Author: Julie Campbell

The share of the mobile marketplace in the country has now reached above the halfway point.

According to the latest technology news, Android has now broken the halfway mark and represents over 50 percent of the smartphones that are used within the Chinese mobile market space.

Google’s mobile operating system is moving ahead of the competition in leaps and bounds.

This data was announced in a technology news report by the Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, which discussed the size and strength of Android within the massive market in China. The report showed that by the end of March, this year, Android had a 51.4 percent controlling share over the Chinese mobile marketplace.

This technology news continued to surprise because iOS held only the third place in the Chinese market.

Second place, behind Android, was Symbian. Apple’s devices make up only 19.9 percent of the Chinese mobile market, while Symbian is a notable but not enormous step above at 23 percent. That said, while this shows that Symbian has fallen by 2 percent in its own market share, iOS has maintained about the same strength. This suggests that Apple isn’t necessarily advancing as much as Android is taking on some of Symbian’s former market share.

Should similar technology news trends continue to occur, it does look as though Symbian will be losing its spot in second place within the next 2 quarters, at which time it is likely that Apple will be gaining that position. Again, this doesn’t mean that iOS is necessarily moving up in the size of its market share, but rather shows that Symbian is losing ground and that Android is gaining. This means that the gap between the leader in the Chinese mobile market and the second place operating system will continue to grow.

Smartphone penetration in the country also made technology news headlines, though not quite as dramatic as Android. Last quarter the penetration increased to 42 percent. The director of consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Craig Yu, said that “Feature phones are losing their price advantage as Android smartphones are rapidly becoming more affordable and delivering better value.” He added that “We expect to see accelerated smartphone adoption in China in the coming months.”

The smartphone friendly barcodes are a vital element of a new German joint venture.

According to the latest announcement from the Hubject GmbH joint venture participants among German auto manufacturers, being able to access any electric car charging station across Europe could require nothing more than the scanning of QR codes.

The new “eRoaming” platform was unveiled in Berlin at a conference that could change the electric car ecosystem.

This platform will make it possible for electric car owners to use QR codes to be able to charge their vehicles at any European station as long as they have their smartphones handy. The joint venture company, Hubject GmbH, comes with the tagline “Charge wherever you like” and this new smartphone friendly barcode will make the group even more capable of living up to its words.

The QR codes will allow it to come closer to its vision of making all charging stations accessible.

The group spoke at the International Emobility Conference that was held in Germany and explained that the QR codes allow the owners of electric cars to charge their vehicles at any stations without having to obtain a membership with that specific station’s owner.

In both the United States and Europe, a charging station network owns the majority of charging stations, and access is limited to individuals who have a membership with that network. There are times that electric vehicle owners will head into a charging station in dire need of recharging, but cannot do so because of the limited access that those networks provide.

It is a dilemma that is being compared to that in the 1990s, when cell phone users had specific roaming agreements and could find that their service was either unavailable or was exceptionally expensive if users travelled outside their designated service area. The same idea is now being experienced by electric car owners who now have “roaming” style access to charging stations.

With the QR codes, any of the stations in Europe will become available to all electric vehicle drivers. It is expected that it won’t be long before a similar type of joint venture develops in the United States and other countries where electric vehicles are growing in popularity.