Xiaomi latest Financial news

IPO: Xiaomi Partner Huami Defies Market in Trading Debut

By newsdoug on February 9, 2018

Bottom line: A relatively solid debut for wristband maker Huami bodes well for offshore Chinese IPOs outside the financial services sector, including for smartphone giant Xiaomi.

High-tech wristband maker Huami posts modest gain in debut

Different people are putting different spins on the trading debut for the first major Chinese IPO in New York this year, for a company called Huami, which makes fitness trackers and rose 2.3 percent on its first day. From my perspective, this looks like a gravity-defying debut, since the broader market tanked on that same day, with most of the major indexes down around 4 percent in the week’s second major major sell-off.

From a broader perspective, this seems to bode well for offshore Chinese IPOs in the year ahead, at least for those that are in safer sectors like this. Companies from the more volatile fintech sector, which has been the subject of repeated regulation to rein in the sector, could be in for a tougher ride. But this kind of more consumer-related product, which is far less controversial, could enjoy some success on positive sentiment about the broader China consumer market. Read Full Post…

SMARTPHONES: Xiaomi Eyes IPO, Gets Setback in Europe

By newsdoug on December 6, 2017

Bottom line: Xiaomi’s growing comeback is giving it confidence to launch an IPO plan, as its loss of a trademark case in Europe highlights renewed obstacles it will face in its global expansion.

Comeback kid smartphone maker Xiaomi is in a couple of headlines as we reach the middle of the week, including one that highlights its return to growth and another that shows the obstacles it will face as it continues with its global expansion. The first headline has media reporting that Xiaomi is planning an IPO as early as next year, as its sagging valuation finally returns to a growth track. The second has the company suffering a setback in Europe related to a trademark dispute with industry colossus Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), highlighting the perils it is likely to face as its global expansion moves into more developed western markets.

It’s still a bit early to say whether Xiaomi’s comeback story has legs, though growing signals are certainly pointing in that direction. I know at least one person who is a Xiaomi fan and goes out of his way to buy their phones, which means that at least some people are coming back to the brand. That’s a shift from a couple of years ago, when the company’s legions of early fans abandoned the brand after it lost its early trendy image and became more known for product problems and other glitches. Read Full Post…

SMARTPHONES: Apple Finds Its China Mojo as Xioami Moves Up

By newsdoug on November 3, 2017

Bottom line: Apple should be able to extend its return to growth in China into at least one more quarter, while Xiaomi should also be able to continue posting strong double-digit growth for the next year.

Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has just released its latest quarterly results that show China is back on a growth track, quieting skeptics who had said its latest iPhone was debuting to mostly snoozes in the world’s largest smartphone market. On a broader basis, IDC has also just announced its global figures for third-quarter smartphone sales, showing Huawei continues to creep up on Apple and could well take the global No. 2 spot from its U.S. rival over the next year if current trends continue.

Last but not least is China’s own Xiaomi, which is catching people’s attention again with the strongest growth of any global players in the third quarter, consolidating its position as the world’s fifth largest player. It’s probably too early to say that Xiaomi’s comeback story has legs. But the company is the only one posting triple-digit growth among the top 5 in the latest quarterly results, a distinction previously reserved for Huawei and Chinese rival Oppo. Read Full Post…

MULTINATIONALS: Whatsapp Bows, Microsoft Visits, Google Plays

By newsdoug on November 1, 2017

Bottom line: Whatsapp has likely been permanently blocked in China, while Satya Nadella’s visit to Xiaomi underscores Microsoft’s growing ties with the company, and Google’s China AI push is mostly PR.

A couple of the big high-tech multinationals are in the headlines as we head into the next-to-last month of the year, which seems like a good opportunity to review where these companies stand heading into the second term of President Xi Jinping and also as Donald Trump gets set to make his first China visit. One of those headlines involves Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), and comes in a soft-ish report pointing out the company is actively pushing its artificial intelligence (AI) development software in China.

