revenue to record 14.7% CAGR over next five years

    Mobile data service revenue in India is expected to rise from US$6.3bn in 2020 to US$12.5bn in 2025 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.7% driven by the continued rise in smartphone subscriptions and the subsequent surge in mobile data consumption, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

    GlobalData’s India Mobile Broadband Forecast reveals that mobile Internet subscription penetration will increase from an estimated 47.3% in 2020 to 81.4% by the end of 2025 owing to heavy investment in telecom network development across remote areas in the country.

    The average monthly data usage is forecast to increase from 9.2 GB in 2020 to about 14.7 GB in 2025 accelerated by the increase in the consumption of bandwidth-heavy services like mobile video and social media on the mobile networks.

    Kantipudi Pradeepthi, Research Analyst of Telecoms Market Data & Intelligence at GlobalData, comments: “4G will remain the leading technology in terms of subscriptions in India through the forecast period while 2G will see its subscription share fall from 36.5% in 2020 to 3.5% by year-end 2025. Moreover, Airtel & Vodafone Idea plan to shut down 3G services and use the infrastructure to improve 4G connectivity.

    “Reliance Jio led the mobile services market in India in terms of mobile subscriptions in 2020, followed by Airtel and Vodafone Idea. Reliance Jio will retain its leading position through 2025, driven by its continuous expansion of 4G network and promotional discount offers.”

  • 1.3 million Clubhouse users have their personal data leaked

    1.3 million Clubhouse users have their personal data leaked

    For those who have been fast asleep for the last few months, one of the fastest-growing apps has been Clubhouse. It is an audio-only chatroom and at the moment it requires an invitation to join. It also is only available for iOS and a version for Android is reportedly months away.

    Cybercrooks have used Clubhouse for some of their nefarious schemes including one we told you about yesterday. Fake ads on Facebook attempted to get victims to join the non-existent Clubhouse for PC. Signing up for this fake software resulted in malware being sent to users’ devices although the ads have been discontinued.

    The latest issue to pop up around Clubhouse is a major leak that exposed 1.3 million scraped user records. The incident occurred a few days after more than one billion user records from Facebook and LinkedIn were offered for sale online. The difference is that the Clubhouse records were leaked for free on a widely read hacker site.

    The data that was leaked included a subscriber’s User ID, Name, Photo URL, Username, Twitter handle, Instagram handle, Number of followers, Number of people followed by the user, Account creation date and the user profile name used by the person who invited this subscriber. In other words, it is a treasure trove of information for hackers.

    Clubhouse has responded by saying that it has not experienced a data breach and that some of the information supposedly leaked has been available for free via the company’s API. That alone brings up some questions about the user privacy policy put into place by Clubhouse. Why should there be a need for all of this data to be available (financial information like credit card numbers were not included)?

  • Facebook and the very real problem of keeping student data private

    Facebook and the very real problem of keeping student data private

    After a serious data privacy scandal that happened on Facebook a few years ago, almost everybody knows about the security issues with this social network. Experts say that the company has a long track record of incidents that prove inadequate measures for users’ data protection. Repeated failures make many of us worried about the safety of our personal information. Keep reading the article if you want to learn more about the problem itself and the ways of dealing with it.

    The Facebook data privacy scandal

    It all started in 2009 when the New York Times reported an incident in which private users’ information was shared publicly. Two years later, after an FTC investigation, Facebook promised to address concerns about tracking and sharing personal information.

    In 2013, another data failure happened. It turned out that there was a bug, which exposed email addresses and phone numbers of 6 million accounts. It’s important to note that this data had not been given to Facebook by its users. Instead, it was vacuumed from the contact lists of other social network users who were acquainted with a particular person.

    In 2014, Cambridge Analytica joined the investigation of data security on Facebook. To begin with, Aleksandr Kogan asked users of a particular review platform to add the thisisyourdigitiallife app to their Facebook account. This allowed him to gather some demographic data and information about users’ likes, friends lists, and private messages, which he shared with Cambridge Analytica.

    Once Mark Zuckerberg revealed this, he claimed that Kogan’s app was immediately banned on Facebook. He also asked Cambridge Analytica to officially confirm that they had deleted all the data acquired from the app, so they provided formal certifications of that.

    But in 2018, Christopher Wylie, the creator of thisisyourdigitiallife app reported that Cambridge Analytica harvested up to 87 million profiles instead of 50, as was stated before. He said that the data was used to develop “psychographic” profiles of target users with the pro-Trump advertising campaign.

