Bottom line: NQ Mobile and Qihoo stocks are likely to come under pressure over the next 12 months due to ongoing questions about boardroom stability and aggressive accounting practices.
Qihoo independent board member resigns
“Scandal” seems to be the buzzword in China’s corporate Internet world this week, following the resignations of top officials at 2 of the nation’s leading security software makers, NQ Mobile (NYSE: NQ) and Qihoo (NYSE: QIHU). The former case looks the most serious, with NQ’s Chairman and co-CEO Henry Lin, also known as Lin Yu, resigning for murky reasons. Meantime, another one of Qihoo’s independent board members has resigned, following similar departures earlier this year, suggesting disagreement over aggressive accounting practices favored by the company’s opinionated CEO Zhou Hongyi. Read Full Post…
Three of China’s shyest tech CEOs have made rare appearances on their microblogs over the past week, emerging from the shadows after difficult periods for at least 2 of their firms. Liu Qingdong, CEO of e-commerce giant JD.com, was the first to come out of his shell, ending a 19 month self-imposed silence. He was followed by NQ Mobile’s (NYSE: NQ) CEO Lin Yu, whose microblog had gone silent since a scandal last year that saw the security software maker came under a short seller attack. Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) CEO Pony Ma also made a relatively rare posting on his microblog, though in this case his appearance was mostly promotional as he trumpeted another major milestone for his company’s popular social networking services. Read Full Post…
Does the world really need another cool and trendy smartphone maker from China? At least one entrepreneur seems to think the answer is yes, with the launch of a new brand called OnePlus at an event last week in Beijing. Normally I wouldn’t give too much attention to this kind of launch, since everyone in China is rushing these days to try and copy the trend Xiaomi, which itself is trying to copy the success of global tech giant Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). But the fact that such a new company like OnePlus could attract so much attention for its event, including a blogosphere plug from global chip giant Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM), is making me hedge my bets that perhaps this could be a company to watch. Read Full Post…
