The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on January 9. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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- Yum Brands (NYSE: YUM) Warns China Sales Fell More Than Expected (English article)
- Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) CEO Tim Cook In China For Another Visit (Chinese article)
- MIIT Issues Draft For MVNO Service Trials (English article)
- China’s CDB Wavers On Funding HSBC’s Ping An (HKEx: 2318) Stake Sale: Sources (English article)
- Dangdang (NYSE: DANG) To Reduce Focus On 3C, Apparel (English article)
After a 2012 that most investment bankers would probably prefer to forget, the new year is starting off on a more hopeful note for IPOs with news of offerings from brokerage Galaxy Securities and the website of state-owned media giant Xinhua both generating positive buzz. These latest signs of life follow other similar positive signals in the US late last year, after a commercially-focused social media site named YY (Nasdaq: YY) completed only the second major offering for a Chinese firm in New York during the year and saw its shares perform reasonably well. (
The Year of the Snake could well go down as the time when Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) finally lost its dominance over China’s lucrative online search market, following the rapid rise of a new challenger from up-and-comer Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) that may soon tie-up with global search titan Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). Such an alliance would mark the latest assault in Qihoo’s campaign that has seen its so.com site soar past other more established players to become China’s second largest search engine in just half a year.
The headlines this first week of January have been filled with figures on China’s box office for 2012, with many media predictably focusing on the fact that foreign films overtook domestic ones to win the box office crown last year. But from my perspective, more interesting is the fact that a low-budget domestically produced comedy quietly surged at the end of the year to steal the title as the nation’s biggest earning film of the year, taking the crown from the far more expensive and highly hyped 3D makeover of James Cameron’s “Titanic“.
Less than 2 months after signing a major R&D tie-up with rival Chery, leading south China automaker Guangzhou Automobile (HKEx: 2238) is back in the headlines with news of a similar tie-up with 2 other smaller rivals. This latest move makes Guangzhou Auto look increasingly like a potential consolidator for the many smaller and mid-sized automakers in nearby provinces, potentially molding the company into a future General Motors (NYSE: GM) of China. Auto historians will note that GM has no formal brands carrying its own name, but rather was formed through the consolidation of many smaller brands during a similar consolidation of the US auto industry many decades ago.
A few of the latest headlines reflect a cooling appetite by foreign banks for funding solar energy related projects, creating a worrisome vacuum that Beijing may need to fill as it seeks to stop struggling sector from sinking further still. Two of the latest such headlines look like particular cause for worry, with Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) taking over financial responsibility for a solar power project from one of its construction partners for unspecified reasons that I suspect are related to waning interest by foreign banks in funding such projects. (
Just a couple of weeks after telecoms heavyweight China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) complained that Internet giant Tencent (HKEx: 700) was stealing its text messaging business, we’re getting word that the 2 companies may have started talks for a revenue sharing agreement to resolve the dispute. China Mobile’s discontent involves Tencent’s popular mobile instant messaging service WeChat, better known by its Chinese name Weixin, which has soared to prominence in the last 2 years and recently passed the 300 million registered user mark. (
