NetEase Looks to Reinvigorate Portal 网易似要重振门户

By newsdoug on July 7, 2011

After successfully reinventing itself as an online game company a few years back, NetEase (Nasdaq: NTES) appears to be looking to return to its roots as one of China’s earliest Internet portals by spinning off its portal business into a separately listed company, domestic media are reporting. (English article; Chinese article) This looks like a brilliant idea to me, allowing NetEase to breathe new life into its Web portal, which is still relatively respected but has become somewhat neglected over the last few years as the company focused on its game business. Rival Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) has successfully used this strategy of starting new businesses and then spinning them off to develop successful ventures in the real estate services and, most recently, the microblogging spaces with its wildly popular Weibo service. Shanda (Nasdaq: SNDA) has also used a similar strategy, spinning off its online game business into a separate company and preparing to do the same thing for its online literature unit. (previous post) This kind of a strategy makes sense in general, as putting different businesses into separate units forces them to think independently about things like costs, revenue and profits and losses rather than depending on generosity from their parent’s other businesses to survive. Of course, the strategy doesn’t always work and NetEase may find it’s simply too late to rebuild its portal business after years of neglect that have seen Sina, and to a lesser extent Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU), come to dominate the market. But the market could certainly support one or two more major players, and NetEase’s faded portal still enjoys enough name recognition that it could again become a major player if forced to become an independent company with responsibility for its own profits and losses.

Bottom line: NetEase’s potential spin off of its portal business into a separately listed company looks a smart plan to revive this once-thriving but now faded business.

据中国国内媒体报导，几年前成功变身为一家网游公司後，目前网易<NTES.O>似乎希望回归本行，重塑其作为中国门户网站先驱的角色，方式就是剥离其门户网站业务，让它成为一家独立的上市企业。我觉得这个主意很好，可以让网易门户网站重获生机。网易门户虽然还有相当的地位，但过去几年公司把重点放在游戏产业，对门户业务有一定忽略。竞争对手新浪<SINA.O>就成功利用类似策略，把开辟的新业务剥离出去，如房地产服务及微博业务。盛大<SNDA.O>也采用了类似策略，将其网络游戏业务剥离出来，形成一家独立的企业，而且目前正准备以同样方式处理其在线文学业务。此类策略整体上是可行的，因将不同的业务分拆成不同的部门，可以迫使它们独立思考成本、营收、利润等问题，而无法依赖母公司其他业务的帮助来生存。当然，这种策略并非一直都奏效，而且网易或许会发现，经过几年来的忽略，再建门户为时已晚，因新浪与搜狐<SOHU.O>已在很大程度上主宰了门户市场。但这个行业再多出一两家主要竞争者未尝不可，而且网易门户仍有足够知名度，也许它在被迫独立出来自负盈亏後仍可呼风唤雨。

一句话：网易如将其门户业务剥离出去，让其成为一家单独的上市公司，以重振昔日门户威风，或不失为明智之举。

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