FCC to block China Mobile’s US telecom bid

AJIT PAI, chairman of U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), said Wednesday he opposes China Mobile Ltd.’s bid to provide U.S. telecom services, citing security risks.

China Mobile is seeking approval to provide services for phone calls between the United States and other countries. It is not seeking approval to provide wireless services to U.S. consumers. The five-member FCC is expected to back Pai’s draft order, officials said Wednesday.

Air China to fly Shanghai-London route

AIR China on Wednesday received approval to launch a long-haul route from Shanghai to London and permit the carrier to compete with China Eastern Airlines, as China eased a decade-old “one route, one airline” policy.

Previously, Shanghai-headquartered China Eastern Airlines was the only Chinese carrier on the route. China’s aviation regulator said last year it would ease the policy which had been in place since 2009. It had been aimed at preventing the country’s airlines from competing too aggressively against each other on long-haul routes that were hard to profit from.

Luckin Coffee raises US$150m

LUCKIN Coffee, a self-declared challenger to Starbucks Corp., has raised US$150 million in its latest round of funding from investors including BlackRock Inc., which values the firm at US$2.9 billion.

The investment, US$125 million of which came from a private equity fund managed by BlackRock, follows a US$200 million funding round in November that had increased the company’s valuation to US$2.2 billion, Luckin said in a statement Thursday.

Cadillac brand enjoys strong growth in China

GENERAL Motors’ luxury Cadillac brand is enjoying strong growth in China, the No.1 U.S. automaker said at a conference Wednesday in New York.

GM Cadillac president Steve Carlisle said that Cadillac would expand its network of dealers to 500 in China by 2025. The U.S. automaker will launch a new product every six months for the next three years in China, Carlisle said. Sales of the Cadillac brand in China rose 17.2 percent in 2018, and GM’s chief executive Mary Barra has said that the company aims to sell 1 million electric vehicles per year by 2026, many of them in China, which has set strict production quotas on such vehicles.