    After that, another investigation by FTC was opened to determine if Facebook violated the settlement terms from the 2011 investigation. It was revealed that Facebook was involved in data-sharing partnerships with a few big manufacturers, such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Samsung, and BlackBerry. Later, in 2020, Facebook admitted to sharing its data with approximately 5,000 third-party developers

    Use essay writing services carefully

    As you can understand, privacy is one of the most acute issues in the era of social networks. It’s really hard to protect large sets of personal information so they are not used by third parties. Hence, everybody must be aware of different ways to keep their data secure. Especially, if you are a student that frequently shares study materials with peers or instructors, you should be very careful. Remember that when some experts or services similar to Edubirdie do essays for you , you should avoid providing personal details to them. If possible, don’t share your address, school name, and phone number to save your student image in case of data leakage.

    Danger for students

    Students should be aware that they are quite vulnerable to data exposure. Since Facebook harvests and shares different types of data, such as messages and voice call records, young people must know that they are at risk. If your data is incidentally or accidentally exposed, you might become a victim of cybercriminals.

    Also note, that deleting or deactivating Facebook apps can’t prevent you from all the dangers. Sounds a little bit frightening, doesn’t it? But the good news is that Facebook is actively developing a Clear History button that allows users to remove some database records.

    How to avoid privacy issues?

    To secure your data, you should review  Facebook’s Terms of Service, Data and Cookies Policy first. According to these documents, the company prevents apps from collecting information about individual users. Hence, if you want to disable third-party use of this social network, including features like Login With Facebook and apps that rely on FB profiles (like Tinder), go to the Settings menu and click a special button. Moreover, you can manually check if your data was shared with Cambridge Analytica a few years ago. To find out if your personal information was collected, go to Facebook Help page.

    Final thoughts

    Even though Facebook is one of the largest social networks in the world, it has some major issues. It’s really difficult to rely on its security system and trust its developers after all the scandals that have recently happened. But still, this company does its best to protect all loyal users, which deserves respect.

     

    Author’s BIO

    Julius Sim is the Head of the Support Team at Edubirdie, which is a leading assignment writing company in the world. He is responsible for high-quality customer service and does his best to meet clients’ needs. Julius believes that a good user experience and great customer support are the keys to Edubirdie’s success.

     

     

    https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-laptop-near-plant-927629/

    https://www.pexels.com/photo/access-app-application-apps-267399/

     

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • Singapore offers best mobile experience in South East Asia

    Singapore offers best mobile experience in South East Asia

    At a country-level, Singapore won in all metrics tested, with the most important win being the highest Excellent Consistent Quality in South East Asia, with 84.5% of connections having a network experience suitable for use-cases like 1080p video streaming, real-time mobile gaming and HD video calling. Singapore also had the highest Core Consistent Quality in the region at 94.4%.

    Consistent Quality is a set of metrics that Tutela has developed to objectively evaluate when connections are (or are not) enabling users to do the things they want to on their mobile devices. There are two sets of thresholds, Excellent and Core. A connection that hits the Excellent threshold is sufficient for use-cases like 1080p video streaming, HD video calling, and multiplayer gaming, while a Core connection should be sufficient to stream standard-definition video or handle day-to-day activities like web browsing or uploading photos to social media. The percentages seen in this report represent the percentage of tests for subscribers on a given operator that was above the Excellent or Core thresholds.

    Singapore also had the fastest download speed at 26.2 Mbps, the fastest upload speed at 14.7 Mbps, and the most responsive network with a latency result of 9.0 ms. However, Vietnam was always very close behind, with second-place winnings for both Excellent Consistent Quality (72.3%) and Core Consistent Quality (86.1%).

    The report was released by Tutela Technologies, a global crowdsourced mobile data company, and evaluated over 55 million speed and latency tests, conducted on the smartphones of real-world users of national mobile operators within Common Coverage Areas, between August 1st and January 31st, 2021.

    Per country findings were as follows:

    Singapore:

    • By operator in Singapore, StarHub dominated in four of the seven metrics tested, including the highest Excellent Consistent Quality with 87.3% of users having a network experience suitable for 1080p video streaming or HD group video calling.
    • StarHub also had the highest Core Consistent Quality, Tutela’s measure of whether a connection is good enough for everyday uses, like email, social media, and SD video streaming, the fastest download speeds, and the most responsive network in the country.

    Indonesia:

    • Telkomsel won six out of the seven metrics tested, with Indosat Ooredoo being the only other operator to make it onto the leaderboard in Indonesia with the fastest median upload speed.
    • Telkomsel was in first place for Excellent Consistent Quality with 65.0%, and also in first for Core Consistent Quality with 83.5%. However, there was only a 3% difference between the operator and second-place Indosat Ooredoo.

