8 must-read tech stories in China this week

It’s been a busy week in China as everyone hammered out their last-minute business before the start of Chinese New Year. Here’s the biggest stories from the past seven days.

1. Bitcoin exchange BTC China starts accepting deposits again

Since then, what was once the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange by transaction volume has been scraping by on a voucher system.

2. It looks like there really has been a mass exodus of Sina Weibo users, but it’s still not clear why

As Tencent’s WeChat messenger grows in popularity across China, many followers of Chinese consumer technology have kept their eyes glued to the evolution of Sina Weibo – the desktop-first, Twitter-esque social network that launched in 2009 and saw its biggest boom around 2011.

3. These Chinese college students built a makeshift business selling fruit on WeChat

And there’s perhaps no better ambassador for the app’s potential than Du Hailong, a twenty-one year old computer science student who has built a business selling fruit to his classmates through WeChat.

4. China’s Lenovo to buy Motorola phone business from Google, but will regulators approve?

Google CEO Larry Page, in a post to the Google official blog on Wednesday, said they acquired Motorola “to help supercharge the Android ecosystem by creating a stronger patent portfolio for Google and great smartphones for users.”

5. China’s second biggest e-store files for US IPO, aims to raise up to $1.5 billion

JD – which was called 360Buy until it rebranded early last year – is second to Alibaba’s Tmall in China’s cut-throat e-commerce industry, but it’s the largest e-store in China that buys most of its own stock and ships them to consumers.

6. China ends 2013 with a total of 417 million 3G subscribers

All three of China’s telcos have now revealed their user numbers for December, so we finally have a clear picture of how many people were subscribed and how many paid for 3G at the end of 2013.