Bear Stearns reports on Shanda and The9: WOW (World of Warcraft) potential blockbuster in China

Bear Stearns initiated coverage on The9 with an outperform rating.
They estimate revenues to grow from $5.0 million in 2004 to $50.2 million in 2005 and US$123.8mn in 2006.

From Bear Stearns Equity Research:
"The9 will be releasing four games in2005, chief amongst which is WOW. In our assessment, WOW has the potential to become a blockbuster in China,based upon the initial responses in both the U.S. and Korean markets. We expect WOW to be launched in June2005, and to break into the top five in China (based on user base) by year-end."
A Note from China Net Investor: Bear Stearns & Co. was The9's lead underwriter for the IPO


Bear Stearns also Bullish on Shanda

From James Rhee, Bear Stearns Equity Research:
"We admire Shanda for proving the skeptics wrong in 2004 as the company outperformed even our bullish expectations. We expect Shanda to maintain its market leader spot in China's booming online gaming market going forward."

Bill Bishop (Co-founder of CBS MarketWatch) provides a link to both reports in his weblog (Thanks!): Report on The9 Report on Shanda

eBayEachnet, Taobao, 1pai - fierce struggle among the three auction giants

From 21st Century Online: eBay's big plans for 2005

"The California group is seeking to capitalize on China's more than 94 million Internet users and its fast-growing middle class. Its China subsidiary EachNet will benefit most from the investment (eBay plans to put US$100 million into China this year to expand its presence in the e-commerce market, the company announced last Friday) . This is obviously good news for EachNet. That's because it needs to compete with two other giants: Taobao, a subsidiary of Chinese B2B (business to business) giant Alibaba.com. And, 1pai.com, the Beijing-based online auction site jointly owned by Yahoo and Sina."

"E-commerce is beginning to take off in China. Books and computer gear are proving particularly popular. That could make China the world's biggest online market within two years, according to a recent report on the country's e-commerce potential."Read more

Promising desktop search tech: Zhongsou claims to be ahead of Google

From ChinaView.com: Desktop search tech promising

"We are eight months ahead of all our competitors in terms of technology - at least, thanks to our latest desktop search software," said Chen Pei, president of zhongsou.com, a leading Chinese search engine provider.
The competitors Chen referred to include Google, Microsoft and Baidu, he explained. Baidu is the largest Chinese-language searching firm."

"Another round of the searching game has started featuring desktop technology, and those firms absent from desktop searches will gradually lose their appeal," said Li Nan, consulting manager of leading Chinese market research firm Shanghai-based iResearch Co Ltd."

"Baidu has been copying Google in technological models, and it will probably also be a follower in terms of desktop search technology, but Zhongsou.com started even before Google, Li explained. "Read more

Marconi to reveal strategic tie-up with Huawei in China

From the Times Online: Marconi to reveal tie-up with Huawei in China

"Marconi is set to announce a strategic tie-up with Huawei, China’s biggest telecoms-equipment company. The deal, which is likely to be unveiled tomorrow, will enable the British group to sell its products in China and the rest of Asia, and will accelerate Huawei’s aggressive international expansion."

"The relationship with Huawei will enable Parton to sell Marconi’s products to Huawei’s customers in Asia, and broaden the range of products it is able to offer its own customers in Europe. Over time, the two firms may also share research and development costs. "

"Huawei can provide access to a strong suite of data-networking products, such as routers and switches, through its joint venture with 3Com. It is hoped this will help Marconi to compete more effectively with Cisco."Read more

World Economic Forum Davos 2005 webcasts

Special Message - Huang Ju (RealPlayer/Windows Media 53 min.)
Huang Ju, Vice-Premier of the People's Republic of China
Chaired byKlaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum

Managing the Chinese Economy's Pressure Points (10 min.)
Li Ruogu, Deputy Governor of the People's Bank of China
Li Shenglin, Vice-Chairman, National Development and Reform Commission
Liu Jian, Director, State Council Office on Poverty Alleviation and Development
Reaction from
Alan S. Dawes, Vice-Chairman and Chief Financial Officer, Delphi Corporation, USA
Stephen S. Roach, Chief Economist, Morgan Stanley, USA

See a list of all other World Economic Forum 2005 Webcasts

Failing macro-economic control of China's hot economy?

