Following its initial roll-out of a trial program 2 months ago, mid-sized commercial lender China Merchants Bank (HKEx: 3968; Shanghai: 600036) is boosting its tie-up with Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) popular WeChat mobile instant messaging service. The growing tie-up is leading media to dub the new WeChat-based service as China Merchants Bank’s newest “branch office”, and looks like an interesting model to watch as online products and services migrate from the desktop to the mobile Internet. Read Full Post…
Cadillac, Microsoft come late to China luxury cars, online search
China’s luxury car and online search markets are both well established and quite competitive, which makes it difficult for new entrants to gain traction, even when they’re global giants like GM (NYSE: GM) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT). In this case GM wants to challenge established giants like Audi (Frankfurt: VOWG) and BMW (Frankfurt: BMWG) with a major new push into the China luxury car market with its Cadillac brand. Similarly, Microsoft is launching its own new campaign for its Bing search engine that has yet to find much of a following despite several years in the market. Read Full Post…
Hong Kong’s stock exchange looks set to snare another Chinese high-tech IPO, with media reports that a unit of Sinosoft Technology is planning a relatively large offering in the market. The reports, if true, would mark yet the latest sign of a shifting tide that could see more Chinese high-tech starts-ups list in Hong Kong as they eschew their previous favorite destinations on stock exchanges in New York. Read Full Post…
Just 2 weeks after reporting that web portal Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU) had broken off talks to buy PPTV, a sudden flurry of new reports have appeared saying several other companies are bidding for the online video company, including leading e-commerce firms Alibaba and Suning (Shenzhen: 002024). Rather than reflecting PPTV’s attractiveness, I suspect this sudden flurry of talks is being driven by a impatience among its shareholders who have pumped big money into the money-losing company but have received little returns so far. If that’s the case, I would expect to see PPTV acquired most likely by the end of this month, though perhaps at a far lower price than the investors were originally seeking. Read Full Post…
A sudden rush to form new partnerships on China’s Internet is creating some interesting new tie-ups, including the latest one that is seeing e-commerce leader Alibaba join with security software firm Qihoo 360 in the e-commerce search space. This new pair-up actually seems relatively minor, with Qihoo using Alibaba’s specialized eTao search engine to power e-commerce searches on Qihoo’s own so.com general search site. (English article; Chinese article) This kind of tie-up isn’t all that uncommon in search, where portals and other companies that want to include a search function on their home page often license a third party’s engine like Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) or Baidu’s (Nasdaq: BIDU) for the job. Read Full Post…
There’s a flood of earnings out today from US-listed Chinese firms, so I’ve decided to focus on online video leader Youku Tudou (NYSE: YOKU) and fast rising e-commerce firm Vipshop (NYSE: VIPS), whose shares are showing some unusual reaction to their respective results. In both cases, market outlook was clearly a major factor that helped Youku Tudou shares rally despite a weak report, even as Vipshop tumbled on what seemed like solid results. Read Full Post…
I’ve written too much recently about neglected web portal Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU), but the latest rumors of a potential tie-up between the company and PPTV, operator of one of China’s leading video websites, are just too irresistible for me to ignore. Those rumors say Sohu is in talks to combine its own online video business with PPTV to create one of the nation’s top 3 players. News of such talks comes just a couple of weeks after leading search engine Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) purchased another top video site, PPS, for $370 million, and indicates a new wave of consolidation in China’s Internet space may be gaining momentum. Read Full Post…
After years of inactivity, China’s Internet sector has seen a sudden flurry of M&A deals with potential to consolidate the fragmented space and create some truly world class companies that could one day compete with the likes of Amazon and Google. While commercial factors are mostly behind this sudden M&A spring, Beijing could also play a limited role by encouraging more consolidation, helping to lay the foundation for a vibrant and sustainable Internet sector that could become a global leader. Read Full Post…
A sudden flurry of activity has caught my attention at Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU), one of China’s oldest Internet portals, which has splashed into the headlines several times in the last couple of months after years of being ignored by investors. What has most caught my attention most this time around was a comment in one of the recent reports that Sohu founder and Chairman Charles Zhang was recently experiencing some kind of emotional fatigue, which leads me to wonder if the company may be headed for a breakup. Read Full Post…
Less than 2 weeks after buying a major stake in leading Chinese microblogging site Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) Weibo, e-commerce leader Alibaba is back on the acquisition track with word that it’s on the cusp of another deal to buy a similar strategic stake in mapping services firm AutoNavi (Nasdaq: AMAP). While this newest deal would be a bit smaller than the Weibo tie-up, it marks the latest transaction in a nascent M&A wave among China tech firms that looks set to gain momentum during the rest of the year. Read Full Post…
The ongoing game of musical chairs in China’s online search space is continuing this week with word that Internet portal Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU) wants to sell its Sogou unit, operator of China’s third largest search engine. While many of the previous rumors of consolidation in the search space have looked dubious to me, this one actually looks like it could be credible for a number of reasons I’ll detail shortly. If it’s true, I would also commend Sohu for making a shrewd move by getting out of a crowded market where it has limited resources and expertise compared with other players. Read Full Post…
