Tag Archives: CNNIC

China News Digest: August 4, 2016

The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on August 4. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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  • Didi, SoftBank Lead $600 Mln-Plus Round for GrabTaxi (English article)
  • Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) to Spin Off Businesses for Future IPO in China (English article)
  • Fosun (HKEx: 656) Denies Under Pressure to Sell Assets (Chinese article)
  • China Internet Users Reach 710 Mln, 92 Pct Access Via Mobile – CNNIC (Chinese article)
  • Burberry (London: BRBY) to Buy Out Partner in China JV for 54 Bln Pound (Chinese article)
  • Latest calendar for Q2 earnings reports (Earnings calendar)

INTERNET: Microblogs Slump, Financial Services Surge in H1

Bottom line: Internet-based financial services should continue to boom over the next few years, while a rapid decline in microblogging could start to ease now that Weibo has consolidated its position as market leader.

Weibo consolidates microblogging market

China’s Internet data tracker has just released a slew of figures for the first half of the year, painting a rosy picture for companies like Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) and others that are moving aggressively into online financial services. At the other end of the spectrum, microblogging continued its rapid decline, as marginal players retreated and industry leader Weibo (Nasdaq: WB) consolidated its position.

On a broader level, I was surprised to see the growth rate in overall Internet users slow sharply in the first half of this year, even as the number of people accessing the web over their mobile phones continued to post strong growth. I also took the time to tally up the subscriber totals for China’s big 3 telcos in the first half of the year, which shows that the dominant China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) gained share on its 2 smaller rivals as it aggressively promoted its year-old 4G service. Read Full Post…

INTERNET: Internet Sees Messaging Surge, Microblog Retreat

Bottom line: China’s overall Internet growth will continue to slow as the market starts to become saturated, with messaging and other mobile services continuing to steal share from microblogging and video operators.

Microblogging decline bites Weibo

A newly released annual government report on China’s Internet is full of good news for the online business community, with most sectors posting double-digit growth as overall penetration neared the 50 percent mark. But a few sectors stood out as distinctive losers in the report from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), led by the microblogging space that saw a sharp decline in users.

That’s not too surprising due to departures or pull-backs in the space last year by big names like NetEase (Nasdaq: NTES) and Tencent (HKEx: 700), though it certainly doesn’t bode too well for sector giant Sina Weibo (Nasdaq: WB). Another relative loser was online video, which posted only tiny growth last year as the sector came under regulatory assault aimed at reining in companies like Youku Tudou (NYSE: YOKU) and Baidu’s (Nasdaq: BIDU) iQiyi. Read Full Post…

Microblogging Fades, Adding Urgency For Sina Weibo IPO

New industry data adds urgency for Sina Weibo IPO

New data is highlighting an online trend that I wrote about last year, namely that microblogs have peaked in popularity and are starting to decline, in a bad sign for leading web portal Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) as it rushes monetize and list its popular Weibo service. Frankly speaking, I’m not too optimistic anymore about the prospects for Sina Weibo, which is really just a copy of US social media pioneer Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) and hasn’t shown much ability to innovate in the rapidly changing social networking (SNS) space. All that said, I imagine this latest report from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) is prompting new urgency for Sina to separately list its Weibo unit, and that such an IPO could come later this year. Read Full Post…

Shunfeng Ties With Tencent, Netizens Top 600 Mln

CNNIC says China Internet users cross 600 mln mark

It’s a quiet news day on this Black Friday after the US Thanksgiving holiday, so I thought I would close out the week with a couple of interesting items that show how quickly the China’s Internet market is still growing and how e-commerce’s influence is rising. The rapid growth is showing up in the latest government data that says China’s Internet community has officially passed the 600 million user mark, further bolstering the market’s position as the world’s largest. At the same time, another new report involving Shunfeng, a leading domestic parcel delivery firm, is revealing a potential new trend that could see e-commerce firms form new alliances with their suppliers and logistics companies. Read Full Post…