Fons Tuinstra (director, columnist Chinabiz. Ltd) comments on China's hot economy and raises the question whether the macro-economic control measures really work.

The failing macro-economic control – the WTO column

"The official story is that last year the financial authorities successfully used macro-economic controls to halt growth of an overheated economy. Those measures to cool down the economy caused a ‘soft landing’, at least that is what everybody kept on writing, also after last weeks GDP-figures that told us China had been growing in 2004 with 9.5 percent.But according to those figures, apart from a minor slowdown in the third quarter of 2004, those controls did not have the effects that were attributed to them." Read more

Will Cisco Rewire Asia? Cisco vs. Juniper vs. Huawei

From BusinessWeek online: Will Cisco Rewire Asia?

"How fast is digital Asia growing? Well, Chinese broadband penetration grew 99% last year. Fixed-line broadband connections in all of Asia soared 50% in 2004, to 62 million, according research firm Gartner Inc."

"Trouble is, Asia isn't just hot, it's hotly competitive. Huawei Technologies Co. is China's home-grown champ, and it won't give ground easily. Indeed, pricing wars may have already started. Cisco CEO John T. Chambers has said the company is already feeling margin pressure from Asian rivals, whom he expects will be Cisco's primary competition in coming years."

"Cisco faces its fiercest battle for supremacy in China. Its 57% market share in routers and switches is under serious attack from Huawei, which has 20.8% of the pie. "We can't ignore a player with that kind of market share," concedes Astles (president of Cisco's Asia Pacific operations). "Read more

Chinese internet stocks undervalued?

From BusinessWeek online: Finding Value on the Net

"Investors hunting for Web bargains should certainly look in Asia. E-travel agency Ctrip.com International and online game producer Shanda Interactive Entertainment, both based in China, sport modest p-e ratios and PEGs lower than the U.S. market's. Shanda's PEG is 35% lower than the S&P 500's, even after third-quarter profits doubled."

"Online-media companies such as Sina Corp. -- often called the Yahoo! of China -- are cheap partly because of fears of government interference, but Sina costs half as much as the average S&P company on a PEG basis. With China's economy growing 9.5% last year, betting on Sina to boost profits half as fast as the S&P 500 doesn't seem nutty." Read more

World Economic Forum (wef) Davos: China in focus

From the BusinessWeek online: Talking Chinese at Davos

"China's growing economic and political power dominates a good portion of the agenda at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos. The nation's expanding role is one of the 12 "tough issues" that are the framework for the forum this year. No less than nine sessions are focused on China."

"What are the tough topics involving the Middle Kingdom?
-The sustainability of its hot growth
-Sharply rising wages in China's south
-How to get your profits out of China
-The yuan's revaluation
-China's Impact on the World's Resources
-China's new international corporations
-Chinese culture and identity in a time of vast technological and economic change... "
Read more


From the International Herald Tribune: China's huge shadow at economic forum

""In the past decade Chinese products have gone abroad, Chinese labor has gone abroad and Chinese tourists have gone abroad," he said. "We have accumulated some wealth, and now we think it's time for our corporations to go abroad."

"In a measure of how aggressively the government wants to build up Chinese household names in the global market place, its declared objective is to help some 50 companies to join the Fortune 500 ranks by 2010."Read more

Yahoo! China is poised to build its presence in the portal business this year.

From CHINAdaily: Yahoo! China raising threshhold

"Shanghai-based professional Internet consulting firm iResearch, in its 2004 search engine report, wrote that Yahoo! ranked second, with a 22.72-per-cent of the market. That compared with Baidu.com's 36.29 per cent and Google's 21.22 per cent."

"Last June, Yahoo! China expanded the capacity of its e-mail service from six megabytes to 100 megabytes. Two months later, it boosted the capacity to 1 gigabyte. The move will raise the threshold of e-mail service providers and force small players out of the market, he added."

"By aggressively developing Internet content, Zhou (general manager of Yahoo! China) hopes his company will become one of the top four Internet portals in China."Read more

China's growth exceeds expectations

From The Economist: A reheated economy - China’s economy re-accelerated in the last quarter of 2004, despite official efforts to curb rampant investment. Is it growing too fast to keep its balance?

