Bottom line: Wanda’s cautionary words to Donald Trump are unlikely to have much impact on the incoming US president, who is likely to take a more skeptical view of Chinese M&A in Hollywood.
Wanda appeals to Trump via MPAA
Wanda Group founder and chief Wang Jianlin is used to getting what he wants, especially when it comes to overseas buying as he tries to build up a global entertainment empire. But one of China’s richest men is clearly rattled by the ambivalent or even hostile attitude towards his country by US president-elect Donald Trump.
Worried about the changing winds in Washington, Wang has turned to Hollywood’s mouthpiece, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), to tell Trump that Hollywood could face huge consequences if he tries to shut down China’s recent buying binge. Wang has been Hollywood’s most enthusiastic shopper these days, purchasing cinema operator AMC Entertainment (NYSE: AMC) and studio Legendary Entertainment over the last few years. He also announced a recent deal to buy Dick Clark Productions, and recently signed a major co-production deal with Sony Pictures. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Sougou could gain some momentum in the search market this year following some innovative new tie-ups with WeChat, while Xunlei’s stock will remain under pressure as it gets dogged by more piracy issues.
Sogou launches news feature on WeChat
More than a year after emerging as China’s third-largest search engine with the merger of 2 second-tier players, Sogou is finally making an interesting move by launching a news app that takes advantages of its ties to Internet titan Tencent (HKEx: 700). The move looks particularly promising, since the rapid rise of another similar app called Today’s Headlines shows that this is clearly an area with strong demand. The move could pose a serious challenge to the high-flying Today’s Headlines, which earlier this week was named as one of China’s top 10 mobile apps for 2014. (previous post) Read Full Post…
Just days after announcing a new acquisition designed partly to rid its various sites of piracy, leading search engine Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) has removed all pirated material from one of its popular video sharing sites. The timing of this move looks quite interesting for a number of reasons, including the fact that Chinese media are saying Baidu has just been fined by Beijing for piracy violations. The move also comes just 6 weeks after Baidu was sued for piracy by China’s leading video sites, which took the action in an unusual alliance with Hollywood’s most powerful trade association. But perhaps most interesting is the fact that the US could soon release its latest list of the world’s most “notorious” piracy sites, and Baidu has no desire to see its name appear on the list. Read Full Post…
Top officials from leading cellphone chip maker Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) and web portal Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU) were tweeting away on their microblogs last week, in what look like efforts to counter recent negative developments for both. In the former case, one of Qualcomm’s China vice presidents, Shen Jin, was hyping the potential of both 3G and 4G in China, just as his CEO was admitting that Qualcomm has come under pressure in the market due to negative fallout from the recent Edward Snowden spying scandal. Meantime, Sohu founder Charles Zhang was talking about the importance of copyright protection, in what looks like a response to criticism of selfish motives behind Sohu’s role as a lead plaintiff in a recent copyright infringement lawsuit against online search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU). Read Full Post…
In what looks like a highly coordinated ambush, a group of China’s top online video sites have teamed up with Hollywood to sue Internet search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) for video piracy. This is the first time I can recall seeing big western names team up with Chinese companies to launch such a major lawsuit, creating not only legal headaches but also a huge wave of negative publicity for Baidu. The action also comes as Baidu makes a series of major moves in the online video space in a bid to challenge industry leader Youku Tudou (NYSE: YOKU), which is also one of the co-plaintiffs in this new lawsuit. Read Full Post…
