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Journalist China
Business news from China By Doug Young.
Doug Young, journalist, has lived and worked in China for 20 years, much of that as a journalist, writing about publicly listed Chinese companies.
He is based in Shanghai where, in addition to his role as editor of Young’s China Business Blog, he teaches financial journalism at Fudan University, one of China’s top journalism programs.
He contributes regularly to a wide range of publications in both China and the west, including Forbes, CNN, Seeking Alpha and Reuters, as well as Asia-based publications including the South China Morning Post, Global Times, Shanghai Daily and Shanghai Observer
The latest reports of unrest among some unhappy investors who bought a product that failed to deliver on promised returns through top lender ICBC (HKEx: 1398; HKEx: 601398) bodes poorly for a recent boom in similar products, hinting at a looming crackdown that could send a chill over the entire industry. I previously predicted we could see such consumer backlash, as many of the products flooding into the market promised unrealistically high returns to lure in investors. Such products may also include disclaimers saying that returns could also be lower, or that investors may even lose money. But unsophisticated Chinese investors often ignore such small-print, which will inevitably lead to howls of complaint when they don’t receive the headline returns. Read Full Post…
New data is showing that the inevitable slowdown in China’s smartphone sales may have begun at the end of last year, following a boom that saw the country overtake the US to become the world’s largest market. Another noteworthy data point includes the slippage of ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063) from the top 5 smartphone sellers, as it loses momentum to more aggressive rivals like Huawei, Lenovo (HKEx: 992) and Coolpad. Meantime, fast-rising Xiaomi still has yet to make it into the top 5 sellers, but achieved a major milestone by breaking into the top 5 list for the nearby Taiwan market. Read Full Post…
I’ll start this post with a major disclaimer, since one of my main reasons is simple sentimentality for writing about the newly announced buyout of New York-listed hospital operator Chindex (Nasdaq: CHDX) by a unit of the aggressive Fosun Group. When I first arrived in Beijing in 1987 as recent college graduate, I worked briefly in Chindex’s Beijing offices, which at the time were in the old Xiyuan hotel near the Beijing zoo. Since then, the company has transformed from its early days as an importer of medical and industrial equipment to its current focus on building and operating hospitals and clinics. Along the way it also made an IPO, and has quietly grown into a company with a market value of nearly $300 million. Read Full Post…
The group of big Chinese web firms driving a recent wave of M&A has a new member, with word that fast-rising e-commerce site Vipshop (NYSE: VIPS) has made its first major acquisition. The move marks the latest step in consolidation in China’s overheated e-commerce sector, which is crowded with around a half dozen major players and many smaller ones that are mostly losing money. Vipshop is one of the few players that is quite profitable, even though it doesn’t have a huge cash pile as it spends heavily to quickly build up its business. That leads to my next prediction that we could see the company raise some money soon through a share or bond sale, as it seeks to build up a war chest to help fund future acquisitions. Read Full Post…
As if the solar trade war between the US and China wasn’t bad enough, tensions just got worse with a preliminary ruling in Washington aimed at closing a loophole to a previous ruling imposing anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese solar panels. I’ll admit I was a bit surprised by the preliminary ruling just announced by the US International Trade Commission (ITC), as I’d previously predicted this latest action in the Sino-US solar trade dispute would quickly fizzle. Meantime, industry consolidation is continuing in China, where more than half the world’s solar panels are currently made, with word that Trina (NYSE: TSL) is buying a controlling stake in another smaller rival. Read Full Post…
WeChat in new commercial moves with Unicom, Wangfujing Dept Store
Much has been written about the meteoric rise of Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) WeChat mobile instant messaging service, with many drawing parallels to the equally rapid ascent of Sina’s (Nasdaq: SINA) Weibo microblogging service starting in 2010. But while Sina has struggled to wring money out of Weibo, Tencent is having much more success with WeChat, as evidenced by news of its latest commercial tie-ups with retailer Wangfujing Department Store and mobile carrier China Unicom (HKEx: 762; NYSE: CHU). I have a lot of respect for Sina, which has emerged as a leading information provider in China since it first went public in 2000. But the company has shown itself less adept at earning money, unlike Tencent, which has proven much more skillful at milking cash from its innovative core social networking service (SNS) products. Read Full Post…
The pace of new Internet IPOs coming out of China continues to build up steam, with word that yet another e-commerce company has hired investment banks for a mega offering to raise up to $600 million. The move by Jumei.com, an online seller of cosmetics, comes just a week after JD.com, China’s second largest e-commerce firm, made its first public filing for a New York IPO to raise up to $1.5 billion. A new separate report is now saying that JD.com founder and chief executive Liu Qiangdong could enter the realm of China’s richest men following the offering, with his stake in the company expected to give him a net worth of up to $7 billion. Read Full Post…
A new flurry of reports are saying that 4G service launches are coming soon from the nation’s 2 smaller telcos, China Telecom (HKEx: 762; NYSE: CHA) and Unicom (HKEx: 762; NYSE: CHU), as both seek to stop leading telco China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) from gaining any advantage from its earlier roll-out of similar service. The move initially came as a slight surprise to me, as I really didn’t expect either company to aggressively promote 4G until the second half of this year for technological and cost reasons I’ll explain soon. But this sudden acceleration in their plans actually looks like a smart strategic move to prevent China Mobile from gaining new momentum, even if such a tack could create both technical and financial challenges for both smaller carriers. Read Full Post…
The final death knell for one of China’s oldest software developers is casting a spotlight on just how difficult it is for companies to break into the global market for computer operating systems (OS). The end for Red Flag Software also bodes poorly for a number of more recent Chinese initiatives to create a mobile OS to rival Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) wildly popular Android and Apple’s (Nasdaq: APPL) own iOS. No specific reasons were given in the reports for Red Flag Software’s final demise, though I suspect defections by the company’s core state-run customers and a broader decline in the traditional desktop PC market were both factors. Read Full Post…
The latest earnings season for US-listed Chinese Internet firms has begun with a big yawn, hinting at a looming wave of investor fatigue after a surge in positive sentiment at the end of 2013. I’ve been writing about these companies for quite a while now, and can truthfully say it’s quite common to see their stocks rise or fall by 3 percent or more after they announce their quarterly results. It’s much rarer for shares to remain unchanged after such announcements, though that’s largely what has happened after web portal Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU) and online real estate services firm Soufun (NYSE: SFUN) kicked off the latest earnings season with release of their fourth-quarter results. Read Full Post…
Bright Dairy (Shanghai: 600597) and Mengniu (HKEx: 2319) are rapidly emerging as China’s 2 dairy firms to watch as Beijing encourages consolidation in the scandal-plagued sector in a bid to create a handful of giants that can win back consumer confidence. Both companies have been in a steady stream of headlines over the last 2 days, showcasing their growing clout not only at home but also on the world stage. Bright is making news as it nears a deal to take a big stake in Israeli dairy Tnuva, and also as it receives big new funding from a global investor. Meantime, Mengniu is also making headlines as it boosts its growing ties with French giant Danone (Paris: DANO), and as its shares mark an important milestone on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Read Full Post…
