The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on May 3-5. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) Announces Preliminary Q1 Results (PRNewswire)
China Mobile (HKEx: 941) Says In Talks With 2 Rivals For Base Station JV (HKEx announcement)
China’s is steadily improving its review process for major M&A, with the country’s anti-monopoly regulator giving the nod to major acquisitions by software leader Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD) on the same day this week. The bigger of the 2 deals saw the Commerce Ministry approve Microsoft’s purchase of Nokia’s (Helsinki: NOK1V) cellphone assets; while the latter saw InBev get approval for its purchase of Siping Ginsber, a mid-sized Chinese brewer. Read Full Post…
I have a lot of respect for Tencent (HKEx: 700), China’s largest Internet company and now one of the world’s most valuable web firms based on the meteoric rise in its stock over the last few years. But that said, I’m starting to have some concerns about the company’s future due to its sudden move into many unfamiliar areas, including the latest which reportedly has it looking to buy a cellphone maker. In a somewhat ironic twist, Tencent’s cellular foray would come just a couple of months after Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), the world’s largest Internet company, admitted failure with its own cellphone adventure by selling its Motorola Mobility unit at a major loss.
I have to credit telecoms equipment maker ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063) for chasing an interesting new idea, following reports that it’s preparing to launch a gaming console later this month. Such a plan plays to ZTE’s telecoms strength, since such consoles are almost inevitably connected to the Internet these days and are rapidly merging with a similar group of Internet TV set-top boxes. But that said, I have some serious doubts about the chances of success for this new foray, due to the company’s late arrival to the space, and also because I question its choice of venture partner, faded online game operator The9 (Nasdaq: NCTY). Read Full Post…
I had a sense of deja vu on reading reports that a group of workers at an IBM (NYSE: IBM) plant in south China had gone on strike, unhappy about the terms of their transfer to domestic PC giant Lenovo (HKEx: 992) under a recent M&A deal. It seems the workers in the city of Shenzhen were offered similar pay and other terms under the transfer, which came as the result of Lenovo’s pending purchase of IBM’s low-end server business announced in January. But the workers were still unsatisfied, feeling they should get higher pay for agreeing to work at a domestic company rather than the more prestigious IBM. Read Full Post…
The final death knell for one of China’s oldest software developers is casting a spotlight on just how difficult it is for companies to break into the global market for computer operating systems (OS). The end for Red Flag Software also bodes poorly for a number of more recent Chinese initiatives to create a mobile OS to rival Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) wildly popular Android and Apple’s (Nasdaq: APPL) own iOS. No specific reasons were given in the reports for Red Flag Software’s final demise, though I suspect defections by the company’s core state-run customers and a broader decline in the traditional desktop PC market were both factors. Read Full Post…
I have a lot of respect for TV giant TCL (HKEx: 1070; Shenzhen: 000100), which has managed to remain relevant in China’s high-tech gadget space by moving aggressively into products like smartphones and high-end flat-screen TVs. But I’m a bit skeptical of the company’s latest move into the ultra competitive gaming space, following word that TCL plans to make gaming consoles and also specialized gaming TVs. News of this latest move by one of China’s oldest tech names comes just months after TCL announced a tie-up with leading search engine Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) to make smart TVs. I was more positive on that venture, though I really do think this new one looks more problematic since it will take TCL into a new area that is very competitive and where it has little or no experience.
I don’t write too much about cloud services in China, mostly because I think the market is too immature despite Beijing’s strong promotion of the industry. Still, the latest announcement by e-commerce giant Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) that it’s formally launching cloud computing services in China seems like a good opportunity to re-examine the cloud phenomenon, including how the industry is likely to develop and who is best positioned to emerge as sector leaders. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on December 19. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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A week after declaring it was abandoning the US networking equipment market for now, Huawei is adding that it remains committed to the less controversial American smartphone market. At the same time, one of China’s biggest high-tech exporters is admitting it faces a long and difficult road in the highly competitive US smartphone market where global leaders Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Samsung (Seoul: 005930) dominate. This admission and newer low-profile approach look like a smart moves to me, since the chances of Huawei capturing more than 10 percent of the US smartphone market in the next 5 years are practically zero.
I really would like to compliment Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) from time to time for its China strategy, since I personally have no objections with the world’s largest software maker in general. But it’s often difficult to find anything positive to say about Microsoft’s strange decisions in China, and that’s certainly the case with the latest news about its choice of new local business partner for its Skype instant messaging service. Microsoft made headlines earlier this month when it dissolved a longstanding China tie-up for Skype without naming a new partner for the service; now it has formally chosen new partners in 2 stodgy state-run enterprises, Guangming Daily and Founder Group. Read Full Post…