Next there is Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella, who is in China this week where he paid a visit on recovering smartphone maker Xiaomi. I’m not a huge fan of Microsoft’s strategy in general. But its growing ties with Xiaomi do look like an interesting new approach that could ultimately pay off nice dividends under Nadella’s 3-year-old leadership at the software giant. Read Full Post…

E-COMMERCE: JD.com Shops for Expansion in Thailand

By newsdoug on August 24, 2017

Bottom line: JD.com’s Thai joint venture looks like a smart move into Southeast Asia, though it shouldn’t move too aggressively abroad and instead focus on becoming profitable.

China’s big Internet companies have a pretty varied record for expanding abroad. At one extreme there’s Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), which is using its big cash pot to buy a wide range of assets concentrated mostly in East and South Asia. Tencent (HKEx: 700) is in the middle, mostly buying strategic stakes in game-related companies, while Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) appears to have mostly abandoned the market after a few half-hearted attempts at global M&A and trying to open search sites in other countries.

And then there’s Johnny-come-lately JD.com (Nasdaq: JD), which admittedly has a far shorter history and is also the only one of the four leading Internet companies that’s still losing money. But that doesn’t mean that JD doesn’t have cash, and now it appears the company is looking to make its biggest splash abroad to date with the formation of a joint venture in Thailand. Read Full Post…

SMARTPHONES: Smartisan Gets New Funding, But From Where?

By newsdoug on August 7, 2017

Bottom line: Smartisan’s new funding and plans to produce 5-6 smartphones a year look like an anomaly in the highly competitive market, and it’s unlikely to survive as a standalone entity over the next 5 years.

I was a bit surprised to read that a clear second-tier smartphone player, the uppity Smartisan, has received 100 million yuan ($147 million) in new funding, as we begin the latest week of summer. I haven’t seen this company’s name or many second-tier players like OnePlus in more than half a year, though their collective names have come up quite a bit in the bigger smartphone numbers.

That’s a reference to the “other” category in the quarterly smartphone figures put out by data tracking firms like IDC, which show that this collective group that includes all names lumped together after the top 5 is rapidly losing share. In IDC’s latest China market data that came out last week, the top 5 vendors, Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), collectively controlled 73 percent of the market. “Others”, including the likes of Smartisan, had to divvy up the remaining 26.9 percent. But what was most notably was that 26.9 percent marked a sharp decline from last year, when this group controlled 36.2 percent. Read Full Post…

SMARTPHONES: Xiaomi Comeback Marches On, But Will It Last?

By newsdoug on July 27, 2017

Bottom line: Xiaomi’s rising market share and securing of $1 billion in new financing underscore its nascent turnaround may have some legs, even as its position remains tenuous in the cutthroat market.

Former smartphone sensation Xiaomi is in several headlines as we head into the close of the week, all of which seem to underscore that its nascent rebound may have some legs. But as anyone in the industry will tell you, any smartphone maker is really only as good as its last model these days, meaning fortunes can quickly turn with just one misstep. The smartphone sphere is littered with such examples of such missteps that ultimately led to corporate downfalls, including Samsung (Seoul: 005930), as well as former giants Nokia (Helsinki: NOK1V) and Motorola.

That said, Xiaomi is a slightly different case from that trio, since its initial rise to fame was really almost exclusively based on hype and savvy marketing rather than any cutting-edge product. The company is trying to correct that problem now by improving its product lineup, including the unveiling of its latest phone and upgrades to its own operating system. At the same time, media are reporting the company has received a new $1 billion loan, meaning banks still have some confidence in the firm, even if investors are skeptical. Read Full Post…

VIDEO: Xunlei Founder Resigns as CEO, Sale Coming?

By newsdoug on June 30, 2017

Bottom line: The resignation of Xunlei’s founder as CEO, even as he retains his chairman’s title, could indicate a sale is coming soon, with the most likely buyer as Xiaomi.

