Bottom line: Alibaba’s new hiring of a Washington insider to head its international government affairs reflects its attempts to look more global, and also an intense lobbying campaign to ensure its name stays off an annual US piracy list.
Alibaba bulks up in Washington
E-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) has just made a major new addition to its Washington lobbying team, as it gears up for what’s likely to become one of its biggest battles yet on Capitol Hill. That battle will see the company try to convince the Obama administration that it’s a strong partner in the battle against piracy, as it tries to stay off an annual list published by Washington that singles out major internet sites that don’t do enough to stamp out counterfeiting.
Alibaba’s new hire of former GE Capital executive Eric Pelletier to head its international government affairs is also part of its attempts to look more global by adding big-powered non-Chinese to its top management ranks. The move parallels similar hires by equally globally-minded companies including networking equipment giant Huawei and leading PC maker Lenovo (HKEx: 992), which are also trying to convince the world that they’re truly global players and not just Chinese companies. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Beijing should offer more incentives to local governments to tackle piracy at its roots, or risk seeing homegrown high-flyers like Xiaomi get undermined by fakes.
Xiaomi knock-offs wash up in Germany
China’s fast-rising high-tech sector passed a dubious milestone last week, when media reported that fake copies of smartphones made by local superstar Xiaomi have begun appearing in Germany, marking one of the first such cases for a Chinese brand. Xiaomi wasn’t the only company in the headlines for piracy, as other media reported that fake copies of the new Apple Watch (Nasdaq: AAPL) were already widely available in China, as the US tech giant began taking orders for its latest gadget. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: China should work with its major trading partners to send unified signals on issues like piracy to create a transparent business climate and avoid confusion.
US, China send crossed signals on piracy
In an unusual reversal of roles, Washington officials who regularly criticize China for piracy found themselves defending Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) on the issue last week, just a month after a Beijing regulator blasted the e-commerce leader for allowing rampant fake goods trade on its popular Taobao site. The conflicting messages are at least partly political, since a similar US condemnation would have contradicted Washington’s praise of Alibaba’s piracy-fighting efforts over the last 2 years. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Alibaba’s sharp slowdown in quarterly revenue growth is unlikely to be a fluke, and will put downward pressure on the company’s stock as its post-IPO honeymoon comes to an abrupt end.
Alibaba revenue growth slows sharply
When the history books are written, this week will almost surely go down as the one that e-commerce leader Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) would like to completely erase from the record. The company has spent most of the week struggling with a nightmare in the publicity and government relations department due to a piracy scandal, and now it’s just released new quarterly results that showed sharply slowing growth at the end of last year. The perfect storm of bad news wiped nearly 9 percent off Alibaba’s stock in the latest trading session, and for the week it’s down about 13 percent. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: A new audit reveals how widespread counterfeit goods are on Chinese e-commerce sites, which will remain a major risk for site operators and their shareholders.
Taobao slammed in piracy audit
A new audit from State Administration For Industry and Commerce (SAIC) is showing just how pervasive fake goods are on the Chinese Internet, underscoring the huge risk that consumers face when purchasing online. The results underscore the huge risk to e-commerce firms as well, since many of China’s top names including Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) and JD.com (Nasdaq: JD) operate so-called “open platforms” that are simply online marketplaces where third-party merchants can sell their goods. Such merchants are notoriously hard to police, and these latest results show that they frequently offer fake and substandard products to buyers. 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…
An important step in China’s ongoing battle against piracy is showing signs of being undermined, with word that a Shenzhen company that received a record fine for copyright violations was attempting to avoid the penalty through use of an old trick.
The Shenzhen government should take extra efforts to enforce the penalty, and also make sure that the company, QVOD, permanently ends its piracy practices. Such a tack would send a strong message to Chinese companies that intellectual property theft of any kind won’t be tolerated, and the government will tirelessly pursue culprits until they are brought to justice. Read Full Post…
China was traditionally known for its rampant piracy, but is now suddenly becoming a strong copyright protection advocate with the rise of a new generation of video site operators looking to protect their intellectual property. In the latest twist of this new and somewhat unexpected trend, Internet TV operator LeTV (Shenzhen: 300104) has successfully sued fast-rising smartphone maker Xiaomi for copyright violations related to Xiaomi’s problem-plagued Internet TV set-top boxes. Read Full Post…
When the history books are written, the month of May 2014 could go down as a watershed in the Chinese battle against piracy. An obscure Shenzhen company could also be part of the story, following reports that the firm Kuaibo Technology has been fined a whopping 260 million yuan ($42 million) by the city government for repeated piracy. Then again, it’s also quite possible and likely that Kuaibo will simply shut its doors to avoid paying the fine, and then re-open nearby using another name and company registration. 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…
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…
