For the latest news on U.S.- and Hong Kong-traded Chinese stocks, visit our new Bamboo Works site.
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: Alibaba’s Koubei is unlikely to gain major traction despite its $1.1 billion in new funding, due to its late arrival to a crowded O2O take-out dining space already dominated by Baidu, Ele.me and Meituan-Dianping.
Koubei raises $1.1 billion
The longer I stay in China, the more the latest stories coming from the Internet sector look like I’ve seen them before. That’s certainly the case with Koubei, the Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) online-to-offline (O2O) take-out dining delivery service, which is close to landing a fresh $1.1 billion in new funding. In this case, Alibaba’s extremely late arrival to the space looks a lot like its vain attempt to play catch-up to Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) WeChat with a service called Laiwang back in 2013. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Sogou is unlikely to make an IPO this year, despite new talk of potential for such a plan from its CEO, and may ultimately never list due to its lackluster performance.
Sogou floats another IPO plan
Online search engine Sogou is testing the market yet again for a potential IPO, hoping to spin a story of opportunity to grab market share from scandal-tainted industry leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU). That story may sound attractive to investors unfamiliar with this perennial number-three in China’s search market, whose main shareholders are web portal Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU) and Internet titan Tencent (HKEx: 700).
The only problem is that Sogou’s credibility is nearly nil these days, a direct result of the equally low credibility of controlling shareholder Sohu, which seizes on any opportunity to talk up IPOs for its various units. Accordingly, I will quite definitively go on the record saying this particular IPO won’t happen this year, and possibly not ever, regardless of what anyone at Sohu or Sogou says. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Tencent’s new investment in Nokia’s former mapping unit Here reflects the Chinese herd mentality to pile into new technologies, but also looks like a relatively savvy way to enter the space by pairing with experienced partners.
Tencent ties with mapping giant Here
Internet giant Tencent (HKEx: 700) doesn’t want to be left behind in the race with rivals Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) and Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) into self-driving new energy cars that may someday dominate the streets of both China and the world. That appears to be the message from the latest headlines, which have Tencent involved in a somewhat complicated deal that will give it a small stake in a high-powered mapping company that counts car giants BMW, Daimler and Audi as its main investors. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: iQiyi won’t make an IPO next year even though Baidu would like to get the company off its books, while Renren’s privatization marks one of the last buyouts for a US-listed Chinese firm from a wave dating back to last year.
iQiyi reportedly eyes 2017 IPO
The year 2016 is winding down as an unmemorable one for Chinese IPOs, thanks to a rocky start that cast a chill over the entire space. That said, the new year could be a bit more lively, amid signs that China’s securities regulator is opening the gates a bit wider to new offerings. That signal could bode well for offshore listings as well, with word that loss-making online video site iQiyi, controlled by online search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), is contemplating such an offering next year. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Unicom is likely to choose all 3 of the BAT companies as equity and strategic partners under Beijing’s pilot program to invigorate big state-run companies, but none of the tie-ups will produce meaningful results.
Unicom eyes BAT partnerships
China Unicom (HKEx: 762; NYSE: CHU), the perennial laggard among China’s 3 major telcos, is reportedly looking for new life by tying up with the nation’s big 3 Internet companies, Tencent (HKEx: 700), Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) and Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU). I might normally say “so what?” to this particular development, since it seems like Unicom and its 2 fellow state-run telcos are regularly announcing this kind of partnership, always with little or no meaningful impact on their business. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Meitu’s shares are likely to price and debut weakly due to skepticism about its profit potential from big western investors, but could perform better over the longer term if the beauty app can monetize its large user base.
Meitu sets IPO price range
What’s likely to be Hong Kong’s biggest high-tech IPO in nearly a decade is creeping ahead, with word that beauty app operator Meitu has set a price range for its widely watched offering that puts it within reach of its target to raise $750 million. But a read between the lines shows that this offering could easily price at the lower end of its range, following earlier investor worries that Meitu might have difficulty leveraging its huge customer base into meaningful profits anytime soon.
Meitu’s quandary is hardly unique, in an Internet universe where having huge user numbers doesn’t always translate to big profits. In this case Meitu, operator of an app that lets users tweak selfies to make themselves look more attractive, is quite rich in terms of traffic, with 450 million active users. But it hasn’t found a way to actually make money from that audience, and instead earns 95 percent of its revenue from sales of smartphones that draw people to its app. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on October 28. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
══════════════════════════════════════════════
Bottom line: A new $3.5 billion bank loan to help pay for game developer Supercell and an investment in shared bike service Mobike extend Tencent’s savvy strategy of targeted backing for companies that can quickly contribute to its core businesses.
Tencent nears mega loan for Supercell buy
Leading Internet company Tencent (HKEx: 700) is in a couple of major investment headlines as the new week begins, one in the virtual realm and the other grounded on the streets of major cities like Beijing and Shanghai. The larger of the items comes with word that Tencent is on the cusp of securing a $3.5 billion loan to help pay for its pending purchase of a controlling stake in Finnish game maker Supercell. The other item has the company leading a recent funding round for Mobike, operator of a shared bicycle service that is helping to revive China’s biking tradition. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Alibaba will have to spend more heavily to rid its marketplaces of trafficking in pirated goods, while its Steven Spielberg partnership is part of a new wave of deeper film tie-ups between China and Hollywood.
Alibaba ties with Spielberg’s Amblin
Internet giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) is being rebuffed and embraced in the US in 2 separate headlines, reflecting conflicting feelings many Americans have towards one of China’s largest private companies and their sometimes controversial business practices. In the more upbeat headline, Alibaba’s movie-making unit has just signed a major new tie-up with director Steven Spielberg to co-produce movies from his Amblin Entertainment and distribute them in China. But in a far less friendly overture, Alibaba is also being blasted by a major US apparel group for lack of progress in its battle to stamp out trafficking in pirated goods in its online marketplaces. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on October 13. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
══════════════════════════════════════════════
Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) to Set Up R&D Center in Shenzhen, Bolster China Ties (English article)
Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) Forms 20 Bln Yuan Internet Project Investment Fund (English article)
Supermarket Operator RT-Mart Closes Stores for First Time in 19 Years (Chinese article)
GM (NYSE: GM) Ventures into China Car-Sharing with App Developer Investment (English article)
Sky-mobi (Nasdaq: MOBI) Announces Shareholder Meeting to Vote on Privatization (PRNewswire)
Bottom line: A Baidu downgrade by Deutsche Bank and new developments in its takeout dining and driverless car businesses highlight its heavy reliance on its search business and costly diversification attempts with no immediate profit potential.
Baidu teaming with Starbucks?
A trio of headlines are spotlighting the difficulties faced by Chinese Internet giant Baidu(Nasdaq: BIDU) as it tries desperately to diversify beyond its core online search business. At the center of this news flurry is a downgrade of Baidu’s stock by Deutsche Bank, which looks mostly related to the company’s big revenue decline after a scandal earlier this year. But the other 2 headlines, one about Baidu’s driverless car initiative and the other about its online take-out dining service, both nicely highlight the huge money that Baidu is spending on its new businesses, nearly all of them losing big money. Read Full Post…
