Bottom line: TCL and Lenovo will face uphill battles in rebuilding the Palm and Motorola brands due to stiff competition and lack of experience building upscale brands.
TCL to resuscitate Palm
It’s no secret that PC giant Lenovo (HKEx: 992) has big plans for its recently acquired Motorola smartphone brand, and now we’re learning that cellphone stalwart TCL (HKEx: 2618; Shenzhen: 000100) has similar plans for the former superstar Palm brand. That’s the latest word coming from Las Vegas, where Lenovo, TCL and other Chinese gadget makers are showing off their latest wares at CES, the world’s biggest consumer electronics show that happens this time each year. While TCL was low-profile about its newly acquired Palm brand, Lenovo was much louder about its plans to relaunch Motorola smartphones in its home market next month. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on January 8. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Alipay Expands Offline Payment Network through Third-party Agencies (English article)
Xiaomi’s Buying Spree Gives Apple, Samsung New Reasons To Sweat (English article)
Tech executives welcomed in the New Year with some intriguing hints on their microblogs, with posts suggesting major new moves in China from global media titan News Corp (Nasdsaq: NWSA) and online video operator LeTV (Shenzhen: 300104). In the former case, a local tech executive posted a photo of himself meeting with Rupert Murdoch in China, indicating the News Corp chief was back doing business in the country after a long absence. In the latter case, LeTV chief Jia Yueting was hinting that his company could soon become the latest Chinese Internet firm to enter the overheated smartphone market. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Chinese appliance makers and Internet companies need to focus their smart device efforts on one or two key alliances each, or risk spreading their resources too thin.
Haier in new tie-up with Evergrande
Smart devices look set to become a theme of the New Year, with new reports that domestic appliance giants Haier (HKEx: 1169) and Midea (Shenzhen: 000333) have formed major new tie-ups to develop the space. Similar alliances began accelerating in the second half of last year and are aimed at developing the “Internet of Things”, which envisions an interconnected world where devices and their owners can talk to each other at any time over a wide range of wired and wireless networks. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on January 3-5. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Fosun (HKEx: 656) Wins Contest For Club Med As Andrea Bonomi To Drop Bid (English article)
Haier-Evergrande, JD.com-Midea In New Alliances For 2015 (Chinese article)
Perfect World (Nasdaq: PWRD) Receves “Going Private” Proposal at $20 Per ADS (PRNewswire)
Renren (NYSE: RENN) Announces Resignation Of CFO, Board Changes (PRNewswire)
Xiaomi Doubles Revenue to $12 Billion as Phone Sales Triple (English article)
Bottom line: Xiaomi’s success story is likely to continue into 2015 with big growth for its core smartphones, but it could face headwinds with other smart devices that are based on less mature technologies.
Xiaomi: China’s tech company of the year
I’ll end this year by naming Xiaomi as my “Top Company Of 2014”, following a flurry of year-end headlines that show just how quickly this marketing-savvy firm has shot to fame on its trendy, low-cost smartphones. Leading the headlines is word that Xiaomi has raised $1.1 billion in its latest funding round, valuing the company at a hefty $45 billion. (Chinese article) Xiaomi is also in a flurry of other headlines that I’ll recap shortly, leading me to declare this hyperactive company has officially unseated former champion Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) as China’s most publicity savvy high-tech name. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: The NDRC should force Qualcomm to change some of its licensing practices but not force it to lower prices in its upcoming antitrust settlement against the company.
Qualcomm judgment coming soon
All eyes will be on China’s anti-monopoly regulator in the days ahead, when it’s expected to rule in a case involving the pricing and licensing policies of global smartphone chip leader Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM). The case is the latest in a string of recent similar antitrust probes by Beijing against major companies. But it’s also quite different because it involves licensing practices for proprietary technology, which aren’t typically included in the conventional definition of monopolies. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on December 30. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Quiet has fallen over much of the blogosphere in this week before Christmas, though buzz was lingering around smartphone sensation Xiaomias it wrestled with a patent dispute that threatened to halt its nascent overseas expansion. Xiaomi chief Lei Jun was also full of congratulations for his company as it scored a court victory that partially lifted an order banning the sale of its phones in India. Meantime, Lei’s many friends and admirers were offering their congratulations as Xiaomi’s co-founder celebrated his 45th birthday.
Meantime, another courtroom battle saw the chief executive of online cosmetics seller Jumei International (Nasdaq: JMEI) reacting to a series of class action shareholder lawsuits filed against his firm last week. This kind of lawsuit is quite common, and usually comes anytime bad news causes a stock to suddenly drop. Still, the case was obviously an eye-opener for Jumei CEO Chen Ou, and serves as a good reminder of the many dangers that await Chinese tech firms that list overseas. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: 2015 will see an acceleration in 4G services, with China Telecom and Unicom winning commercial FDD licenses in the first quarter and 2-4 VNO licensees potentially emerging as real rivals to the big 3 telcos.
4G set to take off in 2015
A number of telecoms stories are in the headlines today, highlighting the huge hopes everyone has for new 4G services that will open up the market to a wide array of new products. Leading the headlines are word that China Telecom (HKEx: 728; NYSE: CHA) and Unicom (HKEx: 763; NYSE: CHU) have gotten the green light to expand their trial 4G networks, as the nation’s 2 smaller mobile carriers play catch-up to industry titan China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL).
At the same time, another new report is showing the pathetic state of under-utilization for China Mobile’s 3G network, which uses a homegrown technology that has been plagued with problems. Finally there’s a third report saying the telecoms regulator has just issued its fifth and possibly final batch of virtual network operator (VNO) licenses, creating several dozen new carriers that will compete in in 4G by leasing capacity on the networks of the big 3 telcos. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: The snowballing of a recent series of mudslinging remarks by major companies underscores the rampant lack of business ethics in China, and could prompt some much-needed public debate on the topic.
China business ethics in need of fixing
What started as a couple of stories highlighting the shady business practices that are all too common in China is starting to snowball, with home appliance giant Gree (Shenzhen: 000651) and a local start-up air purifier maker adding their voices to this entertaining year-end war of words. At the heart of this verbal mudslinging is a toxic Chinese business culture where practices like illegal copycatting, corporate espionage and violation of business contracts are quite common and even accepted to a certain degree. Read Full Post…
