It seems the Chinese censors have been working overtime, with security software provider Netqin and Internet giant Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) both feeling the wrath of Chinese bureaucrats. First Netqin. I don’t know much about this company other than it’s an IPO candidate, which I reported last week. But if the media reports are right, it looks like Netqin, which specializes in mobile software, is suddenly being disabled by all three of China’s major telcos. (English article) No reason was given, but knowing how shifty some of these companies can be, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were engaging in questionable business practices. Regardless, this kind of development certainly can’t be good for an IPO. On to Google, which has accused China of slowing or blocking access to its Gmail service, after numerous users reported problems in recent weeks. (English article) This one looks like part of Google’s ongoing testy relations with Beijing, and I have no doubt the “crisis” will pass with time, especially now that the National People’s Congress is over.
Bottom Line: Netqin’s overseas IPO may have suffered a death blow at the hands of China censors, while Google’s latest tussle with Beijing will pass soon with no major consequences.
最近Gmail和网秦遭遇麻烦，显示中国网络监管部门似乎又在加班加点。据中国媒体报导，有意海外上市的手机软件公司网乎被中国三大电信运营商集体屏蔽。无论原因如何，这对网秦的IPO计划都是重大打击。最近几周，Gmail在中国的服务屡出问题，似乎是Google与中国政府磕磕碰碰的关系中出现的新插曲。但随着两会闭幕，我相信这些”问题”将逐步自行解决。
一句话：中国网监部门几乎对网秦的上市计划判了死刑。而Google在中国遇到的新问题应可小事化无。
data is out and continues to show Unicom winning steady share from China Mobile in the 3G space. (
Saudi Arabia has seen the future, and the world’s biggest oil exporter sees it in a place called China: a realization that will play to Beijing’s advantage. Saudi Aramco, the nation’s oil producing arm, has announced it’s pairing up with top Chinese oil producer PetroChina (NYSE: PTR; HKEx: 857; Shanghai: 601857) to build a large new refinery in south China’s Yunnan province, a move that plays nicely to the Chinese producer as it looks to secure its supplies in these volatile times for oil prices. (
Now that the salt shortage in Shanghai seems to be easing as people realize it isn’t practical to ingest 10 kg of salt per day to protect themselves from Japanese radiation, it’s time to move on to some real news. One interesting report today is coming from the US, where China lockout victim Facebook seems to be sniffing for a backdoor into the country. The world’s most popular social networking site, available nearly everywhere except for China, said over the weekend it will buy mobile apps developer Snaptu for around $70 million (
But since that’s so far off — at least 3 years by most estimates — now it’s turning to cell phones as well to try and jazz up its bottom line, with its buy out of Topssion, a customerizer and distributor of handsets, from its former partners that included ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063) and Huawei. (
Investors didn’t like the sale at all, which came at a discount, and dumped Ping An shares big time after the announcement. Granted, Ping An now has a big bank under its belt and thus may feel compelled to follow China’s other big banks in raising more money to cushion its balance sheet against a potential downturn in the real estate market. Given Ping An’s location and domination in Guangdong and particularly the boomtown of Shenzhen across the Hong Kong border, I see rough times ahead for the company when the downturn comes, which could hit Shenzhen especially hard.
So, who exactly is this company called Xunlei, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago as it looked like it was moving toward an IPO later this year? (
hardly going to give these guys a jump start in Oz anytime soon. If we were going to handicap this race to export to the West, I’d have to give Beijing Automotive Industry Corp (BAIC) and perhaps Geely (HKEx: 175) pole position, perhaps followed by a weaker SAIC (Shanghai: 600104) and maybe BYD (HKEx: 1211), all of which have some kind of foreign connection. Chery may see the global market as ripe for its picking, but sophisticated Western buyers might find this offering, with a cheap price tag but little else in its favor, still a bit green.
It’s a relatively slow news day, so I thought I’d start off with another “seeing is believing” story, this one on Sina’s (Nasdaq: SINA) wildly popular microblogging Weibo service. Sure, we’ve all heard about how Weibo is becoming the Twitter of China, but yesterday I got to see the real thing in action and it was quite impressive. Within literally 2 or 3 minutes of an acquaintance posting an item on his Weibo site about my blog, the “news” had been rebroadcast by at least 3 or 4 of his followers, and a woman sitting behind us in the coffee shop where we talking, whom neither of us knew, came over and said hello. Granted, none of this resulted in a significant increase in traffic to my blog, but that’s really beside the point. Clearly lots of people with not enough to do are spending time on this thing, which a savvy Sina should easily be able to monetize and use to generate handsome revenues and profits. The way this thing is growing, with a current user base of over 100 million, I see spin-off and IPO not far down the line, and another feather in Sina’s cap as it tries to become a diversified Web company.
regulator issuing 4G licenses anytime soon, perhaps late 2012 at the very earliest. China Mobile’s earnest pressing ahead with 4G trials, at least in my mind, is probably more wishful thinking, as the company loses some of its colossal market share in the 3G space to smaller rivals China Unicom (HKEx: 763; NYSE: CHU) and China Telecom (HKEx: 762; NYSE: CHT).