    Malaysia:

    • In Malaysia, the leaderboard was shared by at least four operators, with U Mobile offering its users the best mobile experience in the country. The operator won the highest Excellent and Core Consistent Quality, and fastest upload speed.
    • Digi had the fastest median download speed in Common Coverage Areas across Malaysia with 10.6 Mbps but came third in the upload speed test with 6.2 Mbps. Maxis had the most responsive network in the country, while Celcom had both the best 5G/4G coverage and total coverage.

    Thailand:

    • By operator in Thailand, AIS won in four of the seven categories tested, including the highest Excellent Consistent Quality and most responsive network. However, TrueMove was also on the leaderboard in three of the seven categories including the highest Core Consistent Quality and both the fastest download and upload speeds.
    • With only two operators in the Philippines to compare, Smart outperformed Globe in six out of the seven categories tested, with Globe taking out one category with the best total coverage.

    Vietnam:

    • Viettel Mobile in Vietnam offered the best mobile experience to its users, winning in five categories and tying for first place with Vinaphone for fastest median download speeds.
    • MobiFone was on the leaderboard in one category with the highest Core Consistent Quality.
  • Tata Communications partners Google Cloud India for public cloud services

    Tata Communications partners Google Cloud India for public cloud services

    Tata Communications, a global digital ecosystem enabler, announced its partnership with Google Cloud to drive cloud adoption and transform Indian businesses. With this partnership, Tata Communications has further expanded its managed public cloud services portfolio to include capabilities for Google Cloud.

    The partnership between Tata Communications and Google Cloud India will enable organizations to deploy and access Google Cloud services through Tata Communications’ IZO™ Managed Cloud while providing them ease-of-use coupled with end-to-end services, including cloud architecture planning, workload migration and ongoing operational support.

    As a Google Cloud India Partner, Tata Communications will support organizations with services across infrastructure modernization, data center transformation, application modernization, smart analytics, multi-cloud deployments and more.

    Tata Communications IZO™ Managed Cloud provides the right expertise, infrastructure, and support services to drive business growth and improve performance. Tata Communications’ IZO™ Cloud Command portal offers a single-pane-of-glass orchestration tool that integrates different enterprise IT environments into a single dashboard and simplifies the management and orchestration of the IT estate, offering a unified cloud experience. It provides a comprehensive view of IT resource utilization (across on-premise, private, Google Cloud), thus enabling greater control for the customer, resulting in cost efficiencies and improved productivity.

    With the current global scenario, there is wider recognition for business resilience and agility that cloud enables; most businesses are now beginning to explore a cloud-first model. DevOps, a set of practices that combine software development and IT operations, has become an important requirement for enterprises. To make applications future-ready, businesses are modernizing them by leveraging Containers and Kubernetes (an open-source platform for container orchestration), as they offer businesses the scalability and portability they need to be agile and build a competitive edge, enabling self-service provisioning and capacity-on-demand with ease.

    Tata Communications’ services can manage Kubernetes on Google Cloud platform that can enable application modernization seamlessly, which is an essential need as enterprises graduate in the hybrid multi-cloud environments.

    According to an IDC survey, more than 60 percent of Indian organizations plan to leverage cloud platforms for digital innovation, as they re-strategize their IT spending plans. Tata Communications and Google Cloud India together have market-leading capabilities across a spectrum of services for customers looking to reframe their business blueprint.

    “The current demands on enterprises to manage and optimize their cloud solutions has never been more important, especially in the wake of COVID-19 and our increasing reliance on cloud infrastructure,” says Rajesh Awasthi, Global Head of Cloud and Managed Hosting Services at Tata Communications. “As organizations migrate to Google Cloud, they need a partner that will support them across their entire IT ecosystem and deliver a unified cloud management platform that offers greater transparency, control and security of their data and applications.”

    “The true test of 2021 will be how organizations adopt a cloud-first approach. Through our partnership with Tata Communications, we will be able to provide our customers with a unified, end-to-end experience that will remove the complexity in cloud management and help them transform at speed and scale”, said Amitabh Jacob, Head of Partners and Alliances at Google Cloud India.

    Lees ook:

  • Singapore and Philippines to Boost Data Connectivity

    Singapore and Philippines to Boost Data Connectivity

    Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Monetary Authority of Singapore have agreed to promote the adoption and implementation of policies to aggregate, store, process, and transmit data across borders for banks and non-bank financial institutions.

