There are quite a few developments on the solar energy front today, led by the release of new financial results from LDK (NYSE: LDK), the weakest of China’s major solar panel makers, that show a company in the midst of a meltdown. Meantime, Beijing has officially protested a US law that allows Washington to levy punitive tariffs against overseas industries that receive unfair state support, such as China’s solar sector. Both the US and Europe believe China supports its solar sector with unfair subsidies and have taken various punitive actions; and now India is also launching its own similar investigation, dealing yet another blow to the struggling sector.
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News Digest: September 18, 2012 报摘： 2012年9月18日
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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- China Launches WTO Challenge to US Anti-Subsidy Tariffs (English article)
- Western Union (NYSE: WU) Signs ICBC (HKEx: 1398) for Account Money Transfer Services (Businesswire)
- LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK) Reports Financial Results for Q2 of 2012 (PRNewswire)
- China Telecom (HKEx: 728), Unicom (HKEx: 762) Lower Price of iPhone 4, iPhone 4S (English article)
- ZTE (HKEx: 763) Adjusts 2012 Cellphone Growth Target to 30 Pct (Chinese article)
News Digest: September 15-17, 2012 报摘： 2012年9月15-17日
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on September 15-17. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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- China’s Sany (Shanghai: 600031) Seeks Covenant Waiver on $510 Mln Debt (English article)
- Home Depot’s (NYSE: HD) Do-It-Yourself Model Fails in China’s Do-It-For-Me Market (English article)
- Huawei, ZTE (HKEx: 763) Deny Threat to US Security (English article)
- Vancl Tests Out Vietnam Market (Chinese article)
- China Telecom’s (HKEx: 728) Anhui Unit Begins Accepting iPhone 5 Pre-Orders (English article)
Alibaba-Google: China’s Android Addiciton 阿里巴巴—谷歌：中国的“安卓瘾”
Despite its high profile exit from the mainland search market in 2010, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has quietly regained its position as a powerful force in China these last two years through the rapid rise of its Android mobile operating system (OS) that powers many of the nation’s smartphones. Its new rise was on display last week, as the US Internet giant threw a major wrench into the smartphone plans of Alibaba, China’s leading e-commerce company. With most Asian cellphone makers increasingly dependent on Android, Chinese firms that will depend on the mobile Internet for future growth need to think about creating their own new mobile platforms to rival Android. Otherwise they will risk becoming hostage to the world’s biggest Internet company, which could use its clout to ensure its own products always take precedence over its Chinese rivals’.
AgBank: Looking Good As Rivals Struggle? 中国农行或受不良贷款危机影响最小
I’ll be the first to admit I’m far from an expert on China’s banks, but the latest signs coming from the sector lead me to wonder if perhaps Agricultural Bank of China (HKEx: 1288; Shanghai: 601288), the least respected of the country’s big 4 lenders, may be best positioned to weather the bad loan crisis sowing chaos in the industry. China’s broader banking sector is facing one of the worst crises since many of the nation’s banks started going public in the mid-2000s, as lenders are unable to collect billions of dollars in loans made for questionable infrastructure projects during the global financial crisis. The problems is being compounded by the nation’s current economic slowdown, fueled in large part by anemic exports and foreign investment as the rest of the world grapples with lingering effects of the global recession.
Home Depot Packs Up China Toolkit 家得宝关闭在华所有大卖场
Just 6 years after coming to China, US home improvement giant Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is shuttering most of its China shops, becoming the latest major foreign retailer to discover that China’s 1.3 billion consumers aren’t quite the same as their peers in the West. Home Depot’s departure follows the equally high-profile closure of US electronics retailing giant Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) stores last year (previous post), and I suspect that the reasons for both companies’ failures are similar. Put simply, both Best Buy and now Home Depot discovered that price is by far the most important factor for Chinese consumers, who are always looking for the best bargains. Brand loyalty and customer service — 2 important elements that attract consumers to Best Buy and Home Depot stores in the West — are far less important to the Chinese.
Unicom Fumbles Another iPhone Launch iPhone 5开售在即 中国联通再次不给力
China Unicom (HKEx: 762; NYSE: CHU) should be ashamed of itself for its recurrent ineptitude that has once again resulted in China’s exclusion from the list of countries where the newest iPhone 5 will make its global debut. That’s my major conclusion from an increasingly recurrent theme that has seen Apple launch major new products in the US and in numerous countries globally, only to delay their launch in China for months for unexplained reasons.
Lee Kai-Fu, Huawei Turn Up the Offense 李开复“军团”和华为开始反击
I lauded a group of Chinese Internet leaders earlier this week for finally taking a more offense-oriented approach to a prolonged series of short seller attacks against them, saying Chinese firms needed to be more aggressive when they found themselves being bullied by foreigners on the global stage. Now it seems that same group is turning up its attack a notch by demanding an apology from the short sellers; and in a similarly aggressive and offense-oriented move, telecoms equipment maker Huawei is indirectly expressing outrage and frustration at a steady stream of US allegations that its equipment contains deliberate security lapses designed for to enable spying by Beijing.
Alibaba Catches Baidu, Trails Tencent 阿里巴巴追上百度，落后于腾讯
The headlines have been buzzing this week with word that e-commerce giant Alibaba will soon announce the sale of 20 percent of its shares held by Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) to a new investor group for $7.6 billion, in the first step of a slow-motion divorce between these 2 Internet giants. (English article; Chinese article) From my perspective, the most interesting elements of the announcement will be the latest valuation Alibaba gets as a result of the deal, and also the names of the new investors in this massive new stake sale. Both will hint at what the future holds for Alibaba in terms of growth as it moves towards an IPO as soon as 2014.
Shanghai Street View: Setting the Table for Hairy Crabs 沪经动向：摆好桌子迎接大闸蟹
It’s already mid-September, and that means seafood lovers from Hong Kong to as far afield as Japan and Singapore are foaming at the mouth with expectation for the annual arrival of one of Shanghai’s most famous exports — the hairy crab. As a resident of Asia for a decade now, I know that these crabs have developed an almost legendary status throughout the region. Their arrival each season from the famous Yangcheng Lake in nearby Jiangsu province is an annual rite of passage for the end of summer and beginning of fall, and is marked by big banquets of seafood lovers feasting on these green crustaceans with beady eyes and thick mounds of muddy-looking hair on their front claws.
Tencent Wechat Wows Mobile IM 腾讯微信主导移动即时通讯
The fight for dominance in of China’s mobile Internet is producing some interesting global shifts, with big names like Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) and Alibaba facing aggressive, younger competitors as they try to translate their dominance of the older desktop Internet to the mobile space that will become a key growth driver in the next decade. But one company that seems on track to maintain its dominance is Tecent (HKEx: 700), China’s largest Internet company by market value, which rose to prominence a decade ago with its highly popular QQ instant messaging product. Now it seems that Tencent’s mobile instant messaging product Wechat, better known by its Chinese name of weixin, is facing little or no opposition in its rapid rise to become China’s dominant mobile IM product. (previous post)
