China's 20 Best Brands

From BusinessWeek:

"A Lenovo ad campaign will soon appear in 200 countries, and the company is conducting an "Olympic & Lenovo Thousand County Tour" across the mainland to trumpet its ties to the sporting bonanza. "The brand will be a flag that leads the company as it goes forward," says Lenovo Chairman Yang Yuanqing.

The PC maker may be the highest-profile example of China's emerging brand power, but it's far from the only one. Air China, China Mobile, telecom equipment maker ZTE, and dozens of other companies are in the vanguard of China's growing number of powerful brands. They hope to emerge as truly global players—dominant at home and strong enough to muscle in on consumer awareness abroad."

BusinessWeek Slide Show: China’s Best Brands, click here.

China's Online Advertising Market Will Reach RMB 4.39 Billion in 2006

Press Release

Analysys International Says China's Online Advertising Market Will Reach RMB 4.39 Billion in 2006

Analysys International, a leading Internet based provider of business information about technology, media and telecom (TMT) industries in China, says in its recently released report "China Online Advertising Market Annual Report 2006", that China's online advertising market will reach RMB 4.39 billion for the full year 2006, increasing 35.9% year over year.
The search engine advertising market will account for 32.37% of the total market.

According to the report, China's online advertising market size reached RMB 3.23 billion in 2005, increasing 59.83% year over year. Sina, Sohu, Baidu and Yahoo! China were the top 4 online advertising vendors, with annual revenues exceeding RMB 300 million, accounting for 59.62% of the total market. In the first half of 2006, China's online advertising market reached RMB 2.1 billion.

In the first half of 2006, Baidu strengthened market expansion and further increased its market share from 9.51% in 2005 to 15.37%. Google China and Tencent also increased their market share by 1.1% and 0.78% respectively, reaching 4.82% and 4.25%. Yahoo's market share in China decreased from 9.48% in 2005 to 8.08% in the first half of 2006. Netease decreased from 7.41% in 2005 to 6.2% in the first half of 2006. Search engine operators' further improved their position in online advertising market.

Wikipedia Chief Says No to Censorship

From AsiaMedia:

"Jimmy Wales, founder of the open-forum internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, vowed yesterday he would not go down the same path as search engine Google by bowing to pressure from Beijing to censor sensitive articles.

Wikipedia, whose open invitation to write and edit articles has become increasingly popular in China, has been blocked by mainland censors since October. Mainland internet users have had to rely on a similar, but heavily censored clone, put together by Chinese Web portal Baidu, which puts a positive spin on events politically sensitive to Beijing such as the Tiananmen crackdown of 1989."

China's ZTE Net down 27 pct in Q2 Amid Competition

From Reuters:

"China's No. 2 maker of telecoms equipment, ZTE Corp., said on Thursday its second-quarter net profit fell 27 percent amid stiff competition internationally and slowing business at home."

" ... while Huawei has succeeded in tapping more lucrative Western markets, most recently scoring its first deal in Japan, ZTE has remained confined to less lucrative and more competitive developing markets such as Africa and the Middle East."

Lenovo’s Raid On Dell Executive Ranks Continues

From Local Tech Wire:

"For the fourth time in a week, personal computer manufacturer Lenovo has raided the management ranks of archrival Dell for an executive. The latest hire, announced Thursday morning, is Christopher Askew, who was vice president of Dell Services for Asia-Pacific and Japan. Askew had worked for Dell since 1999 and oversaw Dell’s services business for the 38 countries covering the Asia-Pacific and Japan markets, according to Lenovo.

William Amelio, Lenovo’s chief executive officer, ran Asian operations for Dell before joining Lenovo last winter."

Google & China.com Partner For Search

From Search Engine Journal:

"Google has partnered with China.com to bring Google search results to the Chinese portal and business oriented service. The partnership with China.com may be “Google’s most comprehensive business alliance since entering the China market” according to the two companies."

