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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)
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on January 13. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) To Invest Over $500 Mln In Indian Startup (English article)
Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) Discussed Possible Investment In Xiaomi – Sources (English article)
Sinopec (HKEx: 386) Plans To List Retail Unit In Hong Kong – Report (English article)
China’s Wanda Cinema Seeks To Raise $203 Mln In Scaled-Back IPO: Sources (English article)
China Domestic Market Cellphone Output Drops 21.9 Pct in 2014 (Chinese article)
Bottom line: The visit by a top Chinese Internet official to Facebook’s US campus shows Mark Zuckerberg’s charm offensive toward China is producing results, which could see his company finally get permission to enter the market next year.
China Internet official Lu visits Facebook campus
I have to commend Mark Zuckerberg for his tenacity, after the Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) founder once again made headlines for receiving a visit from a top Chinese Internet official visiting the US. There are several interesting things about this latest development involving Zuckerberg’s endless quest to bring Facebook to China, beginning with the source of this latest news.
It turns out the news didn’t come from Facebook or even ordinary people who caught a glimpse of the meeting, but rather it came from the web page China.com.cn, an official government site under the State Council. (Chinese article) What’s more, the account was rather detailed and upbeat, and featured several photos of Zuckerberg chatting happily on the Facebook campus with Lu Wei, minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on December 9. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Facebook’s Zuckerberg, Apple’s Cook Meet China’s Internet Minister In US (English article)
Xunlei (Nasdaq: XNET) Pop-Up Window Service Shut Down For Pornography (Chinese article)
Trina Solar (NYSE: TSL) Acquires 28 Pct Stake In Shuntai Leasing (PRNewswire)
LeTV (Shenzhen: 300104) To Acquire Affiliated Le Vision Pictures (English article)
Game Operator Linekong To Make HK IPO December 19, Raise Up To $190 Mln (Chinese article)
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: 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…
In the absence of big company news so far this week, I’ve decided tolook at the scorecard for the flood of technology IPOs over the last 12 months and what it might say about what’s ahead into next year. The record so far looks quite good in general, especially for companies that made a flurry of New York offerings at the end of last year and whose shares have mostly doubled or more since then.
But one notable exception to the trend is mobile games, as 2 of the 3 major players to make recent listings are now squarely in negative territory. That doesn’t bode well for a 3 upcoming similar listings, 1 in New York and 2 in Hong Kong, which appear to be stalling due to the cool investor sentiment. Read Full Post…
I previously wrote that Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) plain-spoken CEO Tim Cook should consider buying a second home in China due to his frequent visits to the country, and the same could be said for Facebook’s (Nasdaq: FB) more brash founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. While Cook’s frequent visits are quite official and include many stops at government and company offices, Zuckerberg has been far more low-key in his equally regular visits due to Facebook’s lack of official presence in the country where its website is formally blocked. But Zuckerberg wants desperately to find a way to enter the market, which explains his latest low-key appearance at an event this week in Beijing at Tsinghua University, China’s equivalent of MIT. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on October 24. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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30 Pct Of Traditional Retail Stores To Close In Future – Suning VP (Chinese article)
Facebook’s (Nasdaq: FB) Zuckerberg Says To Start Hiring In China Next Year (Chinese article)
Senior and mid-level executives from a wide range of Chinese tech firms were on the move this past week, crossing the Pacific to tour some of the top US tech names in Silicon Valley. Stops on the tour, co-organized by a Chinese outfit with the colorful name of Geek Park, included such Internet giants as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Twitter (NYSE: TWTR), as well as newer companies like Airbnb and Pinterest, and electric car powerhouse Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA). But certainly the biggest and most intriguing stop on this Silicon Valley tech tour was a visit to the global headquarters of Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), which also happens to be in the process of opening a China office. Read Full Post…
China Auto IPO draws on Alibaba fever with strong debut
I’m a bit reluctant to write more today about the historic New York IPO for e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), whose extremely strong trading debut surprised even me. But I would be somewhat remiss if I didn’t at least mention the final phase of this massive offering, which has made Alibaba the world’s second largest Internet company behind only Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). At the same time, another far more low profile trading debut in Hong Kong for auto rental specialist CAR Inc (HKEx: 699) has also done quite well, extending a nearly yearlong window for overseas listings by Chinese firms. Read Full Post…
With Alibaba’s (NYSE: BABA) blockbuster IPO nearly in the history books, I wanted to take this opportunity to explore what’s ahead for the company as it gets set to break numerous records with its New York listing. One good indicator of what lies ahead would be the performance for shares of other Chinese tech firms that have listed over the last 12 months. But such comparisons have limited value, since Alibaba is clearly in a far different class from all these other companies, following a pricing of its shares that makes it more valuable than such global corporate giants as Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Disney (NYSE: DIS). Read Full Post…
