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Tag Archives: Qualcomm
China Qualcomm latest Business & Financial news from Doug Young, the Expert on Chinese High Tech Market, (former Journalist and Chief editor at Reuters)
Bottom line: China used its traditional silent treatment approach to kill Qualcomm’s bid to buy NXP, quite possibly to show its displeasure with recent US trade tensions, but resulting global pressure could forced it to be more transparent in the future.
China kills Qualcomm-NXP deal with silent treatment
We’ll close out the week with my own quick-and-dirty post mortem of the collapsed deal that would have seen telecoms chip maker Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) purchase Dutch rival NXP (Nasdaq: NXPI) for $44 billion. Put simply, this deal appears to have been killed by China’s classic approach of “kill them with silence.”
But there’s a bit of a postscript this time around, as China’s regulator took the unusual step of actually breaking its silence once the deal was dead. This appears to show that China has learned a lesson from this particular battle, namely that it needs to take a stance on things and explain its decisions, even if people might disagree. That would be quite a break from its old approach of just sticking its head in the sand and pretending like nothing is happening when it makes unpopular decisions. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Huawei’s decision to go ahead with a US market entry for its latest high-end phone, despite collapse of a tie-up with AT&T, is likely to produce very limited results due to lack of a carrier partner.
Huawei goes solo into US
If you can’t get a serious business partner, at least get a pretty face. That seems to be the message coming from a frustrated Huawei, which has announced it has signed on “Wonder Woman” star and model Gal Gadot as chief experience officer as it prepares to enter the US. This somewhat frivolous move was most likely part of a bigger announcement the company hoped to make for a grander entry to the US in partnership with corporate partner AT&T (NYSE: T).
But as many market watchers may already know, the AT&T deal reportedly collapsed at the last moment for unexplained reasons. The new tie-ups were all set to be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) taking place this week in Las Vegas. While the show went on and Huawei announced plans to release a version of its high-end Mate 10 in the US, with Gadot as product spokeswoman, the AT&T announcement never came. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Attendance of Google’s CEO at China’s premier Internet event marks a continuation of its slow return to China, while appearances by top Apple, Qualcomm and Microsoft executives are more expected.
Western tech execs hobnob at Internet conference
As we head into the new week, the headlines are filled with the latest words of wisdom on the future of the Internet from some of China’s leading company chiefs, who were all in the scenic city of Wuzhen for a major conference that kicked off over the weekend. But equally interesting were the guest list of foreign big-wigs in attendance, which included top executives from Google(Nasdaq: GOOG), Apple(Nasdaq: AAPL), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM), among others.
This is the third year for the show, which I previously pooh-poohed as a show of pageantry without too much substance. But it does appear to be gaining a bit of traction over time, and I suppose I should grudgingly admit that perhaps China should have a greater say in the development of the Internet and that these major players are at least partly right to be attending in high-profile roles. After all, China is easily the world’s largest Internet market with more than 700 million users. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Meizu will be forced to sign a new licensing agreement with Qualcomm after new lawsuits against it in the US, France and Germany, while NXP’s sale of a major unit to a Chinese buyer could still get vetoed in Europe despite new US clearance.
NXP chip sale cleared in US
A couple of cross-border stories involving global western chip giants Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) and NXP (Nasdaq: NXPI) are in the headlines, reflecting China’s growing role in the global semiconductor market. The first has Qualcomm suing Chinese smartphone maker Meizu for patent infringement in the US, Germany and France, some 4 months after taking similar action in China. The other has the US clearing NXP’s planned sale of one of its major units to a Chinese group for $2.75 billion, indicating that Washington won’t attempt to block a deal in the sensitive high-tech chip space. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on October 18. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) Files Patent Suits Against Meizu in US, Germany, France (Chinese article)
US Approves NXP (Nasdaq: NXPI) to Sell Standard Products Business to China Buyer (GlobeNewswire)
Wanda Hires ex-Disney (NYSE: DIS) Exec to Lead Theme Park Drive – Source (English article)
Qunar (Nasdaq: QUNR) Resumes Relationship With Airlines After 3 Month Break (Chinese article)
Suntech Announces Withdrawal from EU Price Undertaking (PRNewswire)
Bottom line: SMIC’s new plan for a $10 billion cutting-edge chip plant shows it could be well positioned to find a place on the global stage by tapping strong government support after an overhaul of its own operations.
