Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) WeChat has grown so quickly over the last 2 years that it was almost inevitable that the popular mobile messaging service would come under fire from China’s state-run media or Beijing regulators. The service briefly clashed with the telecoms regulator last year during a high-profile spat with leading telco China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL), and now WeChat is coming under fire from leading broadcaster CCTV for becoming a hotbed for rumor mongering and fraudulent advertisements. Read Full Post…
Wireless carrier China Telecom (HKEx: 728; NYSE: CHA) was in the headlines last week with its launch of a financial product similar to savings accounts, becoming the latest in a long string of companies to enter an area dominated for decades by state-run banks. At the same time, separate reports said the central bank was nearing a plan to introduce its first major regulation of these new products, in another widely expected move. Read Full Post…
A couple of restaurant deals are in the news this week, reflecting the big potential of China’s dining-out market as consumer tastes broaden beyond fast-food. One deal has an investment arm of luxury goods giant Louis Vuitton buying a Singaporean restaurant chain with a big China presence, while the other has leading restaurant ratings site Dianping buying an online take-out dining platform. But China’s growing taste for wine could be starting to slow, with word of another major deal involving the struggling Dynasty Fine Wines (HKEx: 828), one of the country’s leading domestic producers. Read Full Post…
The IPO story of the year has finally begun, with word that leading Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba has finally made its first public filing for a listing in New York. But anyone hoping for a blockbuster deal that would have been the biggest tech IPO since Facebook’s (Nasdaq: FB) 2012 offering will be disappointed to learn that Alibaba is seeking to raise a relatively modest $1 billion in the deal. Alibaba made the filing as a separate media report said the company’s high-flying Yu’ebao, its financial product that competes with traditional bank savings accounts, is about to have its wings clipped with new reserve requirement regulations from the central bank. Read Full Post…
The buying binge by China’s 3 leading Internet companies continues this week, with news that social networking (SNS) giant Tencent (HKEx: 700) is purchasing 11.3 percent of mobile mapping firm NavInfo (Shenzhen: 002405) for 1.17 billion yuan ($183 million). Anyone who thinks I may be mistakenly recycling an old report with this news isn’t too far from the truth, as this particular deal looks quite similar to a different recent investment by e-commerce leader Alibaba in online mapping firm AutoNavi (Nasdaq: AMAP). Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on May 6. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Cheetah Mobile Makes Additional IPO Filing, Discloses Q1 Results (Chinese article)
Baosteel, Aurizon (Sydney: AZJ) Bid For Aquila In $1.3 Bln Iron Deal (English article)
Tencent Buys 11.28 Pct Of NavInfo (Shenzhen: 002405) For 1.1.7 Bln Yuan (Chinese article)
Dianping Invests in Food Ordering Site Ele.me (English article)
After years of hovering at the edge of China’s gadget and app markets, Japanese mobile instant messaging giant Line and Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) Xbox gaming console are both reportedly preparing to enter the market. Line’s plan looks the most exciting to me, as the product has quickly gained a major following in Asia and could find a receptive audience in China with its new partnership. Meantime, I’m less optimistic about Xbox, as its China entry comes after its consoles have been available on the local gray market for years, and it will face competition from a new group of homegrown products. Its choice of the struggling Shanghai Media Group (SMG) as its partner also doesn’t look too exciting to me. Read Full Post…
Just a day after getting some extremely worrisome news that could see many of its most popular offerings censored, leading online video site Youku Tudou (NYSE: YOKU) has announced a more positive development in the form of a $1.22 billion investment led by e-commerce leader Alibaba. The move is part of Alibaba’s recent buying binge, which has already included a handful of investments of this size, as it tries to get into every area of the Internet imaginable. The tie-up does have some positive elements that could help Youku Tudou, and comes as a slight surprise since media were reporting just a month ago that the company was preparing to sell a similar stake to Alibaba rival Tencent (HKEx: 700). Read Full Post…
The week ahead could be a rough one for Chinese online video stocks, with word that the government agency in charge of screening content has ordered the removal of 4 popular US television series from services including Youku Tudou (NYSE: YOKU) and Tencent Video (HKEx: 700). Word has circulated for the last few weeks that this kind of a move might be coming, but this looks like the official launch of a new rule that will make these fast-growing video sites subject to the same strict censorship rules that apply to all foreign movies, TV shows, music and other published material entering China. That could mean headaches for the video site operators, which in all fairness do increasingly look like TV station operators. Read Full Post…
Two of China’s top tech executives were on the road last week, with ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063) and TCL (Shenzhen: 000100) officials making overseas visits that could hint at their future directions. Meantime, congratulations were pouring in from around the tech world for Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) on its IPO for (Nasdaq: WB), which struggled to find an audience among big investors but then managed to make a respectable trading debut. Such kudos aren’t unexpected for the popular microblogging platform, often called the Twitter of China. But one particular message from controversial tech titan and Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) CEO Zhou Hongyi looked just slightly ominous to me, even though the message itself was purely congratulatory. Read Full Post…
Leading wireless telco China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) has kicked off the first-quarter earnings season with some numbers that look quite scary, reflecting a sharp slowdown as its home market shows growing signs of saturation. Adding to the problem is the rapid growth of “over the top” (OTT) apps like Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) popular WeChat, which are stealing business from China Mobile’s traditional text messaging service. I commented last month that a recent sell-off in China Mobile shares could represent a good buying opportunity, but clearly these latest results show the company is going through a period of painful readjustment that is likely to last for the rest of this year. Read Full Post…
