Day: July 5, 2021

(Xinhua)09:36, August 06, 2020

Eurostat, the European Unions statistics agency, said on Wednesday that in June the blocs retail sale regained 99.7 percent of the volume that it had reached in February before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The seasonally-adjusted volume of retail trade increased by 5.7 percent in the euro area in June and by 5.2 percent in the EU compared with the previous month.

Eurostat also revised its earlier estimate of the retail trade volume to 20.3 percent increase in the euro area and 18.3 percent increase in the EU in May.

In March and April, when most of the prevention measures were taken in the EU member states, all non-food product groups showed exceptionally big decreases, in particular the decline for textiles, clothes and footwear was extremely steep.

The two months loss for automotive fuel was 43.4 percent, for computers, books and similar products it was 40.7 percent, and for electrical goods and furniture, 34.5 percent, said Eurostat.

When the containment measures began to be eased in May, sales for all non-food product groups picked up. With the next increases of sales in June, the pre-crisis level of sales was regained or even exceeded for some product groups.

Sales of textiles, clothing and footwear grew by 20.5 percent month-on-month in June in the EU, after a record 130.7 percent jump in May. Consumers also bought more car fuel, computer equipment and medical goods

(Global Times)09:52, August 06, 2020

Apples iPhone is the only smartphone on the Chinese market that doesnt list in its functions supporting the BeiDou Satellite Navigation System (BDS), but it will soon, predicted Ran Chengqi, BDS spokesperson and director general of China Satellite Navigation Office, according to a report by the China Business Journal on Wednesday.

Apple will come to use it sooner or later, because if BDS is good, they will of course use the better system, Ran said, according to the report.

BDS is Chinas large space-based system and one of four global navigation networks, that also included the US GPS, Russias GLONASS and the European Unions Galileo.

Most smartphones sold in China support BDS positioning function and smartphones supporting high-precision applications have been launched, Ran told a press conference on Monday.

Apple said its iPhone 11 model is now using BDS as part of its location data system. However, it did not further elaborate, said Chinese news site guancha.com.

Apples official Chinese website shows the iPhone 11 only displays built-in GPS and GLONASS systems. While Huaweis P40 separately lists all four systems.

Samsung S10+, OPPO, Xiaomi and other mobile phone brands also support BDS.

According to Ran, the BDS global positioning accuracy is better than 10 meters, with a timing accuracy better than 20 nanoseconds, and its performance in the Asia-Pacific region is even better.

So far, BDS has been applied in industries such as transportation, public security, disaster relief, farming and urban governance, as well as being integrated into Chinas key basic infrastructure construction including electricity, finance and telecom, said Ran.

The systems services now cover more than 200 countries and regions, with more than 100 million users and 200 million daily services.

BDS-related products have been exported to over 120 countries and regions, serving hundreds of millions of users. BDS-based services have been successfully applied in mapping, agriculture, and digital construction in member countries of ASEAN, South Asia, Eastern Europe, West Asia and Africa.