"ON TUESDAY January 25th, the Chinese authorities sheepishly confessed that the economy beat expectations last year, growing by 9.5%. It finished the year particularly strongly, growing at an annual pace of almost 13% in the last three months, according to J.P. Morgan. Anywhere else, this would be cause for celebration. But in China, the firecrackers remain unlit. Instead, analysts and investors are trying to reassure themselves that this is not bad news." Read more

JP Morgan: China Wireless Value-Added Services Sector Update

Bill Bishop (to his blog) points at this China Wireless Value-Added
Services Sector update from JPMorgan:

"From our channel checks, we expect MMS revenue to see
significant decline in 1Q05, due to 1) change in MMS revenue
recognition policy and, 2) MMS transition to MISC platform."

"We currently expect 1Q05 MMS revenue could see 30-40%
sequential revenue decline, while SMS revenue to be up low single
digit sequentially. On the other hand, WAP and ringback tone
services are expected to continue with double-digit growth in 1Q05."

"We have also revised down SINA’s 2005E fully diluted EPS by 4%
to US$1.45, with Dec-05 target price of US$33 on the back of lower
revenue assumptions." Read more

The myth behind China as a high-tech Goliath

From The Financial Times: The myth behind China as a high-tech Goliath

"Having become workshop to the world, is China poised to storm the bastions of its high-technology industries? Thanks partly to foreign expansion by Huawei, telecommunications equipment maker, and a few other Chinese companies, the idea is starting to be taken seriously abroad above all in the US, ever jealous of its technological pre-eminence."

"Weak intellectual property laws, long assailed by western companies, are also a self-inflicted handicap because they provide no rewards for innovation. China's international patent applications, though growing, are still less than 1 per cent of the total filed in the US and Europe. And while start-up companies abound in China, they are poorly supported by its financial system. Its bigger banks favour lending to state-owned industries; venture capital is in its infancy, and the country's immature equity market fails to offer the dependable exit route demanded by sophisticated early-stage investors." Read more

China's huge and unique online advertising opportunity

From The Guardian: Sino the times

"... the first independent figures were compiled at the end of last year by the international web auditor, Nielsen//NetRatings. It found that in one week alone 100 million people were logging on to China's top four portals. "

"According to Connecting with China, a report published last week, web advertising revenue growth is running at 40% per year (more than double traditional advertising) and search marketing is expanding at 60%. Two out of the top three Chinese portals, Sohu and Netease.com, are reporting increases of 70% and 60% respectively in advertising income for 2004."

"China is no longer the "factory of Asia" but has become the world's fourth largest market for luxury goods, accounting for 12% of global demand, according to investment bank Goldman Sachs." Read more

New research reports on Chinese online game market: Shanda, Netease, The9, World of Warcraft (WoW), Tencent, Sina

Billsdue points at four recently released reports on the Chinese game market.

Goldman Sachs: Global fall-out from World of Warcraft (the potential impact of World of Warcraft on Netease and Shanda)
"We expect WoW's open-beta test to disrupt the China online game market, hurting or delaying other game releases."

DBS Vickers on Tencent: Tencent - a major game player in the making
"Tencent will be a major online game player in China with a diversified game portfolio. However, the market is yet to recognise the business value of games."

DBS Vickers on Casual Gaming: The year of casual games
"At the same time, the popularity of casual games has increased, as against the declining popularity of MMORPG. These results are positive to Tencent, the largest casual game operator and our top pick of the sector. Reiterate Overweight on the Internet sector."

UBS Investment Research on Shanda: Team, market and new growth

Linux in China: Red Flag Pins Hopes on Asianux 2.0

From Technewsworld.com: Red Flag Pins Hopes on New Product

"Leading Chinese Linux software maker Red Flag Software expects to achieve a 50 percent growth in sales revenues this year, pinning hopes on Asianux 2.0, a new product to be jointly launched in July with Japanese and Korean partners."

"The alliance aims to grab a market share of Asia's rapidly growing Linux market, competing with world-leading developers including Red Hat, Linux and Novell." Read more

China's online gaming sector makes progress

From Chinaview.cn: Online gaming sector makes progress

"... domestic games accounted for more than half of the nation's online gaming market in the past year, a significant shift from the heavy reliance on imported games in the preceding three years."