Big shifts happening in Xunlei boardroom

The incredible shriveling online video company Xunlei (Nasdaq: XNET) is making a tiny splash in the headlines as we head toward the weekend, with word that its founder is relinquishing his position as CEO. The move seems potentially significant, since one of the main obstacles that keeps more companies from being acquired in China is resistance by their founders to relinquish their “empires” to someone else.

In this case, Xunlei’s empire is rapidly vanishing, as it gets overtaken by larger rivals like Baidu’s (Nasdaq: BIDU) iQiyi and video services operated by Tencent (HKEx: 700) and Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU). That may mean that no one really wants Xunlei anymore, including ordinary stock investors. The company’s shares have been on a downward trajectory since its Nasdaq IPO three years ago, and now trade at $3.24 apiece, about a quarter of their IPO price of $12. Read Full Post…

SMARTPHONES: Xiaomi Chases Value, Dumps Apple Approach

By newsdoug on April 5, 2017

Bottom line: Xiaomi’s adoption of Costco as its new role model and abandonment of Apple looks like a realistic move, and could better position the company to survive over the next 5 years amid a looming market shakeup.

Smartphone maker Xiaomi appears to be a company with an identity crisis, with reports that charismatic CEO Lei Jun has dumped former role model Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) in favor a new model in US bulk-item supermarket operator Cosctco (Nasdaq: CSCO). Many will probably smile at this not-so-subtle shift at Xiaomi, which was one of China’s hottest companies just two years ago when Lei liked to think of himself as China’s Steve Jobs.

But the adoption of a new role model in Costco probably speaks volumes about how Lei sees his company going forward, as he tries to salvage its core smartphone business following a difficult last two years. That fall from grace includes a 40 percent drop in sales in its home China market in last year’s fourth quarter, causing its market share to slip to 7.4 percent, or about half of what it commanded just a year earlier, according to IDC. Read Full Post…

SMARTPHONES: Oppo Lands in India Protest Storm

By newsdoug on March 31, 2017

Bottom line: A mass protest against Oppo in India over a Chinese manager’s desecration of the national flag won’t impact the company beyond a week or two, and reflects cultural sensitivity issues Chinese firms will face as they expand abroad.

Smartphone high-flyer Oppo is quickly learning the road to India isn’t always so smooth, with word of a mass protest at the company’s local operation due to a controversy involving desecration of the Indian flag. In this case the company appears to be learning a fast lesson in cultural sensitivity, which underscores one of the more subtle lessons that Chinese firms will need to learn as they expand abroad.

I doubt this particular incident will have any long-lasting impact on Oppo, though it will be interesting to see if it might affect its recent major cricket sponsorship deal in India. (previous post) The incident could also make Oppo think twice about its other big plans for the market, namely the building of a major production base there. Read Full Post…

SMARTPHONES: Oppo Shows India Resolve with Cricket Deal

By newsdoug on March 13, 2017

Bottom line: Oppo’s major new cricket sponsorship deal shows its commitment to India, but may have to be renegotiated if and when the company’s fortunes decline in the next 1-2 years following its meteoric rise.

Smartphone high-flyer Oppo is trying to show the world it’s serious about India, with word it will pay 1.1 billion yuan ($160 million) for rights to sponsor the nation’s national cricket team. News of the deal comes just three months after China’s top smartphone brand announced plans to build a production facility in the hotly contested India market, which has become a magnet for Chinese brands over the last year.

All that raises the question of whether Oppo is for real, or just another passing fad in China’s constantly changing smartphone landscape. That landscape has seen players like Lenovo (HKEx: 992), Xiaomi and Huawei become dominant players in the world’s largest smartphone market one day, only to rapidly fade the next. It’s obviously still too early to say if Oppo will follow in that trajectory, though my educated guess would be the answer to that question is quite possibly “yes”. Read Full Post…