The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on February 7-9. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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China Says Will Protect US Firms’ Interests, Amid New Cybersecurity Rules (English article)
SEC, Big Four Accounting Firms in China Settle Dispute (English article)
Renren (NYSE: RENN) Leads $110 Mln Investment in Used Car Sales Platform Cheyipai (English article)
Tencent (HKEx: 700) Taps Overseas Debt Amid China New Economy Appeal (English article)
Strong Demand For Mate 7 Phablet Surprises Huawei (Chinese article)
Bottom line: China’s overall Internet growth will continue to slow as the market starts to become saturated, with messaging and other mobile services continuing to steal share from microblogging and video operators.
Microblogging decline bites Weibo
A newly released annual government report on China’s Internet is full of good news for the online business community, with most sectors posting double-digit growth as overall penetration neared the 50 percent mark. But a few sectors stood out as distinctive losers in the report from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), led by the microblogging space that saw a sharp decline in users.
That’s not too surprising due to departures or pull-backs in the space last year by big names like NetEase (Nasdaq: NTES) and Tencent (HKEx: 700), though it certainly doesn’t bode too well for sector giant Sina Weibo (Nasdaq: WB). Another relative loser was online video, which posted only tiny growth last year as the sector came under regulatory assault aimed at reining in companies like Youku Tudou (NYSE: YOKU) and Baidu’s (Nasdaq: BIDU) iQiyi. Read Full Post…
Two big news stories were at the center of heated discussion in of the microblogging realm this past week, led by Alibaba’s (NYSE: BABA) high profile dispute with one of China’s main business regulators over accusations of being soft on piracy. At the same time, Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) roll-out of advertisements on its WeChat mobile messsaging platform also drew lots of comments, as users were suddenly greeted with unsolicited messages in the popular Moments feature that functions much like Facebook’s (Nasdaq: FB) newsfeeds.
Of course no weekly microblogging round-up would be complete without a mention of the media savvy Xiaomi, which was once again creating buzz after an embarrassing gaffe by global marketing chief Hugo Barra. That gaffe saw Barra use a politically incorrect version of a map of India in one of his presentations, showing India as the correct owner of parts of a disputed area of its long border with China. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on February 4. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Bottom line: Alibaba’s Ant Financial unit is likely to get a strong valuation with a planned new private placement, and will embark on a series of high-profile moves before making a multibilllion-dollar IPO next year.
Ant Financial eyes 2016 IPO
Alibaba’s (NYSE: BABA) high-profile spat with Beijing is finally starting to subside, paving the way for the company’s affiliated financial unit, Ant Financial, to move into the headlines with word of plans for a major new fund-raising. But anyone holding Alibaba stock shouldn’t get too excited about Ant, which is separate from the listed company and whose rapid rise will only benefit Alibaba founder Jack Ma.
At the same time, other media reports are saying that Internet giant Tencent (HKEx: 700) has formally cleansed its popular WeChat mobile messaging platform of a holiday red-envelope feature from Alipay, Ant Financial’s most valuable asset. That development isn’t a surprise, but it does spotlight one of several major challenges that Ant will face as it tries to carve out a profitable place for itself in China’s fast-evolving financial services sector. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: The broadcasting regulator needs to rethink the way it treats online video companies and create a uniform set of standards that apply to both to them and traditional TV stations.
Tencent ties up with NBA
Internet giant Tencent (HKEx: 700) made headlines last week with an exclusive deal to broadcast live NBA games over the Internet in China, literally scoring a major victory over its rivals in the hotly contested online video space. But having won that victory over its Internet peers, it’s probably only a matter of time before China’s traditional TV broadcasters call foul and complain that Tencent’s deal will compete with their own live broadcasts of hugely popular NBA basketball games. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on January 31 to February 2. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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SAIC, Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) Agree To Work Together To Fight Piracy (Chinese article)
Tencent (HKEx: 700) Inks Exclusive Online Partnership For NBA Games In China (English article)
55Tuan Makes New IPO Filing, Raising Fund Raising Target To $65 Mln (Chinese article)
Retail Investment Product Site Juzi Licai Wins $100 Mln Series B Funding (English article)
Wang Jianlin Recaptures Title Of China’s Richest Person (English article)
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on January 30. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) Announces December Quarter 2014 Results (Businesswire)
China To Demand Secret Source Codes From Computer Firms: NYT (English article)
Bottom line: The piracy scandal rocking Alibaba will blow over in a few weeks with minimal longer-term impact, though the company’s stock will enter a downturn over the next 6 months due to overvaluation.
Piracy scandal grows around Alibaba
This week could well go down as a turning point for high-flying e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), whose growing war of words with a top government agency is quickly becoming a major scandal. The increasingly heated exchange has almost completely overshadowed the latest media reports that say Alibaba’s financial arm is preparing to launch a bank later this year. A separate company announcement indicates the bank will use an innovative credit rating system that draws on Alibaba’s huge volume of big data generated from the billions of transactions and other information exchanges that cross over its network. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Tencent’s strong early showing for a new WeChat-based advertising service and its investment in a take-out dining service reflect building momentum in its drive to build WeChat into a major new profit center.
BMW, Coke launch ad campaigns on WeChat
A couple of media reports are shining a spotlight on Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) WeChat, and some of the new steps it is taking to monetize the hugely popular service that is rapidly expanding beyond its roots as a mobile messaging service. At the same time, another report from Tencent itself is providing some insight into who exactly uses WeChat. It should come as no surprise that the report shows WeChat’s biggest fans are young and mostly male users, which are some of the most attractive targets for the online merchants and advertisers that Tencent wants to do more business on the platform. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: High-spending advertisers could provide a major new revenue source for Tencent, as it rolls out new ad-based services on its popular WeChat Moments function.
WeChat rolls out new ad services
Internet stalwart Tencent (HKEx: 700) is revving up its drive to monetize its popular WeChat mobile messaging platform, with word that it’s rolled out advertising services for one of the platform’s most popular functions. The move will start inserting ads into WeChat’s popular Moments function, known as pengyuouquan in Chinese, in a gamble that risks alienating many of the hundreds of millions of platform’s users. Read Full Post…
