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BEIJING (Reuters) -A group of 55 Chinese iPhone and iPad users filed a complaint with China's market regulator on Monday, a lawyer representing the group said, alleging that Apple abuses its market dominance by restricting app distribution and payments to its own platforms while charging high commissions. The complaint to China's State Administration for Market Regulation scrutinises Apple at a time when trade tensions between Beijing and Washington have been intensifying, with both governments deploying tariffs and technology restrictions as policy tools. The complainants, led by lawyer Wang Qiongfei, argue that Apple maintains a monopoly over iOS app distribution in China while permitting alternative payment methods and app stores in other markets following regulatory pressure from the European Union and United States. The filing accuses Apple of three main violations of China's Anti-Monopoly Law: forcing consumers to purchase digital goods exclusively through Apple's In-App Purchase system, restricting iOS app downloads to the App Store, and charging commissions of up to 30% on in-app purchases. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. This marks the second complaint against Apple led by Wang. A similar case filed in 2021 was dismissed by a Shanghai court last year. Wang told Reuters that he expected this administrative complaint to move faster through regulators than the previous civil lawsuit, whose verdict he is appealing to China's Supreme People's Court. That court heard arguments on the appeal in December and a ruling is still pending, according to Wang. Amid tensions with Washington, China has recently launched a series of antitrust investigations targeting U.S. tech firms, including chipmaker Qualcomm, which faces a probe over its acquisition of Israeli company Autotalks. (Reporting by Liam Mo and Brenda Goh; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

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(Reuters) -Amazon said on Monday its cloud services unit AWS was hit by an outage, disrupting several popular websites and apps across the world including Snapchat and Robinhood. "We can confirm increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region," AWS said in an update on its status page. AI startup Perplexity and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase attributed the outages to AWS. "Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We’re working on resolving it," Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said in a post on X. AWS and Amazon did not respond to a request for comment. Amazon.com, PrimeVideo and Alexa were all facing issues, according to Downdetector. Paypal's Venmo was also facing issues. (Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

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(Reuters) -Multiple online platforms including Amazon's cloud unit AWS, Robinhood, Snapchat and Perplexity were down on Monday, Downdetector said, while the CEO of Perplexity said the root cause was an AWS issue. Amazon.com, PrimeVideo and Alexa were all facing issues, according to Downdetector. Paypal's Venmo was also down. (Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru)

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(Reuters) -Multiple online platforms including Amazon's cloud unit AWS, Robinhood, Snapchat and Perplexity were down on Monday, Downdetector said, while the CEO of Perplexity said the root cause was an AWS issue. Amazon.com, PrimeVideo and Alexa were all facing issues, according to Downdetector. Paypal's Venmo was also down. (Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru)

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BEIJING (Reuters) -Apple's iPhone 17 series outperformed its predecessor in early sales in China and the United States, research firm Counterpoint said on Monday. The newer models outsold the iPhone 16 series by 14% during their first 10 days of availability in the two countries, Counterpoint said in a report. Sales of the base model iPhone 17 nearly doubled in China compared to the iPhone 16 during the same period, it added, with sales of the model rising 31% across the two markets. “The base model iPhone 17 is very compelling to consumers, offering great value for money,” Senior Analyst Mengmeng Zhang said in the report. "A better chip, improved display, higher base storage, selfie camera upgrade – all for the same price as last year's iPhone 16." Apple launched the iPhone 17 series globally, including in China, in September. (Reporting by Liam Mo and Brenda Goh; Editing by Kate Mayberry)

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By Liz Lee BEIJING (Reuters) -China has accused the U.S. of stealing secrets and infiltrating the country's national time centre, warning that serious breaches could have disrupted communication networks, financial systems, the power supply and the international standard time. The U.S. National Security Agency has been carrying out a cyberattack operation on the National Time Service Center over an extended period of time, China's State Security Ministry said in a statement on its WeChat account on Sunday.  The ministry said it found evidence tracing stolen data and credentials as far back as 2022, which were used to spy on the staff's mobile devices and network systems at the centre. The U.S. intelligence agency had "exploited a vulnerability" in the messaging service of a foreign smartphone brand to access staff members' devices in 2022, the ministry said, without naming the brand. The national time centre is a research institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences that generates, maintains and broadcasts China's standard time.  The ministry's investigation also found that the United States launched attacks on the centre's internal network systems and attempted to attack the high-precision ground-based timing system in 2023 and 2024. The U.S. embassy in Beijing did not address the accusations directly but said cyber actors based in China have compromised major U.S. and global telecommunications providers' networks to conduct broad significant cyber espionage campaigns. "China is the most active and persistent cyber threat to U.S. government, private-sector, and critical infrastructure networks," an embassy spokesperson told Reuters in an email. China and the U.S. have increasingly traded accusations of cyberattacks in the past few years, each portraying the other as its primary cyber threat.  The latest accusations come amid renewed trade tensions over China's expanded rare earths export controls, and the U.S. threatening to further raise tariffs on Chinese goods.   (Reporting by Liz Lee; Editing by Michael Perry)