China Net Investor: China.com Inc. is a subsidiary of CDC Corporation


From ChinaTechNews:
CDC Corporation Reports Q2 ResultsAugust 23, 2006

From SeekingAlpha:
CDC Corp. Q2 2006 Earnings Conference Call Transcript (CHINA)

MySpace Founder Targets China's Millions

From vnunet.com:

"One of the founders of leading social networking site MySpace hopes to repeat its success in China.

Brad Greenspan, who once controlled 30 per cent of MySpace, said that he had launched and provided initial funding for BroadWebAsia (BWA), a company that will invest in "social networking, entertainment and search websites across Asia". "

Legendary TV Show "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman Available on Google Video for Free

A gem!
The legendary television show "Free to Choose" by Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman is now available on Google Video for free:

Milton Friedman - "Free to Choose"



Related:
Free to Choose in China
By Gregory C Chow, Princeton University

Abstract:

"This paper reviews the significant changes in China’s economic and political institutions by discussing eight topics from Milton and Rose Friedman’s Free to Choose. The topics selected are economic freedom, the relation between economic and political freedom, the role of government, social welfare, education, consumer protection, macroeconomic policy and trend in the development of economic and political freedom. Both past restrictions of freedom and recent improvements are discussed from a comparative perspective with the United States."

Chinese Authorities Don't Like Parodies

From BostonHerald:

"China will regulate video on the Internet following a surge in satirical items in which real film clips are remade into mocking send-ups.
Video spoofs have become so popular that Chinese have even coined a new slang term, "egao," to describe the act.

Beginning in late August or September, only authorized Web sites such as Sina.com, Sohu.com and Netease.com will be allowed to show short films, the official Xinhua News Agency said Wednesday, citing an announcement by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television."

From ChinaTechNews:

"More than 100 entrepreneurs from companies in Beijing's Zhongguancun ("the Silicon Valley of China") gathered on August 15 to promise defense of Chinese national brands as a way to commemorate the 65th anniversary of China's victory in resisting Japanese aggression. ...

The Zhongguancun area boasts a number of famous Chinese enterprises, including Lenovo (LNVGY), Sohu.com (SOHU), and Haier."

Global Sources, HC360 Merging To Challenge Alibaba

From Pacific Epoch:

"Business-to-business companies Global Sources (Nasdaq: GSOL) and HC International on August 14 announced plans to merge in mid-2007, reports China Business News. HC International operates the B2B website HC360.com.

HC International Guo Fansheng said that the consolidated entity will exceed Alibaba in terms of market share with a 43 percent share."

Related:
China's B2B Market Reached RMB 1.26 Billion in 2005
Rivalry between eBay and its Chinese Competitor Alibaba Heats up

Vodafone Loses Crown to China Mobile

From icBirmingham:

"Vodafone is facing up to life without the title of the world's largest mobile phone company.
The Newbury-based group has lost its crown to China Mobile, a company which was only set up in 2000 and now has a market value of £69.7 billion, against £57.9 billion for Vodafone.

According to reports yesterday, China Mobile also claims to be the world's largest mobile phone operator ranked by number of subscribers.
It has more than 200 million customers while the most recent figure from Vodafone shows 186.8 million worldwide. Vodafone's turnover is still ahead of China Mobile's."

Video: "Investment Opportunities in China" - Dr. Burton G. Malkiel

"Investment Opportunities in China" - Dr. Burton G. Malkiel Speaks at Google

Burton Gordon Malkiel (born August 28, 1932) is a professor of economics at Princeton University and is the author of the classic finance book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street". He is a leading proponent of the Efficient market hypothesis, which contends that prices of publicly traded assets reflect all publicly available information.

