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Tag Archives: Facebook
Facebook in China latest Business & Financial news from Doug Young, the Expert on Chinese High Tech Market, (former Journalist and Chief editor at Reuters)
Bottom line: Facebook’s plans for a Taiwan data center reflect its big hopes for Asia, and could portend its long-sought receipt of permission to open a China service next year through a local joint venture.
Facebook eyes Taiwan data center
As the rest of the world buzzes over Mark Zuckerberg’s new daughter and philanthropy plans, other media reports are providing new signals involving his ongoing aspirations to bring his Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) empire to the world’s biggest Internet market in China. In all fairness, those reports that Facebook is studying a plan to set up its first Asian data center in Taiwan don’t necessarily point directly to its separate China aspirations.
But Taiwan is certainly much closer to China than the US, and a data center there would make Facebook quicker for people in China to access if and when Beijing ever decides to open its doors to the world’s largest social networking service (SNS). That said, Asia is already a huge region for Facebook, accounting for about a third of its 1.5 billion users worldwide. Thus a data center in Asia makes sense for Facebook to better serve that base of about 500 million users. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on December 3. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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P2P Lending Operator Lufax Said to Seek $1 Bln at $15 Bln Value (English article)
Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) Jumps Most in 4 Years on Patent Deal With Xiaomi (English article)
Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) Plans First Asia-Pacific Data Center in Taiwan – Govt Official (English article)
Unicom (HKEx: 762) in New Management Shuffle at Provincial Offices – Source (Chinese article)
Yingli Green Energy (NYSE: YGE) Reports Q3 Results (PRNewswire)
Bottom line: Mark Zuckerberg’s increasingly blatant groveling in his effort to bring Facebook to China could backfire if he’s not careful, and instead he should work behind the scenes and be patient for approval that could come within the next 1-2 years.
Top China Internet official visits Facebook last December
There’s still more than 2 months left in the year, but I’m already giving my “China Brown Noser of the Year” award to Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) founder Mark Zuckerberg, who has become quite unabashed about doing anything he can to win favor from Beijing. Chinese President Xi Jinping was front and center on the Facebook chief’s radar screen during his recent visit to the US, where Zuckerberg managed to attend 2 high profile events where China’s most powerful man was present.
I previously wrote about the first event in Seattle where numerous US tech leaders were also present. (previous post). But it was the latter White House event later in the week that prompted me to give Zuckerberg the dubious honors as China brown noser supreme. That’s because reports earlier this week revealed that Zuckerberg actually approached Xi at the White House dinner and requested an honorary name for his unborn daughter from the Chinese president. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Mark Zuckerberg’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and new China-related remarks by Sheryl Sandberg show Facebook is closing in on a goal of launching its signature service in China, with a breakthrough possible as soon as next year.
Facebook thrives on China ad sales
Despite being blocked in the world’s largest Internet market, social networking (SNS) giant Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) is using every opportunity to quietly remind the world that it’s determined to include China in its global footprint. Just a week after company founder Mark Zuckerberg met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a high-profile event in Seattle, his chief deputy Sheryl Sandberg was quoted at an event in New York talking up the big business Facebook is already doing in China.
Company watchers will know that Facebook quietly opened a China office in Beijing last year, with an aim to courting local advertisers seeking to reach the company’s global audience of 1.5 billion users. That business is doing quite well, according to Sandberg, though the Facebook’s ultimate China goal is still its eventual entry into a domestic Internet market that boasts nearly 700 million web surfers. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on September 30. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Facebook’s (Nasdaq: FB) Sandberg: China Business ‘Thriving’ Amid Ban (English article)
Shoemaker Skechers (NYSE: SKX) Plans 4,000 China Stores in Next 3 Years (Chinese article)
Microsoft To Replace Bing With Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) on Windows 10 in China (English article)
3 Telcos to Launch New Policy Allowing Data Carry-Over on Oct 1 (Chinese article)
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Unveils Nexus Phones by Huawei, LG to Battle IPhone (English article)
Bottom line:Alibaba’s stock is likely to face downward pressure through the end of the year, but could see a modest rally of up to 20 percent in 2016 as speculators pile out and founder Jack Ma enters a period of relative silence.
Jack Ma heading for hibernation after bearish year?
Many are taking advantage of the one-year anniversary of Alibaba’s (NYSE: BABA) record-breaking IPO to reflect on the past 12 months and what the future might hold for the company, especially for its stock that has gone on a roller coaster ride in that period. Many are quite subdued and even bearish on the stock, citing bad investments and a slowing Chinese economy. But I would actually take a contrarian view and say the shares could be poised for a modest rebound next year after China’s stock markets settle from their current turbulence.