"According to a report from the China Game Producers' Association, sales of online games reached 2.47 billion yuan (US$298 million) in 2004, a year-on-year rise of 48 per cent. The number of online gamers also grew to 26.33 million. "

" With encouragement from the government and the fast growth of the industry, 73 gaming companies have developed or are developing 109 game titles and 21 games are already in operation. Their combined market share has already grown by 50 per cent. " Read more

Huawei - China’s secret weapon

From RedHerring.com: China’s secret weapon - Despite ethical and other questions, Huawei is proving a mysterious force to be reckoned with.

"If China is the “awakening dragon,” then Huawei Technologies, China’s largest telecom equipment company, could be its strongest hatchling. The company has gone from the largest seller of telecom equipment in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to a giant in Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, Russia, and the Middle East."

"Today, Huawei has 50 branch offices and 22,000 employees. The company’s headquarters, still in Shenzhen, consists of more than half a dozen buildings on a 1.3-square-kilometer campus. Multinational-quality digs are financed in part from international earnings: Huawei’s sales in 2003 topped $3.8 billion, over $1 billion of that from overseas sales. The company expects international revenue for 2004 to reach $2 billion, and says that number will account for 40 percent of its total 2004 sales, which are expected to top $5 billion. "

"“In 2005, we want to achieve over $4 billion in sales from the international market, and $3 billion in the domestic market–not including sales [related to] 3G,” says Mr. Hu. “If China doesn’t issue 3G licenses in 2005, then it could be the first time our overseas sales would exceed domestic sales.”"

"Huawei was neither an outgrowth nor a recipient of government attempts to develop “the Sony of China.” Instead it was an independent, entrepreneurial company that sought to seize the domestic market and slowly grow itself, pouring money into research and development (46 percent of its employees are currently involved in R&D, with centers all over the world, including Dallas and Beijing). "Read more

Ebay Eachnet struggling in China?

Ebay yesterday announced that it will invest 100 million US dollars in China in 2005, in a bid to earn a greater share of China's on-line trading market. Many analysts questioned why the company would spend an estimated $100 million to develop its Chinese operations, though China isn't likely to become a mainstream e-commerce market for years.

Bill Bishop, Co-founder of CBS MarketWatch, comments on the ebya numbers and ebay's China adventure: Ebay's China Mess
"So they miss their numbers because they are ramping spending in China, to USD 100m in 2005. They are crazy, the auction market is never going to be big enough in China for them to make back the money they have spent in China." Read more

Davida Jackson (The China Stock Blog) wrote a summary of the key quotes about Ebay's China plans from yesterday's call Read here

China Network to Buy 20 percent Stake in PCCW for $1 Billion

From Bloomberg.com: China Network to Buy Stake in PCCW for $1 Billion

"China Network Communications Group Corp., the nation's second-biggest fixed-line phone company, bought a stake in Hong Kong's dominant operator PCCW Ltd. for HK$7.9 billion ($1 billion), gaining a partner for expansion in the world's biggest phone market by subscribers."

SmartMoney.com: Sina Analysis

From SmartMoney.com: Sina the Times

"Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy ... "Sina remains one of our top picks as we believe the company's brand, reach, and strong management are highly valuable and yet underleveraged assets," wrote Rashtchy in a Jan. 7 report on Chinese Internet companies."

"How expensive are Sina's shares? They trade at 24 times fiscal 2005 earnings, about half the average P/E for Internet companies. And Sina is projected by analysts to boost its profits by a stunning 40% annually over the next five years. Even discounting that growth rate to a more conservative 30% produces a PEG ratio of well under 1.0. The S&P 500's PEG is about 1.6."Read more

China set for ecommerce boom

From TheRegister: China set for ecommerce boom

" China could become the world's biggest online market within two years, according to a report examining the country's potential for electronic commerce. ... The Chinese market is "huge and willing to buy online"; and people wired up to the net are also young and affluent, finds Connecting with China - A report on the business opportunity provided by China's 100m online consumers." Read more

PCCW discovers a highly receptive audience for IPTV

From Time Asia: Unplugging the Cable - Hong Kong's PCCW discovers a highly receptive audience for pay TV delivered over phone lines

"Called NOW Broadband TV, the service has made surprisingly rapid inroads, reaching more than 420,000 households—35% of the Hong Kong pay-TV market—in its first year of operation. It took I Cable, Hong Kong's sole cable-TV provider, five years to reach that milestone after launching in 1993."