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By Karen Freifeld (Reuters) -U.S.-based electronic components distributor Arrow Electronics said on Saturday the U.S. government was reversing trade restrictions placed on Arrow's China-based affiliates for facilitating the sale of U.S. components found in weaponized drones used by Iran-backed groups like the Houthis. Arrow (China) Electronics Trading Co and another Arrow entity with six aliases in Hong Kong were added to the Commerce Department's Entity List on October 8 in a Federal Register posting. Licenses are required to export goods and technology to companies on the list and are likely to be denied. Firms are placed on the list over U.S. national security or foreign policy interests. On October 8, Commerce said that drones operated by Iran-backed groups and their debris recovered in the Middle East since 2017 had U.S. components traced to sales tied to these Arrow-related entities. Arrow said on Saturday the Commerce Department told it the department would soon publish the reversal in the U.S. Federal Register and sent a letter Friday removing the restrictions in the meantime. "We have received official communication from the U.S. Commerce Department," Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said in an email. "Arrow is authorized to resume shipping to and from these entities under the same conditions that applied prior to October 8."  Asked about the matter, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security said in an email: "BIS is committed to ensuring that export restrictions are appropriately targeted to protect national security." Hourigan said the company operates in compliance with all laws and regulations. Centennial, Colorado-based Arrow Electronics had global 2024 sales of $28 billion. Hourigan said that Arrow Electronics (Hong Kong) Co. Ltd, which he described as a subsidiary when it was added to the Entity List, was not actually affiliated with Arrow Electronics.  However, the six aliases tied to the Hong Kong company in the Federal Register posting are affiliated with Arrow and, the company said, would be removed from the Entity List. (Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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(Reuters) -Chinese tech giants, including Alibaba-backed Ant Group and e-commerce group JD.com, have paused plans to issue stablecoins in Hong Kong after the government raised concerns about the rise of currencies controlled by the private sector, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. Companies have put their stablecoin ambitions on hold after receiving instructions from Chinese regulators, including the People’s Bank of China and Cyberspace Administration of China, not to move ahead with the plans, the FT reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Hong Kong's legislature passed a stablecoin bill in May that established a licensing regime for fiat-referenced stablecoin issuers in Hong Kong, providing regulatory clarity for future participants. Under the new regime, any person who issues stablecoins in Hong Kong – or issues stablecoins backed by Hong Kong dollars, whether within or outside the city – must obtain a licence from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Ant Group said in June it would be participating in the pilot stablecoin programme. JD.com has also said it would take part in the pilot, according to the FT. PBOC officials advised against participating in the initial rollout of stablecoins over concerns about allowing tech groups and brokerages to issue any type of currency, the FT report said. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Ant Group, JD.com, PBOC and CAC did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the HKMA told Reuters on Sunday in an email that it does not comment on market rumours. Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, usually pegged to a fiat currency such as the U.S. dollar, are commonly used by crypto traders to move funds between tokens. (Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Liz Lee in Beijing; Editing by Franklin Paul, Michael Perry and Christian Schmollinger)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

BEIJING (Reuters) -China has accused the U.S. of stealing secrets and infiltrating the country's national time centre, warning that serious breaches could have disrupted communication networks, financial systems, the power supply and the international standard time. The U.S. National Security Agency has been carrying out a cyber attack operation on the National Time Service Center over an extended period of time, China's State Security Ministry said in a statement on its WeChat account on Sunday. The ministry said it found evidence tracing stolen data and credentials as far back as 2022, which were used to spy on the staff's mobile devices and network systems at the centre. The U.S. intelligence agency had "exploited a vulnerability" in the messaging service of a foreign smartphone brand to access staff members' devices in 2022, the ministry said, without naming the brand. The national time centre is a research institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences that generates, maintains and broadcasts China's standard time. The ministry's investigation also found that the United States launched attacks on the centre's internal network systems and attempted to attack the high-precision ground-based timing system in 2023 and 2024. The U.S. embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. China and the U.S. have increasingly traded accusations of cyberattacks in the past few years, each portraying the other as its primary cyber threat. The latest accusations come amid renewed trade tensions over China's expanded rare earths export controls, and the U.S. threatening to further raise tariffs on Chinese goods. (Reporting by Liz Lee; Editing by Michael Perry)

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SEOUL (Reuters) -NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang plans to meet "global leaders and top Korean executives" when he attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit in South Korea this month, the U.S. AI chipmaker said in a statement on Sunday. "Huang will participate in activities to underscore NVIDIA’s work to advance technology and drive growth in Korea and worldwide through AI, robotics, digital twins and autonomous vehicles," Nvidia said, with providing details. The CEO event from October 28 to 31 runs parallel to the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum leaders' summit, when heads of its 21 member countries will gather. Huang is expected to meet with top executives at Korea's Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which make memory chips used in AI data centers. Samsung declined to comment, while SK Hynix was not immediately available for comment. U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday confirmed he would meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in two weeks in South Korea and raised the possibility of reaching a trade deal at the meeting. China last month accused Nvidia of violating the country's anti-monopoly law, the latest escalation in its trade war with the United States that has claimed the chipmaker as collateral damage. (Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)