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Tag Archives: Baidu
Baidu Company News Baidu 百度, Inc. incorporated on January 2000, is classifed as web services company established by Robin Li and Eric Xu.
Overview of the Chinese high Tech Market by former Chief Editor of Reuters (Doug Young).
Baidu offers many services, including a search engine for websites, audio files and images.
Baidu in Figures
– Ranked 4th overall in the Alexa rankings
– In 2015, Baidu had over 1 billion visits / month
– Baidu offers 57 community services (Chinese encyclopedia, questions/Answers , forums … )
The wildly popular “Voice of China” variety show has landed at the center of a major copyright dispute in China, attracting big audiences in its own right. How the conflict gets resolved will pose a major test for China’s young and fiercely competitive industry that makes programs for TV and other video channels.
The conflict’s origins lie in “Voice of China’s” copyright owner, the Dutch company Talpa, and Vico Systems, which has been producing the program for the last 4 seasons. After failing to come to financial terms for a fifth season of the show, Talpa found a new production partner, Talent TV and Film (Shenzhen: 300426). (Chinese article) Read Full Post…
Bottom line: An internal review that netted a Youku Tudou executive for suspected abuse of position was likely linked to the company’s pending purchase by Alibaba, and could be followed by more similar internal actions by China’s big tech companies this year.
Internal probe nets Youku VP
E-commerce leader Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) is quickly learning that major M&A can be a tricky business, as 2 of its largest purchases deliver headaches with the exposure of problems at acquired companies. First there were a series of accounting irregularities and a criminal investigation against an official at its Alibaba Pictures (HKEx: 1060) unit purchased in 2014, and now newly acquired online video unit Youku Tudou (NYSE: YOKU) is providing yet more headaches.
The latest problems are related to a single executive, with reports that a company vice president named Lu Fanxi has been taken away for questioning by police on suspicion of using his position for personal gain. This kind of activity is quite common in smaller Chinese companies, and Alibaba itself uncovered similarly inappropriate behavior by salespeople and fraudulent merchants at its B2B marketplace unit in 2011. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Pactera is likely to get sold and re-listed in China later this year, while New Oriental is likely to make a domestic listing worth up to $100 million for its Xun Cheng online education in a similar time frame.
Blackstone shops around Pactera
The homeward migration of overseas-listed Chinese firms is moving ahead, with word that privatized IT outsourcing firm Pactera and the online unit of education giant New Oriental (NYSE: EDU) are both potentially eyeing domestic IPOs in the upcoming Year of the Monkey. These stories represent 2 different threads from the larger story of overseas-listed Chinese companies returning home to make new IPOs.
The thread represented by Pactera has seen around 40 US-listed Chinese companies receive privatization offers over the last year from buyout groups hoping to re-list the firms in China at higher valuations. The New Oriental bid represents a second, more recent trend that has seen US-listed category leaders indicate they will keep their primary listings in New York, but then spin off some of their smaller units for separate domestic listings in China. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Baidu’s reported plan to spin off many of its non-core units for separate listings in China looks like a smart move to attract Chinese buyers for its newer businesses while retaining US investors for its lucrative core search business.
Baidu eyes domestic IPOs for non-core units
Leading search engine Baidu(Nasdaq: BIDU) is reportedly eyeing plans to spin off many of its smaller units for IPOs in China, marking a novel alternative for the growing number of Chinese tech firms torn between listing at home and in the US. The US was the traditional choice for listings by Chinese venture-backed tech firms for most of the last 2 decades, since domestic listings were difficult or impossible during that time due to a heavy bias towards big state-owned companies.
But more recently China has rolled out a new group of boards aimed at attracting high-growth venture-backed companies. The earliest of those, the ChiNext board launched in 2009, has proven quite successful, nurturing such high-flyers as online video site LeTV (Shenzhen: 300104) and film production company Huayi Bros (Shenzhen: 300027). A more recently launched over-the-counter (OTC) board has also proven quite popular, and Shanghai plans to launch its own emerging industries board later this year. 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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Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) Announces December Quarter Results (Businesswire)
Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) to Spin Off and IPO Music, Literature, iQiyi, Other Units – Reports (English article)
JD.com (Nasdaq: JD) Tests Drones to Speed Rural Area Deliveries (Chinese article)
Western Digital (NYSE: WDC) Clock Reset Shows Hurdles for Tsinghua Unigroup Sale (English article)
Carrefour (Paris: CA) to Expand China E-Commerce Drive with App Roll Out (Chinese article)
Bottom line: Shanda Group is likely to emerge this year as China’s next major global investor with 2-3 major deals, while Renren’s plans to transform into a high-tech investment company stand a 50-50 chance of success.