"PCCW has been signing up about 70% of all new pay-TV subscribers in Hong Kong; it will be the city's top provider of pay TV by 2009, according to a recent Goldman Sachs report." Read more

Top Ten Tech Trends: China Will Dominate

From alwayson-network: China will dominate
Excerpt from an event in which leading tech visionaries tried to come to agreement over the top technology trends for 2005.

"Joe Schoendorf: (Mr. Schoendorf is a partner with Accel Partners.) I actually think that China and what is going on there today is the biggest competitor to Silicon Valley—and a more serious competitor to the quality of life we lead here—than anything we've encountered since we were born."

"Count the number of Ph.D.s that are graduating in China every year and compare that number to Silicon Valley or the United Stated, and the ratio is over 2-to-1."

"I'll tell you who I worry about. I look at the Huawei model going after Cisco, where they have two groups of engineers working 13-hour days, and they do projects in half the time and at a quarter of the cost because the morning engineering team takes over from the evening engineering team, and they're just on it. "

"Perkins: Are you saying the next big standard, the next big innovation, or the next big economic powerhouse is coming out of China?

Schoendorf: All of the above" Read more

Huawei - The challenger from China

Very interesting article about China's largest producer of telecom infrastructure equipment who's starting to threat established leaders in this sector such as Alcatel, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Lucent Technologies and Nortel Networks.

From FT.com: The challenger from China: why Huawei is making the telecoms world take notice

(was available for free - now you need to register for a free 15-day trial)

Chinese search engine market seen as gold mine

From CHINAdaily.com:

"Sohu was only one of the many companies to strengthen its position in the search engine market in 2004 alongside its arch-rivals Sina Corp and Netease.com, and professional search engine provider Zhongsou.com. This proves to be a new gold mine after online advertising, mobile phone messages, and online games.
Their decision was wise enough, as the market maintained its fast-track development in 2004, but most of them might not be able to feel happy about the results, as the statistics from some research firms showed recently."

"Henry Yang, president of Shanghai iResearch Co Ltd, a professional Internet industry consulting firm, told China Business Weekly last Thursday that the scale of the search engine market including advertising, paid listings and real name searches will exceed 1.2 billion yuan (US$145 million), from 500 million yuan (US$60.39 million) in 2003."

"The Beijing-based research house said in its report that Baidu has become the biggest player in the market with 32.9 per cent of the share, while Yisou under Yahoo! ranked the second with 19.6 per cent of the pie."

"Chen divided the top players into two camps: Yisou, Yahoo! China, and 3721 under Yahoo!, versus Baidu and Google in the Google camp. ... Yang believed it would be hard for most of other players to make breakthroughs in challenging the top three's positions." Read more

Top Chinese Search Engines Release Keyword Rankings

From ChinaTechNews.com: Google.com's Chinese website and rival Baidu.com have each released their top Chinese-language keywords for 2004.

"Google's top ten words (some translated from the original Chinese), leading from the top, are: Dao Lang, Zhou Jielun, "Xiao Bin Chuan Qi" (Legend of A Soldier), Olympic Games, Lin Xinru, Qilixiang, Mingcheng Emperess, Graduation Thesis, Liu Xiang and NBA.

Baidu's top ten words are MP3, Baobaotang (a type of game), Dao Lang, QQ, BT, Mouse Like Rice, Guo Jingjing, House of Flying Daggers, Chinese Style Divorce and Xiao Bin Chuan Qi."

Shanda to provide IPTV in 2005

From Pacific Epoch: Shanda CEO Chen Tianqiao: IPTV In 2005

"Chen said that Shanda will provide content for IPTV including online games, music, movies, electronic novels, and comedy shows. Also, Shanda has worked with Intel and some PC manufacturers to produce a product called Shanda IPTV Receiver. With the receivers, viewers will be able to play Shanda's games and use other IPTV services on their televisions. The equipment has completed testing and Shanda expects demand for the receiver to hit one million units in 2005. Chen also said Shanda might acquire a movie production company to produce online movies, and that the company is also preparing for 3G wireless services."

