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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 … )
Bottom line: Qunar’s ballooning losses reflect its aggressive spending on market share, which will turn off investors and pressure its stock until it shows signs of moving towards profitability.
Qunar losses swell past revenues
My third-quarter Chinese earnings season officially ends today with the newly issued results of online travel agent Qunar (Nasdaq: QUNR), whose losses appear to be spiraling out of control. Frankly speaking, I could never really understand why investors were so attracted to this company, whose main asset seems to be its association with leading Chinese search engine Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), which also happens to be Qunar’s majority stakeholder. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Weibo’s latest moves to stop users from defecting to WeChat reflect the company’s concerns over its fading momentum, and send a negative signal that will put pressure on its stock.
Weibo takes new steps to counter WeChat’s rise
An entertaining war is breaking out in the social networking (SNS) space, with word that the Twitter-like Weibo (Nasdaq: WB) is taking steps to punish people who use the service to promote their parallel accounts on archrival WeChat. I say this particular war is somewhat entertaining, as it seems quite petty and reflects the intense competition between these 2 companies. But at a more serious level, Weibo’s move reflects the very real fact that its service is rapidly losing eyeballs to the trendier WeChat, which is far more versatile and is also optimized for the fast-growing mobile Internet space. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: WeChat will face slow progress in the US and other global markets due to strong competition, and will be hobbled by concerns that it may monitor its users activities like it does in China.
WeChat in US promotion on UCLA campus
Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) WeChat mobile messaging service may be wildly popular in China, but it’s facing a steep uphill climb outside its protected home market. My own recent experience using the service in Hong Kong this week highlights one of WeChat’s biggest problems, namely concerns among users that their activities may be monitored and censored. That kind of issue could push users to more popular western brands like WhatsApp and Line, which have cleaner reputations. Tencent itself isn’t helping the situation by using a half-hearted promotion strategy in the US, as highlighted in a new report on some of its recent activities to crack that highly competitive market. Read Full Post…
Most of China’s high-tech attention was focused on the scenic canal city of Wuzhen near Shanghai this past week, as a who’s-who of top Internet executives gathered for a conference that billed itself as a global gathering. Most of China’s top names were reportedly at the event, including Baidu’s (Nasdaq: BIDU) Robin Li, Alibaba’s (NYSE: BABA) Jack Ma and NetEase’s (Nasdaq: NTES) Ding Lei. But the guest list was notably lacking in major global names, and at least one executive commented on the sensitive subject of the exclusion of global leaders like Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) and Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) from the Chinese Internet.
Meantime, the marketing savvy Lei Jun, who is also CEO and hypemaster supreme for smartphone sensation Xiaomi, also managed to make his own mini splash in the microblogging realm by declaring his own ambition to overtake Samsung (Seoul: 005930) and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) to become the world’s biggest smartphone brand. Such hype from Lei isn’t all that unusual, though I was somewhat surprised to see several executives from other firms chime in with support for this upwardly mobile company. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: China should completely up its film market to foreign participation, following recent liberalizing steps that have resulted in a boom in cross-border tie-ups.
Hollywood falls in love with China
The mayor of Los Angeles called on Chinese leaders to ease their restrictions on imported movies during a visit to Beijing last week, seeking better access for a product that is one of the most lucrative US exports to China.
The fact is that China has already taken big steps over the last 2 years to open its movie theaters to overseas products, as both foreign and domestic producers chase a fast-growing market that is now the world’s second largest behind only the United States. At the same time, a growing number of foreign filmmakers are getting improved access to the market through co-investments with Chinese partners, including joint ventures and joint production agreements. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Renren’s situation is likely to continue deteriorating as its core SNS business struggles and it sells off assets, with the company likely to close up shop or sell itself within the next 2 years.
Renren losses balloon
During the last boom for Chinese Internet IPOs in late 2010 and early 2011, one of the last names to make a successful listing was money-losing social networking (SNS) leader Renren (NYSE: RENN), which billed itself as the Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) of China. More than 3 years later, the company is still losing money and the figure is starting to balloon, according to Renren’s just released quarterly earnings.
Somewhat surprisingly, Renren still has a market value of $1 billion, even as it shows every sign of becoming a bargain buy for an acquirer or going out of business completely. But this is China, and Internet stocks that normally wouldn’t get any attention from US investors can still get noticed when they carry the “made in China” label. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: A weak debut for eHi reflects waning investor enthusiasm for Chinese IPOs, while a new $585 million investment in Huayi Bros reflects strong growth prospects for the independent filmmaker.
eHi IPO sputters out of the gate
A flurry of fund-raising events are in the headlines today, led by a weak trading debut for car rental specialist eHi Car Services (NYSE: EHIC) and a big capital infusion for Huayi Bros (Shenzhen: 300027), one of China’s leading independent film makers. Rounding out the activity are reports confirming that smartphone high-flyer Xiaomi has made its largest investment to date, spending $300 million for a stake in iQiyi, China’s second largest online video site owned by Internet search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU). Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on November 19. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) Sues Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) For Attack On Reputation (Chinese article)
Bottom line: Apple’s new UnionPay tie-up is aimed at an eventual roll-out of its Apple Pay in China, while Baidu’s reported purchase of 99Pay marks a late but needed bid to boost its electronic payments capabilities.
Baidu eyes 99Bill
A couple of electronic payments stories reflect the rapid changes taking place in China’s banking market, where such payments are quickly making cash and even traditional credit cards obsolete. The higher-profile of the 2 deals has global gadget leader Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) in a deal to accept payments for its China app store in partnership with leading electronic payments firm UnionPay. The second deal has leading Internet search Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) reportedly looking to boost its presence in the space with plans to buy existing player 99Bill for 2 billion yuan ($325 million). Read Full Post…
Bottom line: The new connection between the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges will make China tech stocks accessible to Chinese investors, and could prompt more companies to abandon New York for Hong Kong IPOs
HK-Shanghai link opens doors for Chinese tech buyers
The newly launched link between the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock markets should breathe new life and stability into China’s volatile stock markets by making shares of mainland-listed firms accessible to sophisticated Western buyers with billions of dollars to invest. But equally exciting is a bumper crop of new investment opportunities that will soon become available to Chinese investors, who will finally gain access to wide range of top domestic high-tech firms that for years were beyond their reach. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on November 18. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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