The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on August 21. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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- Youku (NYSE: YOKU) Announces Shareholder Approval for Tudou Merger (PRNewswire)
- MIIT Signals Approval for TD-LTE Development (English article)
- Beyondsoft (Shenzhen: 002649) to Acquire Achievo Subsidiaries for $56 Mln (English article)
- Camelot Information Systems (NYSE: CIS) Announces Unaudited Q2 Results (PRNewswire)
- Vancl Cuts Back Ad Spending As Online Apparel Sellers Suffer (Chinese article)
- Latest calendar for Q2 earnings reports (Earnings calendar)
The colorful love-hate relationship between Beijing and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) never seems to stop evolving, flaring up this time with extensive coverage in state-run media over big China layoffs at Google’s recently acquired Motorola cellphone unit. In all fairness, Motorola’s decision to lay off 1,400 China employees is certainly big news by itself, with the China reductions accounting for more than a third of a recently announced round of 4,000 global job cuts by Motorola. But that said, I have little doubt that domestic media are being quietly encouraged to report extensively on the cuts by Beijing leaders who still feel stung by Google’s 2010 high-profile decision to withdraw from the China online search market.
The past 2 weeks have seen solar energy pioneer Suntech (NYSE: STP) plunge into a downward spiral after revelations of questionable accounting, leaving the firm on the edge of financial collapse and its fate largely in the hands of Beijing. But rather than come to Suntech’s rescue, Beijing should let the company collapse to send a high-profile message that it won’t support companies that engage in such financial shenanigans.
Domestic car makers Chery and Great Wall Motor (HKEx: 2333) have hit a first major speed bump in their recent export drive, spotlighting the uphill road China’s big domestic brands will face as they look overseas to offset sputtering sales at home. Media are reporting that both companies have launched recalls for most of their cars sold in Australia after asbestos, a well-known carcinogen, was found in the engines and exhaust systems of some vehicles. (
I’ll end out this peak week of second-quarter earnings season with a couple of telecoms items, starting with comments from dominant wireless carrier China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) that indicate it may finally be preparing for a much-needed offensive to breathe new life into its flagging 3G network. While China Mobile struggles under its own massive weight, separate news bites indicate the up-and-coming Xioami, a maker of low-cost, high performance smartphones, may be running into its first troubles after a strong debut for its first product last summer.
It’s only appropriate that I end this week with one more story on the bloody price wars in China’s e-commerce space that have dominated headlines these past few days, this time taking a look at the just-released quarterly results of Dangdang (NYSE: DANG), the only major publicly traded online merchant. Dangdang saw its loss more than quadruple in the quarter, as its marketing costs soared and margins crumbled due to all the price wars. (
It’s Friday and almost the weekend, so I thought I’d take a break from all the e-commerce price wars and woes at solar panel maker Suntech (NYSE: STP) that have dominated headlines this week to take a look at something a little more fun, namely toys. Specifically, leading US toy store operator Toys R Us has announced its first big China expansion since buying out a majority stake from the partner in its Asia operations about a year ago. (
I don’t like to write too much about the same topics in a single week, but I can’t really ignore separate breaking developments at solar cell pioneer Suntech (NYSE: STP) and in the e-commerce space that could be critical for the future of each. In the former case, Suntech has just announced the resignation as CEO of Shi Zhengrong, the company’s founder who was once lauded as a visionary when Suntech became China’s first publicly listed solar panel maker in 2005. (
After piling through the mountain of corporate earnings that have just come out in the last 24 hours, I’ve decided to focus on online game veteran NetEase (Nasdaq: NTES), which appears to be at a critical juncture that could simply mark a pause in its recent rise or be the beginning of a longer-term decline. NetEase has been one of the most resilient companies throughout the current confidence crisis for US-listed China stocks, perhaps due to its status as one of China’s oldest publicly listed Internet firms and also due to solid performance from its core online game business.
