Apple’s iPhone loses China market share

Apple’s share of China’s booming smartphone market slipped for a second straight quarter in October-December, as it lost ground to cheaper local brands and as some shoppers held off until after the iPhone 4S launch last month. China, the world’s largest mobile phone market, has not been easy for Apple, which is grappling with a lawsuit from a local firm over the iPad name and issues at its suppliers’ factories over wages and working conditions. With the number of mobile subscribers set to top 1 billion in China this year, there is cut-throat competition among South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, Nokia, Apple and local firms Huawei Technologies and ZTE. While Apple regained its top spot as the world’s largest smartphone vendor in the fourth quarter and for last year as a whole, it slipped to fifth place in China, overtaken by ZTE.

China’s Baidu looks to mobile search for growth

China’s top search engine, Baidu, plans to begin monetising its mobile search traffic and social media platforms this year in an effort to boost growth outside its traditional PC domain, Baidu’s chief executive said on Friday. On Thursday, the company reported fourth-quarter earnings slightly ahead of Wall Street’s estimates on strong revenue growth, sending its shares up 1% in after-hours trade. “We do think mobile will become a very important channel to distribute our products and that has increasingly become true over the past quarter. And we think during the coming year, mobile will represent an ever larger percentage of our total traffic,” Robin Li, chief executive of Baidu told an earnings conference call. Li said the firm was hoping to work with more smartphone vendors to expand the use of its mobile platform.

Yelp to raise $100 m in IPO amid internet stock demand

Yelp, the user-generated review website, plans to raise as much as $100 million in what may be the first initial public offering from a major internet company this year. Yelp, based in San Francisco, said it will offer 7.15 million shares for $12 to $14 each, according to a regulatory filing yesterday. The stock will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker YELP. The IPO will probably come ahead of Facebook, the biggest social-networking website, which filed to raise