SMIC announces $10 bln chip plant
I rarely write these days about SMIC (HKEx: 981; NYSE: SMI), since the company once billed as China’s best hope to challenge global chip giants like Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) and TSMC (Taipei: 2330) has been a major disappointment since its Hong Kong listing a decade ago. But the company’s newly announced plan for a $10 billion cutting-edge plant was enough to catch my attention, and shows SMIC could become a company to watch due to Beijing’s sudden determination to build up a globally competitive chip sector at any cost. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: LeEco’s major new push into the US smart TV market could achieve some success due to its recent Vizio purchase, though its concurrent smartphone drive will be a dud due to lawsuits and mediocre product quality.
LeEco revs for US smart TV launch
Watch out, Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). Chinese online video superstar LeEco (Shenzhen: 300104) is taking direct aim at the lucrative US online video and smartphone markets, with plans for major new product launches later this month. I’ll admit I’m doing a bit of educated guessing here, since the company formally known as LeTV hasn’t made any formal announcements yet on its US ambitions.
But all the signs certainly point in that direction, following LeEco’s headline-making $2 billion July purchase of Vizio, a struggling maker of cheap, no-name TVs that is one of the biggest and also most obscure names in the huge US market. Added to that is LeEco’s recent issue of invitations to an event set for October 19 in San Francisco, where it says it will announce its “disruptive vision of a connected ecosystem of content-driven smart devices to the US market.” (English article) Read Full Post…
Bottom line: A Chinese buyer’s plan to purchase US chip maker Analogix for more than $500 million is unlikely to meet with political resistance, and could mark a new template for similar cross-border chip M&A by China.
Chinese group bids for US-based Analogix
After failing at several high-profile attempts to buy US microchip technology, China is trying once again with a newly announced plan to acquire venture-backed chipmaker Analogix Semiconductor for more than $500 million. Unlike previous failed efforts that targeted more mature companies, the acquisition target in this case is much younger, since Analogix was only founded in 2002.
This new deal looks strikingly similar to another one earlier this year that saw the Shanghai-based National Silicon Industry Group purchase a similarly young Finnish chipmaker called Okmetic in a deal that valued the company at nearly $200 million. (previous post) That deal and this latest one don’t appear to be related, though one can never be completely sure due to the vague descriptions of the buyers in both cases. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on September 30. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) to Try Take-Out Dining, Partner May be Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) (Chinese article)
MSCI Still Monitoring China A Shares After ‘Positive’ Signs (English article)
China Sees Commercial 5G Telecoms Rollout in 2020, Speeds up to 20 GB/Second (Chinese article)
Baic Motor VP Joins Baidu’s (Nasdaq: BIDU) Driverless Car Division (English article)
Former Qualcomm Exec Joins LeEco (Shenzhen: 300104) to Develop US Market (Chinese article)
Bottom line: Beijing should mete out stiff punishment, including big fines and jail sentences, for companies that fraudulently obtained subsidies under the government’s program to promote new energy vehicle development.
Chery accused of fraud in new energy car scandal
What started as a wave of criticism against new energy car makers for producing mediocre products that nobody wanted is rapidly becoming a major scandal, with reports that many of those companies submitted fake information in order to get lucrative government subsidies. The scandal netted major car makers King Long and Chery last week, and reports have emerged that even industry leader BYD (HKEx: 1211; Shenzhen: 002594 )may be suspected of illegally obtaining government grants.
Such trickery is an extension of another trend that sees Chinese companies rush into unfamiliar sectors that Beijing has targeted for development, often resulting in a flood of mediocre or inferior products into the market. Such rushes not only create big market disruptions, but also result in huge sums of wasted investment and slow down development of emerging industries. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Qualcomm’s new licensing deal with Oppo extends a recent upbeat trend for the company in China after a yearlong retrenchment, and will be followed by more similar deals through the rest of this year.
Qualcomm in licensing deal with Oppo
Following a difficult year in China that saw it fined a record amount for anti-competitive behavior, global telecoms chip leader Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) appears to be slowing regaining its footing in the world’s largest smartphone market. That’s my interpretation of the latest headline, which has the company announcing a new chip licensing deal with Oppo, one of the market’s fastest growing smartphone makers. Word of this latest deal almost certainly came from Qualcomm itself, which is eager to show its days of trouble in China are in the past. Read Full Post…
