I’ll end the week with a lighter look at an emerging trend in the China corporate world, which has seen some of the nation’s biggest tech personalities make high-profile bets with their equally successful peers from more traditional sectors. The latest in these high-tech wagers has seen Lei Jun, the charismatic founder of fast-growing smartphone maker Xiaomi, make a bet with Dong Mingzhu, often considered China’s most successful business woman as the chairman of appliance giant Gree (Shenzhen: 000651). These bets are mostly for entertainment and publicity on the one hand; but they do also represent the very real challenge that traditional industries are feeling from e-commerce and other emerging high-tech business models. Read Full Post…
The year 2013 will go down as a major turning point for China’s solar panel makers, with some names emerging as new sector leaders after a prolonged downturn while others quietly disappeared. The latter category saw former leader Suntech (OTC: STPFQ) go bankrupt and LDK (NYSE: LDK) quietly sell off many of its assets, while the former category has seen Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) and Shunfeng (HKEx: 1165) emerge as names to watch in the future. Canadian Solar in particular has been coming back strong in the second half of this year with a steady stream of good news, including its latest mega-deal to sell panels in China. Read Full Post…
Newly listed car website Autohome (NYSE: ATHM) got an early Christmas present, as its shares soared in their trading debut in what’s likely to be the final IPO by a Chinese firm on Wall Street this year. Meantime in other IPO news, online literature company Shanda Cloudary could be moving closer to its long-delayed listing with talk that its longtime CEO has resigned. These 2 news bits cap a bumpy year for Chinese IPOs in New York, where new offerings were nearly non-existent for most of 2013 before a sudden flurry of activity in the last 2 months. Read Full Post…
I was somewhat amused today to read an announcement from stodgy domestic smartphone maker ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063) trumpeting the success of a “cool” new online campaign for its high-end brand of nubia smartphones. But after giving the matter some thought, I do have to compliment ZTE for its new approach to create some buzz around its smartphones, which currently enjoy a reputation as dependable but also quite stodgy and low-end products. Most Chinese refer to phones from domestic names like ZTE, Huawei and Lenovo (HKEx: 992) as guochan, literally meaning “made in China,” which carriers distinctively negative overtones for inferior quality and lack of imagination. ZTE is clearly trying to cast off that image for its nubia line with this new China-based campaign. Read Full Post…
Spin doctors from Chinese tech titans Tencent (HKEx: 700) and Alibaba have been hard at work these last few days, doing their best to promote their products and add positive interpretations to news involving their companies. Tencent chief Pony Ma was actively hyping up several of his company’s products and services, while an Alibaba executive was touting a visit between founder Jack Ma and visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron. Tencent also got a helping hand from restaurant ratings giant Dianping, whose low-key founder was hyping a new tie-up between Dianping and the payments platform on Tencent’s wildly popular WeChat instant messaging service. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on December 11. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Santander (Madrid: SAN) Ups Bet On China With Bank of Shanghai Stake (English article)
China Mobile (HKEx: 941) Website To Take iPhone 5S Orders From Thursday (Chinese article)
E-House (NYSE: EJ) Announces Plan To Offer $180 Mln Convertible Notes (PRNewswire)
Lianhua Supermarket (HKEx: 980) Former Top Executive Under Probe (Chinese article)
LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK) Extends Forbearance Arrangement With Noteholders (PRNewswire)
The IPO world is humming with activity as we head into what’s likely to be the final week of new listings this year, with web firm Autohome gaining some momentum in New York as China Everbright Bank struggles to find an audience in Hong Kong. In another smaller offering in Hong Kong, a death care services firm called Fu Shou Yuan International is attracting some big-name investors in the run-up to its offering, shining a spotlight on the big potential for such services in China. Read Full Post…
Most people are focusing on Alibaba in the new announcement of its major new logistics tie-up with leading home appliance maker Haier (HKEx: 1169), so I thought I would take a different approach and focus instead on the underappreciated Haier. Actually, I should clarify and say that Haier was formerly underappreciated, as investors quickly discovered its shares after announcement of the $360 million tie-up, bidding the stock up to a 14-year high on optimism about the new partnership. I’ve always been quite positive on Haier, one of China’s top brands in home appliances, and think this new venture continues its tradition of carefully considered partnerships with good chances for success into new areas. Read Full Post…
With the 4G telecoms era now formally begun, China’s 3 major telcos are suddenly rushing to give out more details about their plans in this new era of high-speed mobile communications. In the latest news from this fast-moving story, media are reporting that China Telecom (HKEx: 728; NYSE: CHA), the smallest of the nation’s 3 wireless carriers, will formally launch its 4G brand as soon as later this week. Meantime, leading telco China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) has disclosed pricing plans that look quite aggressive for its 4G service in the city of Chongqing. I should also add I’m not surprised that we haven’t heard anything yet from the nation’s third telco, China Unicom (HKEx: 762; NYSE: CHU), which has a recent history of slowness and disorganization in response to such major new developments. Read Full Post…
One of the longest and strangest de-listings in the current wave of privatizations by Chinese firms could finally be nearing an end, with word that telecoms software maker AsiaInfo-Linkage (Nasdaq: ASIA) has received regulatory approval for a deal to buy out the company. This new announcement is just the latest bizarre twist in this story, as a deal of this size would normally be far too small to require such approval from China’s anti-monopoly regulator. But the approval seems to show that Beijing wants the deal to proceed in its current form, which means we may finally see an end to this strange story. Read Full Post…
Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei is not the world’s most talkative man, so when he says something in a rare media interview it’s worth taking notice. In this case Ren has personally stated that Huawei is temporarily halting its efforts to sell its telecoms equipment in the US, providing the final word on a controversial topic that has made headlines for much of the past year. But of course nothing is ever final, and a top US-based Huawei spokesman has quickly added that the company is ready to enter the US if and when Washington ever relaxes its informal ban on the company’s networking equipment. Read Full Post…
