Bottom line: A major new campaign calling on Google to abandon its plan to return to China’s search market will add pressure on the company to reconsider its decision, but is unlikely to succeed unless the pressure grows significantly stronger.
Amnesty launches petition to protest Google’s China return
If Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) CEO Sundar Pichai thought he could quietly launch a new filtered China search engine without any major backlash, he’s quickly finding out otherwise. The search giant’s controversial plan to return to the world’s biggest search market is facing its stiffest resistance to date, in a frontal assault coordinated by human rights group Amnesty International and Google’s own employees.
The message from both groups is the same: Don’t do it. In Amnesty’s case, the group has launched an online petition (announcement) calling on Google not to go through with the plan, code named Dragonfly, that was first uncovered back in August. (previous post) At the same time, a group of more than 300 Google employees has signed a petition urging the company to reconsider its China plans on the blogging site Medium. (online petition) Read Full Post…
Bottom line: LinkedIn’s rapid growth in China has been aided by its low-key approach to the sensitive market, and a high degree of autonomy for its local unit from its distant US-based parent.
LinkedIn reaches 20 mln China users
US business networking giant LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) is quietly emerging as one of the few foreign success stories in China’s social networking (SNS) landscape, using a low-key approach that has helped it steer clear of controversy. I haven’t written much about the company since its slightly controversial entry to China 2 years ago, when it issued a statement acknowledging it would be subject to the country’s strict self-censorship rules.
LinkedIn’s ability to avoid controversy is probably due in large part to its low-key approach, and its choice of an industry veteran with experience in both the US and China to head its local operations. True to his low-key style, company chief Derek Shen is making some minor headlines today with comments at a Shanghai event, including his disclosure that LinkedIn has signed up more than 20 million local users during its first 2 years in China. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Mark Zuckerberg’s latest visit to Beijing and meeting with a top propaganda official show his hopes of bringing Facebook to China are still alive, and could result in announcement of a new joint venture by year-end.
Facebook’s Zuckerberg back in Beijing
Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) chief Mark Zuckerberg may not have much chemistry with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but he certainly seems quite capable of getting meetings with high-ranking Chinese Internet and propaganda officials. Just a couple of months after returning from paternity leave for the birth of his daughter, Zuckerberg was back in Beijing over the weekend to attend a government-sponsored forum, as he pursues his aim of bringing Facebook to the world’s biggest Internet market.
Zuckerberg is certainly no stranger to meetings with top Chinese officials as he pursues his goal. Last year he made headlines when he reportedly asked President Xi Jinping to choose an honorary Chinese name for his daughter during Xi’s state visit to Washington, even though his request was ultimately declined. And in late 2014, he hosted a tour at Facebook’s Silicon Valley campus for Lu Wei, minister of the Cyberspace Administration for China. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: China’s global Internet conference this week was mostly empty pageantry, but it did reveal that Baidu might like to privatize from New York one day, and attracted a handful of China-friendly global executives.
Wuzhen Internet pow-wow mostly empty talk
China’s big Internet pow-wow this week in the picturesque town of Wuzhen hasn’t produced much news despite its big aspirations, reflecting Beijing’s tight control over cyberspace and companies that do business there. But the globally-minded event did produce at least one interesting tidbit on the recent privatization wave by US-listed Chinese companies, and also an entertaining photo of 2 top executives that went viral online.
The news item came from Robin Li, founder of leading Chinese search engine Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), who hinted that he hopes to someday join the recent wave of Chinese companies now privatizing from New York due to undervaluation. The photo that went viral captured a humorous moment involving a catnap during the conference by Zhou Hongyi, the controversial and more often outspoken CEO of security software specialist Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU). Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Google should follow the example set by LinkedIn and Apple and be more transparent when it returns to China, and should work with Beijing to forge a more constructive relationship.
Google eyes China return in 2016
One of the strongest signals yet that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) could soon return to China came late last week, when media reported the company was aiming to open a Chinese version of its Google Play app store next year in accordance with relevant Chinese laws. Such a move would represent an important improvement in the company’s relationship with Beijing, coming 6 years after Google shuttered its China-based search service due to a disagreement on self-policing policies that apply to all sites in China.
