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Journalist China
Business news from China By Doug Young.
Doug Young, journalist, has lived and worked in China for 20 years, much of that as a journalist, writing about publicly listed Chinese companies.
He is based in Shanghai where, in addition to his role as editor of Young’s China Business Blog, he teaches financial journalism at Fudan University, one of China’s top journalism programs.
He contributes regularly to a wide range of publications in both China and the west, including Forbes, CNN, Seeking Alpha and Reuters, as well as Asia-based publications including the South China Morning Post, Global Times, Shanghai Daily and Shanghai Observer
I usually have more criticism than praise for China’s bureaucratic telecoms regulator, but today I have to commend the Ministry of Industry and InformationTechnology (MIIT) for a ground-breaking move that other countries would be wise to follow in the fast-moving smartphone space. That move will require smartphone makers to list all the apps that come pre-installed on their models, much the way that food makers list the ingredients that their products contain. While the move looks good for consumers and the industry’s overall development, smartphone makers are unlikely to embrace this measure that will tell consumers about all the unwanted and often invasive apps that come included on their new smartphones. Read Full Post…
Lenovo compliments Huawei on Italy smartphone push
China’s microblogging sphere is buzzing with a series of new posts that hint at a couple of budding friendships in the nation’s tech realm, one between smartphone aspirants Huawei and Lenovo (HKEx: 992) and the other between e-commerce titan Alibaba and online search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU). Of course it’s quite possible that the tweeting is just casual conversation by company executives on their Weibo accounts. But both instances also hint at the potential for future tie-ups that could help these all 4 of these companies attain their different strategic aims. Read Full Post…
Leading e-commerce firm Alibaba may be heading for a compromise that would allow it to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange, in a deal that would come as a victory for minority shareholders of publicly listed firms. Hong Kong securities officials should be praised for sticking to their principles of protecting minority shareholder rights in this case rather than agreeing to Alibaba’s requests to win this mega-IPO likely to raise billions of dollars. Read Full Post…
Whoever is following online search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) these days certainly doesn’t seem to care much about profits, at least based on the company’s latest results. That’s my conclusion after looking at Baidu’s just-released quarterly report, which showed that Baidu’s profit grew at an anemic 1.3 percent in the third quarter. Perhaps investors were just happy that Baidu posted any growth at all, since global tech giant Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has just posted its third consecutive profit decline in its latest quarterly report. Read Full Post…
After shopping around for an investor for much of this year, money-losing video sharing site PPTV has finally found a new patron in retailing giant Suning (Shenzhen: 002024). I’m quite happy to see this latest development in China’s rapidly consolidating online video space, as it means I can finally stop writing about all the latest rumors that have popped up for the last 6 months surrounding PPTV. Rumors of this particular tie-up first emerged about a month ago (previous post), and I’ll admit that this deal doesn’t look particularly attractive to me. Read Full Post…
As the current earnings season gets into full swing, let’s turn our attention to the latest results that show encouraging signals from both wireless carrier China Telecom (HKEx: 728; NYSE: CHA) and Internet company Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU). Yet despite the upbeat reports, shareholders have reacted quite negatively to the Sohu results by dumping its stock. That sell-off is probably mostly technical, for reasons I’ll explain soon. Meantime, China Telecom’s shares have languished over the last year, even though in my view it’s rapidly emerging as the shrewdest of China’s 3 major state-run telcos. Read Full Post…
A new deal that has seen a mid-sized Hong Kong bank purchased by a government entity of the southern city of Guangzhou is raising the interesting prospect that we could soon see a grab for similar banks by Chinese lenders looking to go global. As a financial center with strong cultural and geographic ties to the mainland, Hong Kong is a natural stepping stone for any Chinese bank that might want to move beyond its home turf, where politics dominate many decisions, into Asian markets where profits are the driving factor. That urgency to move abroad could become stronger in the next few years, as China signals it will soon open up the state-dominated banking sector to private investors. Read Full Post…
This year’s shake-up of the online video space is taking yet another turn, with word that Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU), one of China’s top 3 services, has agreed to buy rival Xunlei’s service called Kankan. If true, this development would be quite exciting, as it would mark the rise of a third major player in the space that is undergoing a major consolidation. Youku Tudou (NYSE: YOKU) remains the industry leader after its formation last year with the merger of China’s 2 largest video sites. Baidu’s (Nasdaq: BIDU) iQiyi is emerging as a strong number 2 after its acquisition of PPS in May for $370 million. Sohu previously operated China’s second largest video sharing service, and a purchase of Xunlei Kankan would comfortably bolster its place as one of China’s top 3 sites. Read Full Post…
A new flurry of e-commerce news bits shows that competition in the sector continues unabated, with no signs of easing anytime soon. Sector leader Alibaba tops the headlines with word that it’s rolling out same-day delivery service for customers of its industry-leading TMall B2C site. Meantime, Yihaodian is drawing on its connections with global retailing giant Walmart (NYSE: WMT) to boost its imported food business amid China’s nonstop series of food-safety scandals. These and similarly aggressive moves are also leading to signs of growing stress, with Jingdong, the second largest operator, making a strange anti-competitive complaint about rival Suning’s (Shenzhen: 002024) recent unified pricing policy. Read Full Post…
China smartphone market quickly becoming saturated
Let’s end the week with a look at some new data on China’s cellphone market, which is quickly becoming saturated with cheap smartphones cranked out by a crowded field of domestic companies. The rush by Chinese firms into the smartphone market over the last 2 years is typical of the herd mentality one often sees in China, almost always leading to classic boom-bust cycles. The smartphone sector was already showing signs of overheating when media reported during the summer that inventory was building up at many smartphone makers. Now the latest figures are showing that sales are slowing sharply for many of those firms, hinting a bust could come soon for players that rely heavily on the domestic market. Read Full Post…
Just days after I said that NQ Mobile (NYSE: NQ) looked like a company to watch after its issue of $172.5 million worth of bonds, infamous short seller Muddy Waters has launched an assault on the software security maker, sparking a sell-off that has wiped out half of its market value. Internet search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) is also coming under assault from different quarters, in this case taking heat from company watchers and regulators after promising returns that many believe are unrealistic on its newly launched investment product. Read Full Post…
