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Media-savvy smartphone maker Xiaomi was in the headlines for the wrong reasons last week, facing a fine and embarrassing negative publicity after being exposed for inflating its sales figures in Taiwan. The news marked the latest in a steady string of accounting scandals and other financial misreporting that have plagued overseas-listed Chinese companies for the last 3 years, undermining their credibility and casting a negative shadow on China’s own stock markets. Read Full Post…
The following is Part 6 in a multi-part series about the rise of WeChat, the popular mobile instant messaging service owned by Tencent.
By Lanie Nie
WeChat has played a key role in Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) recent efforts to build a “federal republic” on the mobile Internet. That interpretation comes from Cheng Lingfeng, a China tech reporter and former Tencent employee, describing Tencent’s strategy of selling stakes to close partners who promote WeChat Payment, a new service that allows users to link their bank cards to their WeChat accounts to facilitate online transaction payments. Such linkage gives WeChat users easy access to selected paid add-on services like shopping, mobile top up and taxi booking.
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The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on August 6. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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A year after entering the ultra-competitive online gaming market, e-commerce leader Alibaba is boosting its drive into the space through a major new tie-up with Kabam, a fast-growing American designer of free online games. The move looks squarely aimed at archrival and leading Chinese game operator Tencent (HKEx: 700), which has just made its own major advance in the space with the launch of an officially licensed version of the wildly popular “Candy Crush” game in China. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on August 5. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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The aggressive duo of Huawei and Lenovo (HKEx: 992) may be consolidating their spots on the global smartphone stage, as domestic rival ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 00063) shows signs of stumbling. Those are my major takeaways from the latest quarterly smartphone results released from industry research firm IDC, which show big sales and market share gains for Huawei and Lenovo in the second quarter of this year. ZTE, meantime, appeared to be moving in the opposite direction, falling further in the ratings after briefly surging last year. Read Full Post…
The following is Part 5 in a multi-part series about the rise of WeChat, the popular mobile instant messaging service owned by Tencent.
By Lanie Nie
Venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road always ask young entrepreneurs with little business knowledge what they would do if Facebook did the same thing, and similar concerns exist for China start-ups in dealing with the “Tencent factor”. With the strategic goal of providing users with “one-stop online lifestyle services”, nearly everything has become a must-have for Tencent, making it a public enemy for the entire community of Internet-based service providers in China. Read Full Post…
The slower summer months haven’t cooled down appetite for new M&A among Chinese Internet firms, with word that e-commerce leader Alibaba is chasing a massive investment that could see it purchase a stake in US social networking high-flyer Snapchat. At the same time, software security specialist Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) has just announced new plans to raise up to $1 billion through a convertible bond offer, in what also could be the prelude to a major new acquisition. Read Full Post…
The war of words against Chinese solar panel makers is heating up from both sides of the Atlantic, with growing signs that Europe may reconsider anti-dumping duties as the US moves closer to imposing its own new duties on the beleaguered manufacturers. Meantime, 2 of the biggest Chinese victims of the sector’s recent turmoil have risen from the ashes, with LDK and Suntech both announcing new moves more than a year after each became insolvent. Among those 2 moves, LDK’s looks the most worrisome, potentially bringing major new volumes of polysilicon, the main ingredient in solar panel production, back into a market whose current recovery is still quite weak. Read Full Post…
The following is Part 4 in a multi-part series about the rise of WeChat, the popular mobile instant messaging service owned by Tencent.
By Lanie Nie
As China ended last year with an online population of 618 million and more and more people access the Internet over their smartphones, it has become evident that the Internet will play a growing role in the way Chinese people live and do business. Internet thinking has emerged as a concept that empowers newer start-ups to challenge older businesses not necessarily via cutting-edge technology, but more by rethinking the whole business in the context of a more connected world.
Many Chinese firms are thrilled by the widely-touted story of Xiaomi, the 4-year-old smartphone maker that calls itself an Internet company. Xiaomi is already outselling Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) in its home market using a web-only marketing strategy, redefined cost structure, fan-centric product philosophy and flat organizational composition. But Tencent (HKEx: 700), China’s undisputed Internet leader with a market cap that is challenging global online retailer Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), labels itself as an online company that partners with old industries, with service accounts hosted by WeChat as the magic tie in that relationship. Read Full Post…
Smartphone chatter has dominated the microblogging realm among tech executives this past week, led by nonstop debate surrounding the hyperactive Xiaomi and its newly launched fourth-generation model. But I’m personally growing a bit tired of this company, and thus thought I’d turn my attention this week to smartphone chatter from 2 lower profile brands, namely the unappreciated Huawei and recently launched Smartisan brand.
Huawei executives were in a state of mourning over the past week following the sudden death of one of their colleagues, cellphone chip executive Wang Jin. Meantime, Smartisan’s top executive was bemoaning problems facing his young company due to capacity constraints, as several CEOs of similar young rival brands looked on in sympathy that was perhaps mixed with just a touch of gloating. Read Full Post…