Shanda, Renren see future in investment
Two former Internet high-flyers that later flamed out are looking for new beginnings in finance, with Shanda Group and Renren (NYSE: RENN) both discussing their transformation plans in separate reports this week. Shanda was once China’s leading online game operator, and its chief Chen Tianqiao dreamed of creating an online entertainment empire. Similarly, Renren was once China’s leading social networking service (SNS) opeartor, at one time often called the Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) of China.
But both companies got overtaken in recent years, and were largely marginalized by better-run rivals like Tencent (HKEx: 700), NetEase (Nasdaq: NTES) and Weibo (Nasdaq: WB). As a result, Shanda founder Chen Tianqiao has recently sold off the various pieces of his former empire, most recently closing the sale of his original Shanda Games operation. Renren is also in the process of privatizing, as its core SNS business rapidly shrivels. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on January 16-18. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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China’s Haier to Buy GE’s (NYSE: GE) Appliance Unit for $5.4 Bln (English article)
Huawei Says to Launch Notebook PCs in February with Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) (Chinese article)
Regulator Orders Removal of False Claims Posts on Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) Tieba Service (Chinese article)
Xiaomi Misses Smartphone Sales Target by 10 Pct on China Slowdown (English article)
JD.com (Nasdaq: JD) Finance Arm Raises 6.65 Bln Yuan, Valued at 46.7 Bln Yuan
Bottom line: TCL’s smart TV alliance with LeTV brings together 2 strong names and is getting off to a good start with a strong lineup of new products, but could have trouble over the longer term due to the rapidly changing industry.
TCL announces new products with LeTV
TV stalwart TCL (Shenzhen: 000100) has just announced an expansion of its young partnership in smart TVs with industry high-flyer LeTV (Shenzhen: 300104), in what could become the first of an earlier wave of such tie-ups to finally gain some traction. Many of the similar tie-ups were announced in rapid succession a couple of years ago, as newer online video companies rushed to forge partnerships with traditional TV manufacturers.
The idea was that the TV makers would produce customized products optimized to offer video services from a particular Internet company, creating a new generation of online-connected smart TVs that could compete with traditional cable TV services. But it seems many of those alliances never really got very far, and these days many video companies have decided to focus instead on making special set-top boxes that be easily mounted on any TV. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on January 15. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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LeTV (Shenzhen: 300104), TCL (HKEx: 1070) Form Alliance in Large Curved TVs (Chinese article)
36 Charitable Health Organizations Raise Alarm on Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) (Chinese article)
Shanghai Quality Inspector Says Xiaomi Air Purifiers Substandard (Chinese article)
Huawei, Ericsson (NYSE: ERIC) Sign Patent Exchange Agreement (Chinese article)
Qunar (Nasdaq: QUNR) Rises as Ctrip Plans to Buy `Significant Minority Stake’ (English article)
Bottom line: Sina’s latest board reduction to just 5 members looks like a strategic move by Chairman and CEO Charles Chao, as he prepares a sale that will give him a major executive position at his company post-merger.
Sina board shrinks to just 5 members
The share price isn’t the only thing shrinking these days at leading web portal Sina (Nasdaq: SINA). The board of one of China’s oldest Internet companies has also just undergone a major reduction, with 2 of its 7 members leaving without any sign of replacements. I’m not extremely familiar with Sina’s board and its dynamics, but it does seem like 5 members is quite small for a company of Sina’s size and could reflect a power play by longtime Chairman and CEO Charles Chao.
Such a play could be prelude to the sale of Sina to a rival, with e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) as the most likely candidate. I’ve been predicting such a sale for a while now, and this latest move looks like the latest signal that Chao could be clearing out board members who might oppose such a deal. With just 5 members left on the board, Chao would only need 2 to agree with him to approve a deal that he would personally negotiate. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: New scandals involving fraudsters using Baidu and Ctrip platforms highlight a major problem for major web companies from third-party merchants, but are unlikely to have a big impact on their business.
Frausters make headaches for Baidu, Ctrip
Two new scandals involving leading travel services provider Ctrip(Nasdaq: CTRP) and top search engine Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) are shining a spotlight on the daily battle China’s top Internet firms must do with the hundreds of fraudsters lurking online. The first case has Baidu dealing with fraudsters who tried to sell products on its Tieba social communities service, while Ctrip has landing in trouble after 2 people bought invalid tickets from independent travel agencies on one of its open marketplaces.
The biggest case for this kind of fraud came a year ago, when China’s commerce regulator released a report showing huge volumes of trafficking in pirated goods on the Taobao marketplace operated by leading e-commerce site Alibaba(NYSE: BABA). In all of these cases the fraud isn’t being directly committed by the big-name companies, but rather by small, third-party merchants doing business on their sites. But the big Internet names are realizing that they are ultimately responsible for the reliability of all transactions taking place on their sites. Read Full Post…
