Online learning startup Coursera moves into China with NetEase partnership

Open online course platform Coursera is making its move to target the Chinese market, as it announced today a partnership with Chinese Internet company NetEase (hat/tip Tech in Asia), to extend Coursera’s resources to NetEase users in China.

The result of this partnership is Coursera Zone, a Chinese-language Web portal which will be hosted on NetEase’s open education website open.163.com. Eli Bildner from Coursera’s growth team says in a blog post:

The aim in creating Coursera Zone is to help Chinese-speaking students more easily find and engage with content from Coursera’s partner universities and institutions. Specifically, Coursera Zone will feature translated course synopses, a Chinese-language orientation to the Coursera platform, Chinese-language discussion forums, and student testimonials.

For the translation part, Coursera says it has teamed up with Chinese social networking site Guokr and volunteer translator community Yeeyan.

Coursera and NetEase have also inked a video hosting agreement, which will see Coursera store copies of video files on locally hosted NetEase servers – helping to up the speed of video streaming.

Other than the NetEase agreement, content-wise Coursera says university partners such as Peking University and National Taiwan University will help to expand its Chinese-language course offerings.

In China, education is highly-regarded as a way to climb the ranks. As more and more people are able to access the Internet in the country, Coursera is well-placed to make inroads in the market by partnering with a local company that already has a presence among the Chinese.

Headline image via AFP/Getty Images

Smartphone Math Doesn’t Add Up

For every winner, there has to be a loser. Smartphone sales have defied gravity in recent years, but there’s no defying simple math.

Several major Asia-based smartphone manufacturers are talking up their growth plans. South Korea’s LG Electronics says its smartphone shipments will jump 50% in year-on-year in 2013. China’s expects to post a 50% increase in shipments too. Huawei Technologies says it will ship 60 million smartphones this year, up 88% from 32 million in 2012.

The global market is certainly expanding quickly, but not that fast. Between 2010 and 2011, total global shipments increased 64%, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. In 2012, the pace of shipment growth slowed to 43% year-on-year. In 2013, growth is expected to slow down further to 36%, Strategy Analytics says.

With the overall market growing at a slower pace than what individual manufacturers are forecasting, something’s got to give.

Read the rest of this post on the original site.