Security software maker Cheetah Mobile is trying to add some spring to its sputtering New York IPO with newly released data showing it was quite profitable in the first quarter, with mobile revenue accounting for 17 percent of its revenue. It’s hard to interpret too much from these newly announced numbers since no year-ago figures were given in the report I read. But what seems clearer is that Cheetah is trying hard to revive interest in its public listing, which is rapidly stumbling as the current window for IPOs in New York and Hong Kong quickly closes. Read Full Post…
China Telcos Propose Base Station JV
A controversial new plan could see China’s 3 major wireless carriers pool their resources to form a base station joint venture, marking a rare collaboration just as Beijing is trying to foster more competition in the highly protected industry. While the move appears to have anti-competitive overtones, it would actually represent a smart and much-needed step towards reducing costs that would benefit both the companies and consumers. Read Full Post…
News Digest: May 6, 2014
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on May 6. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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- Cheetah Mobile Makes Additional IPO Filing, Discloses Q1 Results (Chinese article)
- Baosteel, Aurizon (Sydney: AZJ) Bid For Aquila In $1.3 Bln Iron Deal (English article)
- Tencent Buys 11.28 Pct Of NavInfo (Shenzhen: 002405) For 1.1.7 Bln Yuan (Chinese article)
- Dianping Invests in Food Ordering Site Ele.me (English article)
- YY (Nasdaq: YY) Reports Q1 Unaudited Financial Results (Globe Newswire)
- Latest calendar for Q1 earnings reports (Earnings calendar)
Japan’s Line, Microsoft Xbox Move Into China
After years of hovering at the edge of China’s gadget and app markets, Japanese mobile instant messaging giant Line and Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) Xbox gaming console are both reportedly preparing to enter the market. Line’s plan looks the most exciting to me, as the product has quickly gained a major following in Asia and could find a receptive audience in China with its new partnership. Meantime, I’m less optimistic about Xbox, as its China entry comes after its consoles have been available on the local gray market for years, and it will face competition from a new group of homegrown products. Its choice of the struggling Shanghai Media Group (SMG) as its partner also doesn’t look too exciting to me. Read Full Post…
Sina At Crossroads, Aims To Calm Investors
A series of announcements late last week from leading web portal Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) looks clearly aimed at calming nervous investors who may sense the company is at a crossroads that could mark the start of a new downturn for the stock. That’s my assessment after Sina’s unusual early release of preliminary first-quarter results, which showed the company is still quite healthy financially despite a recent government crackdown on 2 of its sites and a lukewarm stock market debut for its Weibo (Nasdaq: WB) microblogging platform. Read Full Post…
Google Tests Out China Hardware Market
Four years after its high-profile withdrawal from China’s online search market over censorship issues, global Internet giant Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is showing growing signs that it’s gearing up for a new play at the country’s lucrative and less controversial hardware market. Media are reporting the world’s largest online search company has formed a new tie-up that will see it exhibit its cutting-edge glasses product, Google Glass, in partnership with Suning (Shenzhen: 002024), one of China’s leading electronics retailers. Read Full Post…
News Digest: May 3-5, 2014
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on May 3-5. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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- Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) Announces Preliminary Q1 Results (PRNewswire)
- China Mobile (HKEx: 941) Says In Talks With 2 Rivals For Base Station JV (HKEx announcement)
- Line, Wandoujia Partner On China Business (English article)
- Microsoft, BesTV To Release Xbox In China In September, Priced At 4,999 Yuan (Chinese article)
- Astra, Pfizer (NYSE: PFN) Deal Could Face Chinese Antitrust Hurdle (English article)
- Latest calendar for Q1 earnings reports (Earnings calendar)
Weibo: Xiaomi’s Strange Name, Tesla’s Musk Charms Techies
I’ve become a fan of smartphone sensation Xiaomi over these past 2 years, not because I actually own one of their phones but because I’m continually amazed at how good the company is at manipulating the media and general public to create buzz around its products. So I was somewhat puzzled and even a bit disappointed to read about the company’s choice of English name for its new global brand, which included a hefty price tag to purchase the relevant Internet domain.
Meantime, another master of buzz was also well represented in the microblogging realm, as Elon Musk, CEO of electric car sensation Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA), won kudos and praise from many of the tech world’s top executives. Last but not least was a quirky microblog post from an executive at fading smartphone maker HTC (Taipei: 2498), showing that Edward Snowden was quite the common man. The HTC executive revealed the US intelligence super-leaker opted for super-cheap accommodations and dined on ordinary fast food during his brief stay in Hong Kong last year. Read Full Post…
China’s AVIC In UK Solar Build-Up
China’s plan to add up to 35 gigawatts of new solar power capacity by 2015 may be getting off to a slow start, but the nation looks quite happy to fund new plants in other countries to help its struggling solar panel makers. That’s my initial assessment, following reports that state-run giant Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC) plans to build up solar power plants with up to 300 megawatts of capacity in Britain.
It’s interesting that AVIC has chosen the UK for its solar experiment, since Beijing is pressuring such big state-owned firms to construct new solar plants at home to boost local panel makers and reduce pollution from conventional power sources. But it’s also not a complete surprise that AVIC is making this kind of move, for reasons I’ll explain shortly. The bottom line could be good news for China’s struggling solar panel makers, though I suspect AVIC will also come under pressure to buy some of the solar panels for these new plants from western manufacturers as well. Read Full Post…
Weak Appetite Kills WH Group IPO
I’ve been writing for much of the last 3 weeks about the rapidly fading appetite for Chinese IPOs among western investors, and the latest reports that pork producer WH Group has scrapped its plans for a Hong Kong listing certainly seem to add to the gloom. But I should add that this particular case is slightly different from the many weak performances we’ve seen these last 2 weeks, as it comes in the food space and mostly involves the re-listing of a recently aquired US asset that was already performing poorly. Read Full Post…
Finance: ICBC In Turkey, Baidu Cleans Up P2P
The financial world is brimming with news from both the biggest and smallest ends of the spectrum today, with banking giant ICBC (HKEx: 1398) making a new move into Turkey as finance newcomer Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) finds headaches in the micro-lending business. ICBC’s acquisition of a majority stake of Turkey’s Tekstil Bankasi is part of its ongoing global expansion, and looks like a relatively good choice of markets for its latest overseas purchase. Meantime, Baidu’s clean-up of its peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform reflects the kinds of headaches that China’s Internet firms are likely to face as they pile into the lucrative but also fraud-prone financial sector. Read Full Post…
