Chinese tech firms making IPOs in New York are calling on some wealthy friends to help them succeed as mainstream investors rapidly lose interest in the group. That’s my conclusion following the modestly successful pricing and debut for security software maker Cheetah Mobile (NYSE: CMCM), which comes as a small positive sign for the market. Cheetah relied on some big-name friends to help its listing succeed, including controlling shareholder Kingsoft (HKEx: 3888), as well as smartphone sensation Xiaomi and leading Chinese search engine Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU). Read Full Post…
Journalist China
Ctrip, Soufun Sputter, Canadian Solar Picks Up In Q1
Three industry leaders have just announced their latest quarterly results, and the numbers look downbeat for online travel giant Ctrip (Nasdaq: CTRP) and Internet real estate services firm Soufun (NYSE: SFUN). Meantime, some limited results from solar panel maker Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) look more positive, showing that both sales and prices are picking up more quickly than expected amid a spotty sector recovery from a 2 year downturn. Read Full Post…
Food Heats Up, Wine Cools With New Deals
A couple of restaurant deals are in the news this week, reflecting the big potential of China’s dining-out market as consumer tastes broaden beyond fast-food. One deal has an investment arm of luxury goods giant Louis Vuitton buying a Singaporean restaurant chain with a big China presence, while the other has leading restaurant ratings site Dianping buying an online take-out dining platform. But China’s growing taste for wine could be starting to slow, with word of another major deal involving the struggling Dynasty Fine Wines (HKEx: 828), one of the country’s leading domestic producers. Read Full Post…
Weibo: Vivo Chases Xiaomi, Autohome, Qihoo Execs At Play
It’s been a quiet week in the microblogging realm, due to the 3 day May Day holiday that saw much of China closed down for the latter part of the week to enjoy the arrival of spring. The vacation didn’t see any slowdown in the ongoing smartphone price wars in China, which are forcing local players to look overseas to escape the overheated domestic market. Mid-sized player Vivo became the latest player to look outside China, starting down a path that looks similar to that being blazed by smartphone sensation Xiaomi.
Meantime, top executives from car website Autohome (NYSE: ATHM) and software security maker Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) were having a bit more fun on their holidays. The vacation saw Autohome founder Li Xiang, and Qihoo’s controversial CEO Zhou Hongyi both take a break from their usual business thoughts to make some entertaining posts on their microblogs, showing how they like to spend their non-working time. Read Full Post…
Autohome Hit, Jumei Unfazed By Sputtering Market
The big IPO news of the day is Alibaba’s debut public filing for its long-awaited New York listing, but a flurry of other news in the space is continuing the recent stream of downbeat signals from the sputtering market. Leading the headlines are the latest terms for an offering by online cosmetics seller Jumei.com and a debut public filing for online recruitment firm Zhaopin.com, neither of which look too positive. The signals were equally negative from recently listed car information website Autohome (NYSE: ATHM), whose shares dived after it filed a fairly respectable first-quarter earnings report. Read Full Post…
Alibaba Files For IPO, As Yu’ebao Pauses
The IPO story of the year has finally begun, with word that leading Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba has finally made its first public filing for a listing in New York. But anyone hoping for a blockbuster deal that would have been the biggest tech IPO since Facebook’s (Nasdaq: FB) 2012 offering will be disappointed to learn that Alibaba is seeking to raise a relatively modest $1 billion in the deal. Alibaba made the filing as a separate media report said the company’s high-flying Yu’ebao, its financial product that competes with traditional bank savings accounts, is about to have its wings clipped with new reserve requirement regulations from the central bank. Read Full Post…
Tencent Travels With NavInfo Stake Buy
The buying binge by China’s 3 leading Internet companies continues this week, with news that social networking (SNS) giant Tencent (HKEx: 700) is purchasing 11.3 percent of mobile mapping firm NavInfo (Shenzhen: 002405) for 1.17 billion yuan ($183 million). Anyone who thinks I may be mistakenly recycling an old report with this news isn’t too far from the truth, as this particular deal looks quite similar to a different recent investment by e-commerce leader Alibaba in online mapping firm AutoNavi (Nasdaq: AMAP). Read Full Post…
Cheetah Spices Up IPO With Q1 Results
Security software maker Cheetah Mobile is trying to add some spring to its sputtering New York IPO with newly released data showing it was quite profitable in the first quarter, with mobile revenue accounting for 17 percent of its revenue. It’s hard to interpret too much from these newly announced numbers since no year-ago figures were given in the report I read. But what seems clearer is that Cheetah is trying hard to revive interest in its public listing, which is rapidly stumbling as the current window for IPOs in New York and Hong Kong quickly closes. Read Full Post…
China Telcos Propose Base Station JV
A controversial new plan could see China’s 3 major wireless carriers pool their resources to form a base station joint venture, marking a rare collaboration just as Beijing is trying to foster more competition in the highly protected industry. While the move appears to have anti-competitive overtones, it would actually represent a smart and much-needed step towards reducing costs that would benefit both the companies and consumers. Read Full Post…
Japan’s Line, Microsoft Xbox Move Into China
After years of hovering at the edge of China’s gadget and app markets, Japanese mobile instant messaging giant Line and Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) Xbox gaming console are both reportedly preparing to enter the market. Line’s plan looks the most exciting to me, as the product has quickly gained a major following in Asia and could find a receptive audience in China with its new partnership. Meantime, I’m less optimistic about Xbox, as its China entry comes after its consoles have been available on the local gray market for years, and it will face competition from a new group of homegrown products. Its choice of the struggling Shanghai Media Group (SMG) as its partner also doesn’t look too exciting to me. Read Full Post…
Sina At Crossroads, Aims To Calm Investors
A series of announcements late last week from leading web portal Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) looks clearly aimed at calming nervous investors who may sense the company is at a crossroads that could mark the start of a new downturn for the stock. That’s my assessment after Sina’s unusual early release of preliminary first-quarter results, which showed the company is still quite healthy financially despite a recent government crackdown on 2 of its sites and a lukewarm stock market debut for its Weibo (Nasdaq: WB) microblogging platform. Read Full Post…