My theory is rather simple. Alibaba’s stock became the plaything of speculators in the first year of trading after its $25 billion New York IPO last September became the biggest offering of all time. First it was the bulls who piled in, buying into the hype that Alibaba happily dished out about the explosive growth potential of China’s e-commerce market. More lately the bears have moved in, seizing on slowing growth, questionable investments and a piracy scandal to make some short-selling profits on the overvalued stock. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Tencent’s new WeChat push into Europe looks like a better strategy than its previous failed US effort, though it should provide more support to its local partners if it wants to succeed.
WeChat signs on Italian partner
After a disastrous and costly foray into the US, leading Chinese mobile messaging app WeChat is gearing up for a new attempt at going global, this time setting its sights on Europe. This particular push has WeChat, a unit of Chinese Internet giant Tencent (HKEx: 700), forming small tie-ups with local European partners to promote the service. The latest of those has seen WeChat link with a small Italian start-up called ChatSim, which provides technology that lets users link up different mobile chatting apps.
Announcement of this particular tie-up is clearly the work of ChatSim, which has put out a slightly amateurish press release announcing the partnership. (company announcement) That said, I do think that more broadly speaking Europe looks like a better place for Tencent to try its luck at global expansion. That’s because the US is already quite hotly contested not only with WhatsApp but also rival instant messaging products from Internet giants like Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), which also owns WhatsApp. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Twitter’s new CEO is likely to re-think the company’s decision to stay out of China due to Beijing’s strict self-censorship policies, and could ultimately make a play for the market in the next 2-3 years.
Twitter to re-think China under new CEO?
It seems that Weibo (Nasdaq: WB), often called China’s equivalent of Twitter (Nasdaq: TWTR), isn’t the only one struggling these days in the social networking (SNS) realm. The original Twitter has just announced that its own CEO Dick Costolo has succumbed to calls for his resignation due to stagnating growth, meaning his replacement will come under intense pressure to jump-start the company’s prospects. One of the fastest ways to do that would be going to China, leading to the intriguing prospect that Twitter’s road map could bring it to China sooner than many expected under its yet-to-be-named new leader. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: An ongoing wave of buyout offers for US-listed Chinese firms is being funded by speculative money that will quickly evaporate when China’s stock market rally fizzles, causing some deals to collapse when that happens.
Gamblers fund privatization wave
It’s a new day, which means it’s time to take a look at the latest US-listed Chinese companies receiving privatization offers from opportunistic investors looking for bargains. Today it’s data center operator 21Vianet (Nasdaq: VNET) and beleaguered social networking site (SNS) operator Renren (NYSE: RENN) that are headed for the exit door.
I’ve been writing about this recent flurry of privatizations for the last few months, which is quickly turning into a flood as investors scramble to assemble deals to buy companies whose shares have languished on Wall Street. The idea is that these companies would be far more appreciated, and therefore get much higher valuations, from investors in their home China market, where an ongoing stock market rally has seen the main Shanghai index more than double over the last year. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Google could open a Chinese version of its app store by the end of this year and spend aggressively to quickly gain market share, but would face negative backlash from western critics for its U-turn back into the sensitive market.
Google lobbies China smartphone makers to include Play Store
Global Internet giant Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is reportedly eying a return to China, with plans to launch a Chinese version of its flagship Google Play app store. The move, if true, would mark a major flip-flop for Google, which withdrew its core search engine from China in 2010 after a high-profile spat over Beijing’s strict censorship policies. But as many similarly principled companies quickly discover, China is a market that is simply too big to ignore.
That quandary led top business networking site LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) to enter China last year, despite expressing its own reservations about censorship, and top social networking (SNS) site Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) is also lobbying strongly for such a move. Google’s latest campaign comes in a the slightly less sensitive area of app store operation, though even that business would involve some self-censorship to eliminate apps that Beijing might consider sensitive for political or other reasons. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Twitter’s growing pursuit of business from Chinese advertisers shows it is watching the market for a potential future entry, while a new equity tie-up could see Didi Kuaidi’s hired car services launch on Weibo later this year.
Twitter chases China advertisers
Social networking (SNS) pioneer Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) and its Chinese clone WeiboCorp (Nasdaq: WB) are both in the China headlines today, each taking gambles on different parts of the market. After previously saying that China isn’t a market where it can do business, the original Twitter has quietly begun to court local advertisers, even as its actual service remains blocked in the country. Meantime, Weibo, which rose to prominence after Twitter was first blocked in China in 2009, has announced a relatively large new investment in local hired car services leader Didi Kuaidi. Read Full Post…
