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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’m officially calling today “Solar Friday”, as we’re getting bombarded with a sudden flurry of news that shows the sector is rebounding and could also see its first major merger. In the former category, earnings updates from Yingli (NYSE: YGE) and Trina (NYSE: TSL) are showing steady improvement for the embattled panel-making sector, while a quarterly report from Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) is showing the sudden improvements may already be starting to plateau. In the latter category, Chinese media are reporting that both Yingli and Trina are also showing interest in investing in Suntech (NYSE: STP), the former solar panel pioneer that is now in bankruptcy reorganization. Read Full Post…
After offering some rare praise last week for China Unicom (HKEx: 762; NYSE: CHU) related to a smart new tie-up with Internet giant Tencent (HKEx: 700), I’m sorry to have to return to my older pattern of criticizing this bumbling company, this time for a 4G strategy that looks quite schizophrenic. Somewhat appropriately, Unicom discussed its latest 4G plans on a day when it also bumbled the release of its latest financial results. In that instance, a government organization published Unicom’s interim results before their official release via the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, forcing Unicom to request a temporary halt in its stock’s trading until the official stock exchange release. Read Full Post…
Milk powder makers fined as price-fixing probe winds down
A surprise flare-up in scandals involving foreign companies that began in July appears to be subsiding, with one of the earliest scandals over price fixing by milk powder makers getting resolved through a series of fines and price adjustments. I won’t comment too much on the validity of the claims, since I’ve discussed that element of the story before with my assertion that this sudden round of probes may be at least partly motivated by politics. More importantly, this resolution of the milk powder case is likely to be followed by similar closure for some or all of the other recent scandals, allowing everyone to get back to the more important business of creating products that are safe and affordable. Read Full Post…
The latest signs coming from bankrupt solar panel maker Suntech (NYSE: STP) indicate a Beijing-led overhaul for the struggling sector may not be coming after all, and that local governments and other stakeholders may instead become the main rescue agents for these companies. Reports last year had hinted that Beijing was working on a broad plan to retrench the sector, which was suffering from massive overcapacity. But since then most of the problems at the weakest major player LDK (NYSE: LDK), have been handled by the local government and other stakeholders in its home province of Jiangxi. Now the same appears to be happening at Suntech, which was forced into bankruptcy in March. Read Full Post…
Embattled telecoms equipment maker Huawei is hoping that Britain will become the key turning point in its quest for acceptance by the west, based on its recent flurry of initiatives there designed to show portray itself as a good corporate citizen. I’ve been reporting on China for a while now, and will openly say that Huawei is certainly doing a good job of trying to look like a western-style company by highlighting its contributions to the markets where it does business. Among the companies I follow, only PC giant Lenovo (HKEx: 992) engages in a similar level of this kind of PR. Read Full Post…
After noting last week that Bank of China (HKEx: 3988; Shanghai: 601988) was rapidly losing ground to rival big 4 lender ICBC (HKEx: 1398; Shanghai: 601398 ) on the global stage, the former is fighting back with its own baby step into Africa through a new tie-up with a local partner. The new alliance with South Africa’s Nedbank looks relatively lightweight on the surface, and probably won’t make a huge difference to Bank of China’s Africa business right away. But I still have to commend Bank of China for finally getting a bit more aggressive on the global stage, and would encourage it to make similar moves into other developing markets. It could also eventually buy a strategic stake in Nedbank, following ICBC’s successful example through its own similar tie-up with South Africa’s Standard Bank. Read Full Post…
The headlines have been buzzing with news about the rollout of the latest edition WeChat, which is being called a major overhaul as operator Tecent (HKEx: 700) tries to commercialize the wildly popular mobile instant messaging service. At the same time, media are reporting that WeChat has achieved another major milestone in its new tie-up with telco China Unicom (HKEx: 762; NYSE: CHU), with up to a million people pre-registering for the new Unicom-based WeChat service in the first 2 days after it became available. Read Full Post…
China should be proud of itself for recently using negotiations to avoid a trade war with the EU over solar panels; but it is quickly falling back into old behavioral patterns that could cause a similar dispute involving telecoms equipment to quickly become a new crisis. My suggestion to Beijing is to seize the momentum from the recent solar success to quickly open new negotiations to try and resolve the new looming dispute over telecoms equipment sold in the EU by industry leaders Huawei and ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063). But instead of taking such a proactive approach, we’re seeing signs that Beijing is falling back into its old habit of not doing anything and instead waiting until a new crisis erupts before taking any action to try and resolve the matter. Read Full Post…
Local media have been buzzing this week with word of a new alliance between the unlikely partners of Ctrip (Nasdaq: CTRP) and Qunar, 2 of China’s top online travel sites. The new alliance is actually rather modest, but is more surprising because the pair of companies are bitter rivals whose battle for market share has resulted in a recent series of price wars that have hit Ctrip’s earnings and threatened its market leading position. The companies have also said they will explore future cooperation, leading to the question of whether an outright merger might be in the future. Read Full Post…
I have to admit that I feel just a little guilty for my constant critiques of China’s telecoms regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), for its notorious slowness at doing just about anything that could create a more competitive telecoms industry. After all, the MIIT is certainly trying to improve the country’s telecoms landscape, even if the glacial pace of change often means that China is years behind the rest of the world in new innovations. The regulator’s notorious slowness is once again in the headlines these last few days, with word that the MIIT will soon allow consumers in 3 provinces to keep their phone numbers when changing mobile carriers, a practice known as number portability. Read Full Post…
Beijing is returning to a time-tested tactic from its PR playbook with a sudden flurry of high-profile probes of major multinationals, which are being accused of everything from price manipulation to bribery. This latest series of “scandals” has snared some of the most active foreign firms in China, including pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, milk powder maker Mead Johnson and packaging products titan Tetra Pak. Read Full Post…
