It took 36 years for the Internet to get its first billion users. The second billion will probably be added by 2015; most of these new users will be in Asia. The third billion will be harder, and might not be reached until 2040.

According to Michel van der Bel, COO of the Greater China region at Microsoft, sales of Windows Phones have accounted for 7% in China's smartphone segment recently, compared to a 6% share for Apple's iPhones.<p>

The strong sales enjoyed by Lumia phones at present are typical short-term results for the newly launched model, and it remains to be seen whether the sales momentum will continue, commented industry sources.<p>

Given that sales of iPhones totaled over five million units in China in the first quarter of 2012, it would be difficult for Windows Phone models to yield the same results in a quarter, the sources commented.

Although there are no reliable stats, China appears to have a big problem when it comes to malicious mobile apps either finding their way onto legitimate sites such as those run by the operators, or dubious third party platforms.</p><p>

Roy Ko, a consultant at the Hong Kong Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center, told The Register that part of the problem lies with Chinese mobile users themselves.</p><p>

“In China people like to crack software and make it available for free but that is dangerous because Google Play at least has some quality control, but on the other sites you get these cracked apps alongside malicious ones,” he argued.</p><p>

The most common end goal for the creators of these malicious apps is either to steal data, or make money out of premium dialler malware, although increasingly hackers are using these infection channels to turn smartphones into botnets, Ko explained.

Apologies are an under-appreciated art. Most apologies crafted in the name of public relations sound intrinsically weaselly, often because the people making them are preoccupied with saving their prior reputation rather than getting past the mistake and rebuilding trust. I was reminded of this when I read Mike Daisey’s <a href="http://mikedaisey.blogspot.com/2012/03/reports-of-my-death-have-been-greatly.html">statement</a> following L’affaire Daisey, which I reckon I don’t need to further explain to this audience.

In our reporting, as “Inside Foxconn” detailed, we found a group of workers who have complaints, but complaints not starkly different from those of workers in any other company. The biggest gripe, which surprised us somewhat, is that they don’t get enough overtime. They wanted to work more, to get more money.
Less than a year later, I went back again with another colleague.

We went inside the same Longhua campus in Shenzhen, which required Foxconn’s approval, and chatted with workers. We stood outside the gates (possibly the same gates where Daisey claimed he found underage workers), with Foxconn unaware we were there. We wandered farther into the local neighborhood shopping strip, among the bubble-tea stands and food vendors, where the young workers went on dates and caught up with friends. These weren’t Daisey-esque scenes of woe and horror.

Rather than forced labor and sweatshop conditions, workers told of homesickness and the desire to earn more money-two impulses that seemed to drive each other for workers planning to go home once they’d earned enough.

The Bloomberg post notes that "companies including Microsoft, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Samsung Electronics rely on their own evaluations, based in part on guidelines from the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), which they say are sufficient to prevent abuses." However, "while the EICC sets standards for ethics, worker safety and labor practices, it doesn't require members to disclose findings and it lacks enforcement powers. The result is a disjointed system of self- imposed regulations that fail to hold companies accountable when abuses arise, according to labor advocates and technology executives."

ZTE is now targeting 80 Million handset volume in 2012 – and 100% smartphone volume growth. ZTE Blade became the second-best selling W-CDMA phone in China last summer and is now cruising towards 10 million units sold globally. The ZTE Skate is off to an even faster start. And ZTE is actually behind Huawei in China – these two combined are likely to hit 25% share of China’s handset market by summer. By elbowing out old champs like Motorola and LG in China, Huawei and ZTE are building production scale they can leverage to undercut rivals even more aggressively in the rest of the Asia.

It would not be surprising if Google opts to wind down Motorola’s handset operations sometime over the next two years and Sony bails out entirely.

For some context, Apple sold 72m iPhones in its fiscal 2011, a staggering number that required all the muscle of the world's most valuable technology company, as well as a network of Asian factories pumping out the devices at a breakneck pace. The sales came from more than 100 countries.

Now Chinese consumers may want to buy nearly that many iPhones all by themselves.

That may well happen, says Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, who in a note to investors guessed that Apple may soon be selling 57m iPhones annually in China, capturing 60% of the projected market for smartphone buyers there. That would be a sixfold increase from the 10m iPhones Chinese consumers bought in 2011.