Firms tap into IPTV (internet TV) business: China Telecom, Tiantian Online, China Netcom, CCTV, PCCW

From English.eastday.com: Firms tap into IPTV business


"China now has about 100 million cable TV subscribers and nearly 23 million broadband Internet users. Analysts expect the country's broadband users to hit the 40 million mark this year. "

"In 2005-06, we'll see the market grow four times year-on-year annually in terms of the number of subscribers," Wu (analyst with research house IDC China) said.

"IDC forecasts the number of IPTV subscribers will exceed 8 million in 2008 compared to less than 20,000 in 2003."

"China Telecom plans to launch large-scale promotions of IPTV in most cities in the country this year, following the launch of the Internet TV service in Shanghai last August."

"Tiantian Online, a joint venture of China Netcom, US venture capitalist IDG and other strategic investors, last May gained an online broadcasting licence, the first of its kind in the country, to broadcast audio and visual programmes on the Internet. "

"CCTV has said it expects to recruit 600,000 IPTV subscribers this year."

"According to an executive with Hong Kong's fixed-line carrier PCCW, the firm has seen the number of its IPTV subscribers soar to 350,000 by November from 3,000 in September 2003 when the service was launched. Now 40 per cent of PCCW's broadband subscribers are using the broadband TV service."
Read more

Victor Koo former president of sohu talks about the internet in China

From CHINAdaily.com: A man who has got IT in the Net

Koo is optimistic about China's Internet industry. "China has formed a unique front and is leading the world in some areas. We're ranked second, next only to the US, in terms of the number of Net users. But we're still far behind when the size of the industry is measured in terms of revenue."

"In China, the Net has a far greater impact on the people's lifestyle, whereas in the US it directly affects commerce. That portends well for our future here. It means China still has a lot of potential for growth," he says.

China doesn't simply have to learn from the US model. "We learn from the best from across the world. For example, South Korea is far ahead of the US in broadband and online games. So the South Koreans can help point the way for us in those areas. For, as far as mobile applications are concerned, China has surpassed the US."

This raises hope, Koo says, of an Asian Net firm buying out a US rival in the near future - the way Lenovo acquired IBM's PC business. "To a certain extent, this is already happening", he says, referring to the acquisition of Lycos US by Daum, a South Korean company. Read more

E-agency Predicts China Will Take over Internet In 2005

From dBusinessNews: E-agency Predicts China Will Take over Internet In 2005

"E-agency, an interactive marketing communications firm based in Oakland, Calif., predicts this will be the year that the number of Internet users worldwide tops 1 billion -- led by China. The number of Web searches will pass 5 billion per week. We'll use the Internet more than ever: at the office, at home, on our phones, at the coffee shop or the mall, even as we look for a parking place. This will be the year that the couch potatoes beat the geeks, as the control centers of our home networks move to the comfortable confines of our home entertainment centers -- which quite likely will be made in China."

E-agency predictions about what the New Year holds for our increasingly online world:
1) China. (It will be obvious.)
2) "Branding" will be the corporate buzz word of 2005, and for good reason.
3) Mainstream business will finally "get" blogs.
4) The home network will be controlled from the home entertainment center.
5) We will (almost) all download a movie this year -- most for the first time.

The Chinese Century

From Times Online: This is the Chinese century

"Clearly, the United States is still by far the largest and most powerful economy on earth, with the most powerful defence technology. Yet it is China, not the United States, that is changing the global economy. ... What is the prospect for the dollar? That depends on China. The euro? China. The oil price? China. Industrial commodities? China. Global equity markets? China. Bond prices? China. World trade? China. World growth? China. "

"Yet China is not content to remain as a producer of low or middle-technology goods. As the purchase of IBM’s personal computer division shows, China is equally a competitor in areas of advanced technology. China has an educational system designed to produce scientists and technologists for the 21st century. Except at the very highest university level, Chinese scientific education has outpaced that of Britain. "

"My own optimism is not only based on the growth of the economy, though that is the outstanding economic growth record of the past two decades. China has also understood the important of domestic and international freedom of trade and the need for the best possible relations with trading partners. With direct material and financial support, China has been one of the large contributors to the relief of the Indian Ocean countries after the tsunami disaster. The economic maturity of the new China has been accompanied by increasing political maturity. That is the best guarantee for the future of what is beginning to look like the Chinese century. " Read more