A Nasdaq-listed San Francisco-based company run by three Singaporeans, MyWeb Inc.com, has started sales of television set-top boxes for internet access to customers of the Beijing arm of China Telecom. It plans to sell or rent about 200,000 boxes this year and up to 1 million next year.
MyWeb recently signed an agreement with Beijing Telecom under which it will market set-top boxes for purchase or rental to the Chinese capital’s fixed-line telephone subscribers. The use of television set-top boxes for internet browsing in China is rapidly developing, with more than 300 million televisions in Chinese homes compared to only 11 million PCs. MyWeb’s set-top boxes cost 1,488 yuan ($180), or one-third the price of the cheapest PC.
The boxes are linked to the company’s Chinese-language portal, MyWeb Online China, which provides content related to news, entertainment, finance, and education. The company claims to be the first to offer Chinese consumers set-top boxes linked directly to online services and content.
MyWeb chief executive TS Wong said the company expected to make up to $8m this year from sales of set-top boxes but in future expected an increasing proportion of income to come from adverting and e-commerce through the portal.
Microsoft started the move to internet access through set-top boxes with the launch of its Venus project in China earlier this year and several local manufacturers have followed suit with their own systems. The Chinese media has complained that set-top boxes offer poor resolution, and limited data storage capacity. The China Business Times dismissed set-top boxes as an over-hyped transitional product.
However, Wong said of a recent trial: The resolution seemed great to me, and the speed was surprisingly fast. But he had nothing to say about the memory capacity of the MyWeb box.
