There are at least three ways Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) can win in China. And they are realistic options that have worked for others.
But first, a few points about the situation in Chinese online streaming.
Point 1: The China entertainment market is rocketing upwards, and it will soon be the largest in the world. This huge opportunity is fueling a major fight between China’s cash-rich Internet and media giants. This hyper-competition is also creating a window of opportunity for Netflix because it has valuable things to offer to these competitors as they slug it out.
Point 2: Online media in China is very political and likely no foreign company will have control of a license or broadcast rights. So Netflix needs to be realistic about what is possible.
Point 3: The other big issue is the strong local competition. If Netflix wants to win in online streaming in China, they need to be prepared to fight for a long time.
Bottom line: JD.com’s latest results show it could reach profitability on an operating basis later this year, while its new tie-up with Tuniu looks like a well-conceived plan that reflects a growing wave of equity tie-ups among Chinese Internet firms.
JD’s loss narrows, ties with Tuniu
China’s second largest e-commerce firm JD.com (Nasdaq: JD) has been busy wowing investors these last few days, starting with its latest quarterly ressults that shows it is making strong progress in moving towards sustainable profits. Meantime, the company has also become the largest individual stakeholder in online travel site Tuniu (Nasdaq: TOUR) through its participation in a deal that saw Tuniu raise $500 million by selling shares to a larger group of investors.
Wall Street greeted the pair of news stories with mildly positive reaction, bidding up JD.com shares by 2 percent after the reports came out. The stock has rallied nearly 50 percent this year and is 77 percent above its IPO price from a year ago, as investors grow more bullish on this company that is China’s biggest challenger to the much larger Alibaba (NYSE: BABA). Tuniu shares also got a nice lift from the news, rising 4.5 percent. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Mobile SNS firm Momo is likely to raise far less than the $300 million it has targeted for its IPO, as it kicks of a mini-surge of loss-making Chinese tech firms racing to list in New York by year end.
Momo kicks off year-end IPO rush
A record year of fund raising for Chinese firms on Wall Street could still have some life left, with word of another major offering plan by Momo, operator of mobile-based social networking (SNS) service. The company’s plan to raise up to $300 million would have looked ambitious at this time last year, when New York IPOs by Chinese firms were just starting to gain momentum after a nearly 3 year deep freeze. But that kind of target has become the norm in the current climate, and I expect we could see a flurry of similar-sized offerings over the next 5 or 6 weeks before the final curtain comes down on a banner year for Chinese tech IPOs in 2014. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on October 28. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Smartisan Cuts Prices By 1,000 Yuan, Smartphones To Start At 1,980 Yuan (Chinese article)
China Telecom (HKEx: 728) 4G Coverage To Reach 100 Cities By Next Year (Chinese article)
ZTE (HKEx: 763) Mobile Devices Q3 2014 Revenue Up by 40 Pct Year-on-Year (Businesswire)
Mobile SNS App ‘Blink’ Completes $20 Mln Series A Funding (English article)
Youku (NYSE: YOKU) Looks To US For Videos To Stream To Chinese Users (English article)
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on September 4. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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China’s Bright Food In Talks To Buy Israeli Food Group Tnuva (English article)
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on February 8. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════
I’ve been writing about China’s media industry long enough now to know that a blossoming love affair with Hollywood might be too much too quickly, and new comments from the TV and film regulator appear to hint that a crackdown or at least a slowdown could be looming for this fast emerging relationship. If it comes, such a crackdown would hardly be a new thing, as China has twice before signaled it was preparing to open its media to foreign investment, only to quickly slam on the brakes after the big foreign players got too aggressive.
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on August 25-27. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on August 24. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Bank of China (HKEx: 3988) Posts Weakest Quarterly Profits Growth in 3 Years (English article)
The proposed marriage between Youku (NYSE: YOKU) and Tudou (Nasdaq: TUDO) looks like a done deal, with shareholders of both companies approving the union at separate meetings on the same day. (Youku announcement; Tudou announcement) So now the question becomes: what does the union mean for the longer term development of the new company, Youku Tudou, and also what does the formation of this new industry leader mean for other major players? In a nutshell, I honestly don’t think the future looks very bright for anyone, due to both individual company issues and broader industry issues as well.
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on August 21. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Youku (NYSE: YOKU) Announces Shareholder Approval for Tudou Merger (PRNewswire)
MIIT Signals Approval for TD-LTE Development (English article)
Beyondsoft (Shenzhen: 002649) to Acquire Achievo Subsidiaries for $56 Mln (English article)
Camelot Information Systems (NYSE: CIS) Announces Unaudited Q2 Results (PRNewswire)
Vancl Cuts Back Ad Spending As Online Apparel Sellers Suffer (Chinese article)
I’ve been writing about China’s media industry long enough now to know that a blossoming love affair with Hollywood might be too much too quickly, and new comments from the TV and film regulator appear to hint that a crackdown or at least a slowdown could be looming for this fast emerging relationship. If it comes, such a crackdown would hardly be a new thing, as China has twice before signaled it was preparing to open its media to foreign investment, only to quickly slam on the brakes after the big foreign players got too aggressive.
