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Beijing took an important step towards rejuvenating the global solar panel sector last week when it announced new steps that will strictly limit new plant construction. This kind of government-led approach is a good short-term solution, as it will halt the introduction of new supply, which in turn will allow prices to stabilize after more than 2 years of steep declines caused by massive overcapacity. Read Full Post…
Most of China may have taken a holiday during last week’s 3-day Mid Autumn Festival, but it was all work for networking equipment giant Huawei as it used the time to host a global IT forum in Holland. Xu Wenwei, head of Huawei’s enterprise division, used his microblog to hype the event, which looks like the company’s latest effort to convince the world that it’s a global company and not just another maker of cheap “made in China” goods. Meantime, the chatty Lei Jun took time out from his Mid Autumn holiday to drop the latest hint that Xiaomi, the fast-rising smartphone maker he co-founded, is developing its own mobile operating system (OS) that could someday compete with rival products from Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Read Full Post…
October is quickly shaping up as a Golden Telecoms Month for China, with a growing number of major events looking set to take place in the month that starts off with the October 1 Golden Week holiday. Major developments that look likely to occur next month include the long-awaited awarding of 4G mobile licenses, and the announcement of another highly-anticipated deal that would see dominant telco China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) finally offer an Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone on its network. But perhaps the biggest development for the month could see China’s telecoms regulator announce its first round of highly anticipated licenses for up to 6 new “virtual telcos”, known in the industry as virtual network operators (VNOs). Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on September 21-23. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Everyone is watching closely to see how Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) 2 new iPhones will perform in their upcoming first weekend on sale, and I have to say the early numbers coming from China look rather unimpressive. I should give a major caveat by saying the figures I’m about to cite are very partial, and the extrapolations I’ll make are mostly based on my own guess work. But based on the cool reception that the 2 new iPhones have received in China so far, I would say the 2 new models would be lucky to sell as well as their predecessor, the iPhone 5, which itself wasn’t too impressive due to its late launch in China. Read Full Post…
Banking services have suddenly become the flavor of the day for China’s Internet firms, with e-commerce leader Alibaba forming a new tie-up with a major bank, as Suning (Shenzhen: 002024) moves closer to its aim of getting a formal banking license. This relatively sudden move by Internet firms into financial services comes as a slight surprise, since I haven’t really seen anything similar in the west. But that said, the financial services sector in most western markets is already well served by mature, market-oriented firms — a sharp contrast to China where the sector is dominated by less efficient state-run companies. Read Full Post…
Thank goodness! That’s my first and main reaction to news that after months of tortured courtship, Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU) has finally selected Tencent (HKEx: 700) as the winning suitor of its Sogou search engine, beating out rivals Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) and Qihoo (NYSE: QIHU). I have to admit the selection of Tencent came as a bit of a surprise, since I had expected Qihoo to win the contest for one of China’s older and less appreciated search engines. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on September 18. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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A simmering feud between leading wireless carrier China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) and top Internet firm Tencent (HKEx: 700) was back in the headlines last week with new accusations by the former against the latter, drawing attention to the near monopoly status that many state-run firms often enjoy due to strong government protection. Beijing should be applauded for finally taking important steps over the last year to end that monopoly in the telecoms space, which has sapped the sector of innovation. Now it needs to extend that approach to other sectors to create firms that can truly compete on the global stage. Read Full Post…
I’m a big fan of hairy crabs, not so much because I think they taste good but because the delicacy represents a storied Shanghai tradition that can attract headlines not only locally but also from across China and even around the world. Shanghai has far too few of these homegrown major headline-grabbers outside the world of finance, where it has no problem making front page news. Read Full Post…
Media are reporting that Internet giant Tencent (HKEx: 700) is following close behind rival Alibaba with plans to launch an investment product that is quite unrelated to any of its core online businesses. The move by China’s biggest publicly listed Internet firm comes as its market value reaches the psychologically important $100 billion mark, making it more than twice as big as China’s second largest telco, China Unicom (HKEx: 762), and more than 10 times larger than leading PC maker Lenovo (HKEx: 992). Its massive size and financial clout have emboldened the company to move outside its core areas into other businesses, some dominated by major state-run firms. Read Full Post…
