The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on July 28. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Greater China Loses Status as Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) Second Largest Region (Chinese article)
Wanda Buys Movie Portal Mtime for $280 Mln (Chinese article)
Sale of Yum Brands (NYSE: YUM) China Franchise at a Standstill (English article)
Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) Bids for East Europe’s Top Online Auction Site Allegro (Chinese article)
Xiaomi Launches Notebook Computer With Starting Price of 3499 Yuan (Chinese article)
Bottom line: The appearance of JD.com as China’s first Internet company in the Fortune 500 and exclusion of the nation’s 3 biggest players underscores major shortcomings of the list due to its reliance on revenue as the basis for its rankings.
JD.com lands in Fortune 500
Everyone is buzzing these last few days about the latest edition of the Fortune 500, including the rising presence of China on the list of the world’s largest companies by revenue. But as a China tech watcher, the fact that most caught my attention was the absence of China’s top 3 Internet companies from the list, namely Tencent(HKEx: 700), Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) and Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU). Adding to the puzzle was the appearance of Alibaba’s much smaller e-commerce rival JD.com (Nasdaq: JD), which became the first Chinese Internet company to make the Fortune 500 list. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Baidu could suffer more lost business after purging stealth advertisers engaged in gambling and sex services, while its new credit-scoring tie-up looks like a smart way to take advantage of its huge volumes of user data.
Baidu purges search results of online gambling sites
A day after appearing in 2 major global entertainment stories, online search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) is back in the headlines at home in a new scandal involving online gambling sites that used stealth methods to promote themselves on Baidu’s search service. Normally I would say this particular scandal looks relatively minor and wouldn’t have a major impact on Baidu. But such scandals have suddenly become much bigger news following one back in May, which was centered on Baidu’s longtime practice of combining paid search results with organic ones without disclosing that mixture. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Ericsson’s new tie-up with Inspur looks like a savvy move to gain a foothold in the nation’s fast-growing market to supply infrastructure to power Internet-related products and services.
Ericsson ties up with Inspur
Chinese IT services firm Inspur has just scored a major new partnership, with word that it’s forming a new tie-up to offer cloud and other Internet-based services with global telecoms equipment leader Ericsson. (Stockholm: ERICb). The new tie-up adds to a growing stable of similar alliances between Inspur and big-name foreign partners, following previous tie-ups with IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO).
We should begin by pointing out that this kind of tie-up isn’t that uncommon for big foreign high-tech names, since Beijing often prefers that such companies form joint ventures for doing business in the vast Chinese market. That drive for tie-ups has accelerated over the last year, following Beijing’s roll-out of a new national security law that requires foreign high-tech product makers to work with Chinese partners when selling to the government or big state-owned companies. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on July 12. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) Face Profit Hit From New Search Ad Rules (English article)
AirAsia Eyes HK Kisting as It Expands in North Asia (English article)
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Opens Experience Center in Shenzhen, China Homecoming Signal? (Chinese article)
China Has Too Many Mediocre Electric Carmakers, Researcher Says (English article)
Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) Secures 6.2 Bln Yen Green Solar Financing in Japan (PRNewswire)
The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on July 7. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Drops to Fifth in China’s Mobile Market as Locals Rise (English article)
Huawei Files US Patent Lawsuit Against T-Mobile (Nasdaq: TMUS) (Chinese article)
SAIC, Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) to Mark Chinese Foray Into Connected Cars With SUV (English article)
Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) Sells Solar Power Projects in China (PRNewswire)
China Resources Beer (HKEx: 291) Plans $1.2 Bln Rights Issue to Buy SABMiller’s JV Stake (English article)
The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on July 6. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Hon Hai (Taipei: 2317) Plans $1.5 Bln HK IPO for Foxconn Interconnect Technology Unit (English article)
The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on July 2-4. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Chinese Group in Final Talks to Buy 80 Pct of AC Milan Soccer Club for 750 Mln Euros (Chinese article)
Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) Files Second Round of Patent Lawsuits Against Meizu (Chinese article)
Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) to Buy App Store Wandoujia for $200 Mln – Report (Chinese article)
Bottom line: Baidu will suffer more damage to its revenue and profits after new actions by China’s Cyberspace Administration, creating a potential opportunity for Bing or even Yahoo in China’s lucrative search market.
Baidu’s search woes offer opportunity for Bing, Yahoo
The woes for Internet search giant Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) continue, with word that China’s Internet censor is ordering the already hobbled company to cleanse itself of inappropriate sites in its search results. But whereas previous crackdowns have focused on politically sensitive content, this latest crackdown focuses on sites of companies that may be engaged in fraud or making inflated or bogus claims. The entire situation looks set to make a major dent in Baidu’s growth story, and could even see the company’s revenue shrink as it finds a new equilibrium.Read Full Post…
Bottom line: A spike in short-selling of China e-commerce stocks led by JD.com and Alibaba is cyclical and unrelated to their longer-term prospects, and a bounce-back is likely by year-end.
Short sellers gobble up JD stock
It seems even a new partnership with global retailing giant Walmart (NYSE: WMT) can’t help sagging shares of JD.com (Nasdaq: JD), China’s second largest e-commerce company, which has recently become flavor of the day among short sellers. That’s the word coming from a new Bloomberg report, which says short seller interest in JD’s stock reached a record high in mid June, after already doubling over the previous month. This story isn’t really new, as I wrote about a similar short-selling boom for shares of JD rival Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) a couple of weeks ago also. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: The MIIT should be commended for resisting pressure by China’s 3 telcos to ban free private voice services for enterprise customers, but should move quickly to show it will license such service providers like DingTalk and WeChat.
DingTalk halts free enterprise voice service
The ongoing battle between China’s big 3 state-run telecoms carriers and an emerging field of private sector challengers was in the headlines last week, when rumors emerged that the regulator was set to stop private firms from offering free voice services for business customers. The move looked set to potentially shut down popular services provided by Internet giants Tencent(HKEx: 700), Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) and others, before the regulator clarified that licenses were needed for companies to provide such voice services. (Chinese article) Read Full Post…
