The big IPO news of the day is Alibaba’s debut public filing for its long-awaited New York listing, but a flurry of other news in the space is continuing the recent stream of downbeat signals from the sputtering market. Leading the headlines are the latest terms for an offering by online cosmetics seller Jumei.com and a debut public filing for online recruitment firm Zhaopin.com, neither of which look too positive. The signals were equally negative from recently listed car information website Autohome (NYSE: ATHM), whose shares dived after it filed a fairly respectable first-quarter earnings report. Read Full Post…
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Alibaba Files For IPO, As Yu’ebao Pauses
The IPO story of the year has finally begun, with word that leading Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba has finally made its first public filing for a listing in New York. But anyone hoping for a blockbuster deal that would have been the biggest tech IPO since Facebook’s (Nasdaq: FB) 2012 offering will be disappointed to learn that Alibaba is seeking to raise a relatively modest $1 billion in the deal. Alibaba made the filing as a separate media report said the company’s high-flying Yu’ebao, its financial product that competes with traditional bank savings accounts, is about to have its wings clipped with new reserve requirement regulations from the central bank. Read Full Post…
China Change: If I Could Change China
My 50th birthday is just 2 weeks away, so I thought I would give myself an early gift by making a few wishes for some of the things I would change about daily life in China if I could. When I first came to this country for the first time in 1986, I had no idea I would someday spend my 50th birthday here 28 years later.
Of course the China of today is completely different from the place I first visited all those years ago. But the point of my birthday wish list wasn’t to talk about all the changes from the last quarter century, but rather propose a few small ideas that could improve life for everyone. Read Full Post…
Tencent Travels With NavInfo Stake Buy
The buying binge by China’s 3 leading Internet companies continues this week, with news that social networking (SNS) giant Tencent (HKEx: 700) is purchasing 11.3 percent of mobile mapping firm NavInfo (Shenzhen: 002405) for 1.17 billion yuan ($183 million). Anyone who thinks I may be mistakenly recycling an old report with this news isn’t too far from the truth, as this particular deal looks quite similar to a different recent investment by e-commerce leader Alibaba in online mapping firm AutoNavi (Nasdaq: AMAP). Read Full Post…
Cheetah Spices Up IPO With Q1 Results
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…
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…
