The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on February 10. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) Pays $975 Mln, Resolves China Antitrust Dispute (English article)
Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) Places China Smartphone Bet With $590 Mln Meizu Deal (English article)
Hisense (Shanghai: 600060), Tencent (HK: 700) In TV Game Platform Tie-Up (Chinese article)
Starwood to Sell NYC’s Baccarat Hotel To Chinese Insurer Sunshine (English article)
Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU) Reports Q4 And Fiscal Year 2014 Unaudited Results (PRNewswire)
Bottom line: New global e-commerce moves by JD and LightInTheBox look well conceived and could yield some strong results, while Baidu’s new e-commerce investment reflects its lack of focus and broader strategy in the space.
LightInTheBox opens US warehouse
A flurry of e-commerce moves are in the headlines today, including new globalization steps by number-two player JD.com (Nasdaq: JD) and the struggling LightInTheBox (NYSE: LITB). Meantime, search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) is also in the headlines as it searches for its own e-commerce business model, with reports it has made a major investment in a site being developed by PC giant Lenovo (HKEx: 992). The flurry of moves reflects the hyperactive state of competition in China’s e-commerce market, which requires constant innovation in order to survive. Read Full Post…
Two big news stories were at the center of heated discussion in of the microblogging realm this past week, led by Alibaba’s (NYSE: BABA) high profile dispute with one of China’s main business regulators over accusations of being soft on piracy. At the same time, Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) roll-out of advertisements on its WeChat mobile messsaging platform also drew lots of comments, as users were suddenly greeted with unsolicited messages in the popular Moments feature that functions much like Facebook’s (Nasdaq: FB) newsfeeds.
Of course no weekly microblogging round-up would be complete without a mention of the media savvy Xiaomi, which was once again creating buzz after an embarrassing gaffe by global marketing chief Hugo Barra. That gaffe saw Barra use a politically incorrect version of a map of India in one of his presentations, showing India as the correct owner of parts of a disputed area of its long border with China. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Alibaba’s Ant Financial unit is likely to get a strong valuation with a planned new private placement, and will embark on a series of high-profile moves before making a multibilllion-dollar IPO next year.
Ant Financial eyes 2016 IPO
Alibaba’s (NYSE: BABA) high-profile spat with Beijing is finally starting to subside, paving the way for the company’s affiliated financial unit, Ant Financial, to move into the headlines with word of plans for a major new fund-raising. But anyone holding Alibaba stock shouldn’t get too excited about Ant, which is separate from the listed company and whose rapid rise will only benefit Alibaba founder Jack Ma.
At the same time, other media reports are saying that Internet giant Tencent (HKEx: 700) has formally cleansed its popular WeChat mobile messaging platform of a holiday red-envelope feature from Alipay, Ant Financial’s most valuable asset. That development isn’t a surprise, but it does spotlight one of several major challenges that Ant will face as it tries to carve out a profitable place for itself in China’s fast-evolving financial services sector. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on February 3. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) Ant Financial Unit Weighs Private Placement, Valued At $50 Bln (English article)
WeChat Freezes Out Alipay, Sets Stage For Lunar New Year’s Red Envelope War (Chinese article)
Everbright Securities Agrees to Buy Hong Kong’s SHK & Co Brokerage Unit (English article)
GM (NYSE: GM) Confirms Indonesia Factory Plan With China’s SAIC Motor (English article)
BYD (HKEx: 1211) Gets Government Approval For Auto Finance JV (HKEx announcement)
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on January 31 to February 2. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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SAIC, Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) Agree To Work Together To Fight Piracy (Chinese article)
Tencent (HKEx: 700) Inks Exclusive Online Partnership For NBA Games In China (English article)
55Tuan Makes New IPO Filing, Raising Fund Raising Target To $65 Mln (Chinese article)
Retail Investment Product Site Juzi Licai Wins $100 Mln Series B Funding (English article)
Wang Jianlin Recaptures Title Of China’s Richest Person (English article)
Bottom line: Alibaba’s sharp slowdown in quarterly revenue growth is unlikely to be a fluke, and will put downward pressure on the company’s stock as its post-IPO honeymoon comes to an abrupt end.
Alibaba revenue growth slows sharply
When the history books are written, this week will almost surely go down as the one that e-commerce leader Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) would like to completely erase from the record. The company has spent most of the week struggling with a nightmare in the publicity and government relations department due to a piracy scandal, and now it’s just released new quarterly results that showed sharply slowing growth at the end of last year. The perfect storm of bad news wiped nearly 9 percent off Alibaba’s stock in the latest trading session, and for the week it’s down about 13 percent. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on January 30. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) Announces December Quarter 2014 Results (Businesswire)
China To Demand Secret Source Codes From Computer Firms: NYT (English article)
Bottom line: The piracy scandal rocking Alibaba will blow over in a few weeks with minimal longer-term impact, though the company’s stock will enter a downturn over the next 6 months due to overvaluation.
Piracy scandal grows around Alibaba
This week could well go down as a turning point for high-flying e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), whose growing war of words with a top government agency is quickly becoming a major scandal. The increasingly heated exchange has almost completely overshadowed the latest media reports that say Alibaba’s financial arm is preparing to launch a bank later this year. A separate company announcement indicates the bank will use an innovative credit rating system that draws on Alibaba’s huge volume of big data generated from the billions of transactions and other information exchanges that cross over its network. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Tencent’s strong early showing for a new WeChat-based advertising service and its investment in a take-out dining service reflect building momentum in its drive to build WeChat into a major new profit center.
BMW, Coke launch ad campaigns on WeChat
A couple of media reports are shining a spotlight on Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) WeChat, and some of the new steps it is taking to monetize the hugely popular service that is rapidly expanding beyond its roots as a mobile messaging service. At the same time, another report from Tencent itself is providing some insight into who exactly uses WeChat. It should come as no surprise that the report shows WeChat’s biggest fans are young and mostly male users, which are some of the most attractive targets for the online merchants and advertisers that Tencent wants to do more business on the platform. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on January 29. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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China Regulator Blasts Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) For Illegal Business On Its Websites (English article)
Qualcomm Doesn’t Pay Fine, Defends Self In China Anti-Trust Probe (Chinese article)