    While the increasing use of data in financial services and the increasing use of technology to supply financial services offer a range of benefits, they also pose new and complex risks for markets and challenges for policymakers and regulators, the two sides said in a joint announcement on Monday.

    Data mobility in financial services supports economic growth and the development of innovative financial services, and benefits risk management and compliance programs, by enabling stronger supervision of cross-border money laundering, terrorist financing patterns, and proliferation financing while strengthening defense against cyberattacks and allowing the regulators to manage and assess risk on a global basis, the statement noted.

    The two regulators said that covered institutions should be allowed to transfer data, including personal information, across borders by electronic means to facilitate business activities, and the location where covered institutions can store and process their data should not be restricted as long as BSP and MAS have full and timely access to the data necessary to fulfill their regulatory and supervisory mandate.

  • Hermes Logistics Technologies teams up with the IT University of Copenhagen and dnata for machine learning trials

    Hermes Logistics Technologies teams up with the IT University of Copenhagen and dnata for machine learning trials

    Hermes Logistics Technologies (HLT) is working with researchers at the IT University of Copenhagen (ITU), Denmark, and dnata Australia to explore new machine learning models aimed at delivering predictive business analytics.

    The Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms will run data from dnata Australia’s new Hermes Digital Ecosystem, which has a full Datalake infrastructure that captures and stores all of dnata’s Hermes New Generation (NG) Business Intelligence events.

    The machine learning models will enable dnata to make predictive business process decisions providing key insights on efficiencies, costs, and new services.

    “Machine learning is part of HLT’s digital agenda and our datalakes are a fantastic source of events and data, which are always up to date and ready to inform and train AI models in the Hermes Cloud,” said Alex Labonne, Chief Technology Officer at HLT.

    “Successfully trained models will form new predictive functionalities for dnata and help them refine an already competitive cargo handling offering.”

    The ITU team, headed by Professor Philippe Bonnet and working with HLT, will create, test, and develop the predictive models over the coming months to explore the design of cloud-native enterprise machine learning solutions.

    “This is the future of enterprise machine learning envisaged by cloud providers, where any enterprise can incorporate data-driven predictions into their business processes,” said Prof. Bonnet.

    “Collaborating with HLT and dnata is a unique opportunity for us to explore the capabilities and limitations of cloud-based enterprise machine learning.”

    dnata recently went live with HLT’s H5 Cargo Management System (CMS) at six airports across Australia in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Darwin, Perth, and Brisbane.

    “dnata is looking forward to using predictive modelling to enhance our cargo planning and operational processes. This data science not only benefits our interaction with customer airlines, it enables us to anticipate the demand patterns in advance for more efficient operations,” said Terence Yong, Cargo Development Director, Asia Pacific, dnata.

    The dnata machine learning prototype is part of HLT’s digital agenda to deliver value added services using Big Data analytics.

  • MobiFone offers customers free data, calls to make up for disruption

    MobiFone offers customers free data, calls to make up for disruption

    Telecom operator MobiFone has promised free data, calling, and text credit to customers affected by a network error lasting hours on Tuesday. It will offer 7.5 gigabytes of data for free to subscribers using smartphones and 1,000 minutes of calls in case of feature phones.

    On Tuesday many subscribers complained they were unable to make phone calls, send text messages or access the Internet from around 4.30 p.m. The issue was fixed the same evening. A spokesperson for the state-owned company said Wednesday it was still trying to determine how many subscribers were affected by the issue.

    Many people have expressed indignation that the problem occurred and the fact the operator was slow in notifying them about it. They were unable to contact the operator either during the disruption. In 2005, 2010, 2011, and 2016 too similar problems occurred.

    On December 6, 2018, many MobiFone subscribers in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City were unable to connect to the Internet. MobiFone is the third-largest network operator in Vietnam behind Viettel and VNPT.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • Razer releases data on 100,000 customers

    Razer releases data on 100,000 customers

    Global gaming retailer, manufacturer and payments ecosystem Razer has inadvertently exposed personal information about some 100,000 of its customers online due to a misconfigured server.

    The data was stored on an Elasticsearch cluster that was set to allow public access, potentially exposing the customers to targeted phishing attacks by individuals posing as the company. Sensitive personal data such as credit card numbers and passwords were not revealed.

    According to a comment posted by the firm, the server misconfiguration was fixed on September 9 prior to the lapse being made public. The information had been exposed for three weeks as Razer’s non-technical staff processed a report alerting the firm to the problem.

