A new report on the resignation of the head of Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) huge Asia R&D labs to take a job at homegrown Internet giant Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) is shining a spotlight on the growing challenges that multinationals may soon face in retaining some of their top Chinese employees. Just a decade ago, jobs at foreign companies were highly coveted by ambitious Chinese in the high-tech sector, mostly because China didn’t have any of its own big names in the space.
But the emergence of companies like Baidu, Tencent (HKEx: 700) and Lenovo (HKEx: 992) have created a whole new set of opportunities for these workers. What’s more, improving working conditions at Chinese-owned firms, combined with Beijing’s subtle anti-foreign bias against high-tech multinationals, could ultimately lead many of China’s brightest tech workers to abandon their jobs at the multinationals for domestic names. Read Full Post…
Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) highly anticipated iPhone 6 could face an uphill climb in China when it gets released next week, at least based on the first figures I’ve seen for how much the model will cost. According to the latest reports, China Unicom (HKEx: 762; NYSE: CHU), the nation’s second largest carrier and Apple’s oldest partner in China, will sell the new iPhone 6 for a starting price of 5,288 yuan, or about $860. That would be significantly higher than the price tag of $750 that many believe will be the iPhone 6’s starting price when it goes on sale in the US later this month. Read Full Post…
Corporate culture is seldom on public display for most of China’s top tech firms, even though such culture often determines the success or failure of a company and is well known to industry insiders. The internal cultures at PC giant Lenovo (HKEx: 922) and smartphone sensation Xiaomi were the subject of chatter in the blogosphere this past week, as executives from inside and outside the companies discussed the less visible side of these well-known names. In Lenovo’s case, the talk came from a company executive herself, on the release of her new book. The latter saw a couple of outside executives comment on less attractive elements behind the inside culture at China’s hottest smartphone maker.
Meantime, the viral “Ice Bucket Challenge” was also all over the tech sphere, with nearly every major executive mentioning the topic on his personal microblog. Many also took the plunge that raises money for a rare neurological disease, but has also been derided as little more than a publicity stunt. Read Full Post…
I generally try to avoid writing too much about smartphones in this space, since the blogosphere often seems like little more than a soap box for high-tech execs to hype their latest products. But a series of exchanges between some of the industry’s top executives provided a fascinating snapshot of the current price wars now gripping China, as companies try to undercut each other to see who can offer the cheapest models. Meantime, some of those same executives were poking fun at the recent news that a famous Chinese comedian was planning to enter the space, again reflecting how overheated the market has become.
Elsewhere on a more solemn note, executives from some of China’s leading tech firms were also paying tribute in the blogosphere to Robin Williams, praising the US comedian for his ability to make other people laugh despite his own depression that ended with his suicide last week. Read Full Post…
A summer full of negative news for Sino-foreign trade relations got a rare piece of positive news over the weekend, with word that the US has approved the sale of IBM’s (NYSE: IBM) low-end server business to Chinese PC giant Lenovo (HKEx: 992). The case looks a bit like another deal between the pair of tech giants nearly a decade ago, when IBM agreed to sell its high-profile PC business to Lenovo, only to see the deal run into political headwinds before finally getting approved by Washington. But this latest approval is slightly different, as it comes against a backdrop of heightened trade and other national security tensions between China and the west, especially from the US. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on August 16-18. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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US Approves Sale Of IBM (NYSE: IBM) x86 Server Unit To Lenovo (HKEx: 992) (Businesswire)
Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Begins Storing Users’ Personal Data On Servers In China (English article)
The busiest day of the second-quarter earnings season has just come and gone, with online gaming leaders Tencent (HKEx: 700) and NetEase (Nasdaq: NTES), top telco China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL), leading PC maker Lenovo (HKEx: 992) and e-commerce high-flyer Vipshop (NYSE: VIPS) all reporting results in the same 24-hour period. I’ll give quick reviews of individual companies shortly, but the bigger picture based on stock reactions seems to be a massive yawn from investors. Most of the stocks were either unchanged or moved slightly downward in response to the earnings reports, meaning most results continued recent company trends.
The lackluster response also hints at some investor fatigue, following a wave of euphoria during a flood of new Internet IPOs in New York in the first half of this year. All that said, let’s take a quick look at each of the reports and what they say about current and future trends. Read Full Post…
Smartphone makers Xiaomi and Huawei are learning tough new lessons this week, reflecting intense competition in the overheated market where a feisty field of Chinese players are vying for a place alongside global leaders Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Samsung (Seoul: 005930). In Xiaomi’s case, the company has become emboiled in an embarrassing new gaffe in Taiwan involving collection of personal data. Meantime, Huawei’s Honor line of smartphones, which it’s trying to position as an mid- to upscale brand, is rapidly moving into the bargain bin with word that it has slashed the price on a new 4G model to just 799 yuan, or $130. Read Full Post…
I recently wrote how smartphone price wars may be claiming one of their first major victims in ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063), and now we’re getting word that crosstown rival Huawei may also be getting crunched in the ongoing battle for supremacy at the low end of the market. The latest reports cite Huawei’s mobile device chief saying the company is formally ducking out of ultra low-end smartphones in its home China market, in what can only be seen as a major retreat for one of China’s biggest tech companies. Read Full Post…
Top executives from software security maker Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) and struggling game operator The9 (Nasdaq: NCTY) were getting chummy in the blogosphere last week, filling the airwaves with chatter as they prepared to announce a new alliance at the country’s top gaming trade show in Shanghai. Meantime, executives from PC giant Lenovo (HKEx: 992) took time out from their usual tech and marketing chatter to make some low-key criticism against the government, including a microblog post in defense of the beleaguered McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) as it grapples with one of its worst-ever food safety scandals in China. Read Full Post…
The aggressive duo of Huawei and Lenovo (HKEx: 992) may be consolidating their spots on the global smartphone stage, as domestic rival ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 00063) shows signs of stumbling. Those are my major takeaways from the latest quarterly smartphone results released from industry research firm IDC, which show big sales and market share gains for Huawei and Lenovo in the second quarter of this year. ZTE, meantime, appeared to be moving in the opposite direction, falling further in the ratings after briefly surging last year. Read Full Post…
