The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on August 14. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Audi May Be Fined 250 Mln Yuan In First Anti-Trust Penalty Against Car Makers (Chinese article)
Consolidation continues to advance in the Chinese supermarket aisle, with word that Hong Kong grocery operator Dairy Farm (London: DFIB) is paying nearly $1 billion for 20 percent of Yonghui (Shanghai: 601933), one of China’s top chains. A couple of years ago I would have said this deal looked like a good one for both sides, combining Dairy Farm’s well-run Hong Kong-based chain of Wellcome supermarkets with Yonghui’s sizable Chinese operations. But frankly speaking, China’s rapid migration of food shopping into the e-commerce realm makes the whole idea of consolidation of brick-and-mortar operations look like a belated effort with limited growth potential. Read Full Post…
Shanghai is taking a ground-breaking step forward in improving the city’s mental health, with word that education officials are crafting guidelines that will see psychological counseling centers set up in most of the city’s schools starting next year. The step may sound small and even trivial to many foreigners, since such counseling centers have been present in most western schools for decades now.
But the move is really quite revolutionary for conservative China, and Shanghai should get kudos for taking this ground-breaking step. China’s rapid move to a market economy and more open society have put huge stress on everyone, as ways of doing things often change overnight and old social safety nets from the socialist era disappear. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on August 13. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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China Probes Threaten to Squeeze Foreign Profits (English article)
Shanghai GM (NYSE: GM) Admits To Coming Under Anti-Monopoly Investigation (Chinese article)
The following is the 7th and final part in a multi-part series about the rise of WeChat, the popular mobile instant messaging service owned by Tencent.
By Lanie Nie
WeChat builds an ecosystem
While China might be behind the US in many key areas of Internet development, it is quite advanced in the use of smartphones as the primary device for accessing the Internet. Tech guru Mary Meeker’s 2014 Internet Trends Report showed that China has more than 500 million mobile Internet users, accounting for 80 percent of its online population, the highest level worldwide. With the nation’s smartphone prices in freefall and high-speed 4G access expanding, it’s likely that a majority of Chinese people will be on the mobile Internet in the next 5 to 6 years. Read Full Post…
Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) hugely popular WeChat and QQ instant messaging platforms are once again hogging the headlines, reflecting the increasingly important role the 2 services are playing for the future development of the Internet giant. This time WeChat is in the news after coming under new government restrictions aimed at censoring some of its content. Meantime, QQ has formally launched an official shopping channel in partnership with e-commerce giant JD.com (Nasdaq: JD), laying down a big challenge for sector leader Alibaba. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on August 12. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Dairy Farm to Pay $925 Million For China’s Yonghui (Shanghai: 601933) Stake (English article)
Xiaomi Admits To Secretly Collecting User Information In Taiwan, Apologizes (Chinese article)
After a failed bid at buying the world’s largest aircraft leasing company last year, China appears to be gearing up for a second attempt to enter the lucrative space with plans to bid for European giant Avolon. In this instance, the report is coming from a major Chinese newspaper that says China Investment Corp is teaming up with Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC) in the bid, which could be worth some 12 billion euros ($16 billion). That would easily make it the largest global acquisition by a Chinese firm outside the resource sector, reflecting the country’s growing financial might as many European firms continue to struggle with after-effects of the continent’s debt crisis of several years ago. Read Full Post…
Update: Since originally writing this post, several reports have appeared saying Apple’s name wasn’t included on the latest government procurement list because it failed to submit the necessary paperwork.
I really didn’t want to write again about another major multinational getting bashed in China, but it seems hard to ignore the latest reports that gadget giant Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has formally joined the list of companies being banned from selling to the government due to national security concerns. At this rate, Chinese government agencies won’t be able to buy technology products from any foreign companies soon, and will be forced to do all their buying from domestic firms. That’s somewhat ironic, since many of those domestic firms are far less experienced than big global names like Apple and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), and thus are far more likely to unknowingly design products with major security flaws. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on August 9-11. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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CIC, AVIC In Talks To Buy Aircraft Lessor Avolon For 12 Bln Euros (Chinese article)
JD.com (Nasdaq: JD) Launches Direct Access on Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) Mobile QQ (PRNewswire)
China Billionaire Wang Jianlin Buys LA Land for Foray Into Hollywood Films (English article)
China Tells South Korea It Blocked KakaoTalk, Line To Fight Terrorism (English article)
McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) Casts Doubt On Sales Outlook After China Food Scare (English article)
I recently wrote how smartphone price wars may be claiming one of their first major victims in ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063), and now we’re getting word that crosstown rival Huawei may also be getting crunched in the ongoing battle for supremacy at the low end of the market. The latest reports cite Huawei’s mobile device chief saying the company is formally ducking out of ultra low-end smartphones in its home China market, in what can only be seen as a major retreat for one of China’s biggest tech companies. Read Full Post…