    The breach was uncovered by cybersecurity consultant Volodymyr Diachenko, who has since offered to conduct a live educational session to raise cybersecurity awareness within the firm. It is unclear whether or not Razer has accepted the offer.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • Singapore Watchdog Fines Ride-Hailing App Grabcar $10000 For Data Privacy Violation

    Singapore Watchdog Fines Ride-Hailing App Grabcar $10000 For Data Privacy Violation

    Singapore’s privacy watchdog fined ride-hailing app Grabcar S$10,000 ($7,310), saying a 2019 update put the data of some users at risk of unauthorized access in what the watchdog said was the fourth breach of data privacy regulations and “a significant cause for concern”. In a filing published on Sept. 10, the Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) said the update risked the personal data of 21,541 drivers and passengers, including profile pictures, names and vehicle plate numbers, related to carpooling service GrabHitch.

    Grabcar, a unit of Southeast Asia’s largest startup Grab Holdings, rolled back the app to the previous version within about 40 minutes and took other remedial action, the PDPC said.

    “Given that the organization’s business involves processing large volumes of personal data on a daily basis, this is a significant cause for concern,” the PDPC said.

    The regulator also directed Grab to put in place data protection by design policy, where data protection measures are considered and built into tech systems as they are being developed.

    In a statement, Grab said: “To prevent a recurrence, we have since introduced more robust processes, especially pertaining to our IT environment testing, along with updated governance procedures and an architecture review of our legacy application and source codes.”

    Lees ook:

  • cand JD use big data to design ‘C2M Mobile Phone’

    cand JD use big data to design ‘C2M Mobile Phone’

    Chinese e-commerce giant JD and device manufacturer Xiaomi sold 10,000 units of a jointly-produced mobile phone within 11 minutes.

    The Redmi K30 5G Racing phone was developed by Xiaomi based on customer insights generated from big data provided by JD. Sales volume passed RMB2 million (US$280,500) within two minutes, with the unit price at RMB1999 ($280).

    More than 20,000 phones were sold within the day.

    JD’s data revealed that most customers within the price range were females with higher educational backgrounds and above-average demand for device functions and CPU. The phone was designed with an upgraded CPU and with a mint green color tone, shown by the data to be more attractive to female customers. JD’s data also supported the marketing strategy of the product, targeting around 1.2 million customers likely planning to replace their phones within two months.

    “We have great confidence in the new C2M product,” said Xiaomi China VP Weibing Lu. “JD has been an important partner for Xiaomi, and we will work closely with JD on more C2M products in the future to better serve our customers.”

    “JD has been continuously working on C2M products with our brand partners, and the Redmi K30 5G Racing version is the collective effort of JD, Xiaomi, and Qualcomm,” said JD Mobile Devices president Daniel Tan.

    “C2M enables customers’ demands to directly reach upstream supply chain players, helping to optimize supply chain efficiency and reduce costs. This model enables us to keep improving the shopping experience.”

  • Top Luckin management fired over faked sales data

    Top Luckin management fired over faked sales data

    Chinese coffee chain Luckin, once lauded for its overt attempt to dethrone Starbucks within the country, has fired or suspended eight executives over the fraudulent misrepresentation of sales data last year.

    Luckin executives Jenny Zhiya Qian, who was CEO, and Jian Liu, COO, have been sacked over the highly publicized scandal that saw its stock price plummet more than 70 percent on New York’s Nasdaq stock exchange before trading in the stock was suspended.

    In earnings statements, the company overreported sales by at least RMB2.2 billion (US$310 million). When the misrepresentation was revealed by a whistleblower the company announced an investigation, suspending Liu.

    According to reporting in the South China Morning Post, six other Luckin executives and employees who were involved in or had knowledge of the fraud have also been placed on suspension or leave. The firm’s senior VP Jinyi Guo has been appointed acting CEO.

    The true extent of the misrepresentations still remains unclear while a panel reviews financial records, however, last November, the company claimed sales were running at six-times the rate of the previous year.

    Prior to its listing in the US, the company secured investment from the Singapore Government sovereign wealth fund GIC and China International Capital Corp, among others. It raised US$778 million in early January, and $645 million in a US IPO.

    “The company will continue to cooperate with the internal investigation and focus on growing its business under the leadership of the board and current senior management,” said a statement this week issued by the firm’s board.

    Luckin expanded swiftly since its inception three years ago, and operated more than 4500 locations in China by late last year, surpassing Starbucks’ 4300 outlets. At the time, Luckin was determined to overthrow Starbucks through aggressive growth and app-based purchasing prioritizing takeaway and deliveries.

    Top Luckin executives fired over faked sales data