The shift is being driven by both sides, amid a realization that they can work together constructively to each other’s benefit. Google’s realizes that China is a market it can’t afford to ignore, with the world’s largest base of 600 million Internet users and 1.3 billion mobile subscribers. Beijing also realizes that a high-tech giant like Google can bring important technology and know-how to the country, whose large stable of smartphone makers already rely heavily on Google’s free Android operating system (OS). Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on September 25. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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China Telecom (HKEx: 728), Unicom (HKEx: 762) May Merge – Deutsche Bank (Chinese article)
Didi Kuaidi in Strategic Partnership with LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) (Chinese article)
Toshiba in White Goods Deal with China’s Skyworth (HKEx: 751) (English article)
Huishang Bank Turns to HK for Share Sale After China Rout (English article)
JD.com (Nasdaq: JD) Boosts Asia Reach With HK Office, Logistics Tie-Up (GlobeNewswire)
Bottom line: Twitter’s new CEO is likely to re-think the company’s decision to stay out of China due to Beijing’s strict self-censorship policies, and could ultimately make a play for the market in the next 2-3 years.
Twitter to re-think China under new CEO?
It seems that Weibo (Nasdaq: WB), often called China’s equivalent of Twitter (Nasdaq: TWTR), isn’t the only one struggling these days in the social networking (SNS) realm. The original Twitter has just announced that its own CEO Dick Costolo has succumbed to calls for his resignation due to stagnating growth, meaning his replacement will come under intense pressure to jump-start the company’s prospects. One of the fastest ways to do that would be going to China, leading to the intriguing prospect that Twitter’s road map could bring it to China sooner than many expected under its yet-to-be-named new leader. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Google could open a Chinese version of its app store by the end of this year and spend aggressively to quickly gain market share, but would face negative backlash from western critics for its U-turn back into the sensitive market.
Google lobbies China smartphone makers to include Play Store
Global Internet giant Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is reportedly eying a return to China, with plans to launch a Chinese version of its flagship Google Play app store. The move, if true, would mark a major flip-flop for Google, which withdrew its core search engine from China in 2010 after a high-profile spat over Beijing’s strict censorship policies. But as many similarly principled companies quickly discover, China is a market that is simply too big to ignore.
That quandary led top business networking site LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) to enter China last year, despite expressing its own reservations about censorship, and top social networking (SNS) site Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) is also lobbying strongly for such a move. Google’s latest campaign comes in a the slightly less sensitive area of app store operation, though even that business would involve some self-censorship to eliminate apps that Beijing might consider sensitive for political or other reasons. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Rupert Murdoch’s shift in China strategy towards less controversial retail and entertainment projects looks smart, but is likely to meet with lukewarm success due to lack of awareness of 20th Century Fox among Chinese consumers.
Rupert Murdoch eyes China theme park
Rupert Murdoch just can’t seem to ignore the China story for too long, with new reports saying his Twenty-First Century Fox (Nasdaq: FOX) is finalizing plans for a theme park in a country that has been quite elusive for the aging media mogul. The theme park approach certainly looks safer than Murdoch’s previous attempts to enter China with more traditional media like TV and movies, and mirrors what some of the world’s other top media companies have done. Of course that means Murdoch and Fox are coming a bit late to this particular show, and the fact that 20th Century Fox theme parks aren’t exactly a well-known brand means his media empire could face a steep uphill ride finding a Chinese audience. Read Full Post…
The Super Bowl may be the most watched TV program in the US, but it’s still relatively unknown in China due to the lack of popularity of American football. But the sport gained at least a few Chinese fans with its latest airing, as top executives from the likes of PC giant Lenovo (HKEx: 992) and online video firm LeTV (Shenzhen: 300104) tuned in to watch this year’s match-up that saw the New England Patriots defeat the Seattle Seahawks.
Meantime, an executive from the struggling Sina Weibo (Nasdaq: WB) was busy criticizing rival Tencent (HKEx: 700) for the latter’s freeze-out of several major Internet firms from its hugely popular WeChat instant messaging platform. Finally, we’ll end this week’s round-up of tech executive chatter with buzz that hints a former online literature pioneer may be preparing to emerge from a forced retirement, as he returns after a tough business battle of the sort that’s quite common in China. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: SNS operator Tumblr could quickly find its site blocked in China if it rolls out a Chinese-language edition targeting mainland users without taking formal steps to enter the country.
Tumblr eyes China
News that US social networking site (SNS) Tumblr is eying the China market looks intriguing, as it would come not long after professional networking site LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) entered the market and as industry titan Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) lobbies hard for its own Chinese presence. But what most caught my attention about this latest development was the somewhat humorous headline in one report noting that Tumblr is “still not blocked in China”.
Of course the implication is that once Tumblr formally launches a Chinese language edition of its popular blogging and SNS service, it could very easily find its site blocked by China’s Internet police. Read Full Post…
