Weekly Roundup: Asian tech news and smartphone shipments

Techloy -

Here are the technology news and smartphone shipments we tracked across the Asian region this week.

  • Google plans to invest over $700 million in equity into telecom operator Bharti Airtel in India to boost Android adoption in the country, with an additional $300 million to be invested over a five-year period on "mutually agreed commercial initiatives."
  • UAE-based investment firm Chimera Capital closed its second VC fund Alpha Wave Ventures II at $10 billion, which will invest between tens of millions and up to $100 million in growth-stage companies, between Series A and pre-initial public offering (IPO), focusing on fintech, AI, life sciences, consumer internet, and B2B sectors.
  • Indian audio and wearables brand boAt has filed for Indian IPO seeking about $1.5 billion valuation.
  • China plans to support thousands of startups in the fields of robotics, quantum computing, semiconductors, and others to take on Silicon Valley-based companies. [Bloomberg]
  • HCL Founder, Dr. Ajai Chowdhry launched an India-UAE VC Fund of $150 million with the aim of accelerating the growth of India and UAE-based startups.
  • Indian companies will spend an estimated $105.2 billion on IT in 2022, 5.5% more than in 2021, according to a report by Gartner.
  • India's smartphone market reached a record 162 million shipments in 2021, growing 12% YoY; Xiaomi was the top vendor shipping 40.5 million with a 25% market share; Samsung finished second with 30.1 million shipments; while vivo came third shipping 25.7 million units. [Canalys]
  • Chinese regulators granted approval for AMD's $35 billion acquisition of programmable silicon maker Xilinx, one of the largest deals in the global chip industry in recent years, first announced in October 2020.
  • Apple shipped 21.5 million smartphones in China in the fourth quarter of 2021, thanks to the release of the iPhone 13 series, and regained the top position for the first time since Q1 2015, as the company saw annual growth of 44%. [Canalys]
  • The Indian information technology sector has the potential to reach annual revenues of $300 to $350 billion in five years, up from $190 billion in 2020-21, according to industry body Nasscom.
  • vivo maintained the top position overall in 2021 with 71.5 million smartphone shipments in China; OPPO shipped 68.7 million units; Xiaomi shipped 50.5 million units; Apple shipped 49.4 million units; HONOR shipped 40.2 million units. [Canalys]
  • The YouTube accounts of several crypto influencers and Indian crypto exchanges including CoinDCX, CoinSwitch Kuber, WazirX, and Unocoin were compromised by cybercriminals in a worldwide hack on Monday.

The Draft provides a weekly roundup of the most important tech news across key emerging markets in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Follow the rest of our coverage @techloy on Twitter.