Related:
Investment Strategies to Exploit Economic Growth in China (pdf)
by Burton G. Malkiel, Princeton University
CEPS Working Paper No. 122
December 2005

Free China Tech Companies Q2 2006 Earnings Conference Call Transcripts (GSOL, NCTY, JOBS)

From SeekingAlpha:

Global Sources (GSOL):
Global Sources Q2 2006 Earnings Conference Call Transcript (GSOL)
The9 (NCTY):
The9 Q2 2006 Earnings Conference Call Transcript (NCTY)
51job (JOBS):
51job Q2 2006 Earnings Conference Call Transcript (JOBS)

FTBN — Fibre To Bloody Nowhere

From The Age:

"Hundreds of millions of Chinese in rural areas may not have clean water, but chances are they have mobile phone coverage and probably soon, access to the internet. Thanks to a central government policy instigated more than 20 years ago, China is rolling out a world-class telecommunications infrastructure that will ultimately connect every village to the internet.
Today, broadband connections are available in all major Chinese cities, not just Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and virtually no real estate is constructed without installing optic fibre cable."

""In many ways telecommunications here is better than in Europe and the US for sure," Eltschinger (CEO of IT United, a China-based software and outsourcing company) says. "I have been on the Tibet plateau and had better mobile reception than travelling from Dallas to Houston, where the coverage is crap."

The9 Records 630,000 Peak Concurrent Users For World of Warcraft

From The Motley Fool:

"It's amazing what a single hit game can do. Chinese gaming upstart The9 (Nasdaq: NCTY) had another blowout quarter, thanks to the popularity of the licensed version of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, which is taking off nicely in the world's most populous nation."

"The company can now claim five million paid accounts. At any given moment, 330,000 diehard Chinese gamers are playing the game at the same time, with usage peaking at 630,000 enthusiasts."

Google's Blogger Service Unblocked (again) in China

From ITworld.com:

"Google Inc.'s free Web log service, Blogger, is once again accessible from Beijing without the use of a proxy server, indicating that apparent government efforts to block the site have been lifted.

Access to Blogger was restored on Thursday. The site has largely been inaccessible from China since late 2002, when government censors apparently blocked access to Google's search engine and other sites. Last year, Blogger was accessible during a three-month period that stretched from mid-October until December, when the service once again became inaccessible."

China's B2B Market Reached RMB 1.26 Billion in 2005

Press Release

BEIJING, Aug. 11 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Analysys International, a leading Internet based provider of business information about technology, media and telecom (TMT) industries in China, said in its recently released report "China B2B Market Annual Report 2006", that China's B2B market size, including online B2B services and related offline services, reached RMB 1.26 billion in 2005.

According to Analysys International's research, in 2005, Alibaba's B2B delivery value was RMB 520 million, occupying a dominant market share of 41%, followed by Global Sources RMB 374 million, 30% and Hc360.com RMB 162 million, 13%.



Source: Analysys International

Rights Group Blasts Internet Companies Over China Policies

From TechWeb:

"Human Rights Watch on Thursday called on the United States and the European Union to bar Internet companies from storing personal user data on servers in China, where government officials are tightening their control of political discourse on the Web.

The international activist group said Western nations should pass laws to protect Chinese political activists, because companies like Google, Microsoft MSN, and Yahoo are more focused on a race to please Beijing.

"Laws are needed to end this race to the bottom and establish a level playing field so that the Chinese government can't pick off companies one by one," Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "Otherwise the standard set will be that of the company trying the hardest to please the Chinese government." "

Google Expands in China

From vnunet.com:

"Google China will open a new research center in Shanghai next year, according to company sources quoted in local media. Kaifu Lee, a Google vice-president in China, told the Shanghai Daily that Google aimed to double the number of Chinese sites using its advertising services by the end of the year."

"Google's new Shanghai R&D centre will be the firm's second in China, with the first, in Beijing, opened last year. The company also has a research centre in Taipei."

Huawei Wins Spanish 3G Deal with Vodafone

From electronicsweekly.com:

"Huawei Technologies has been selected by Vodafone to supply and install the radio access infrastructure for its WCDMA/ 3G broadband (HSDPA) network for cities in Spain. This is another example of the Chinese telecoms manufacturer’s growing importance as a supplier to European telecoms and mobile operators."

Chinese Global Champions in Waiting

From Deutsche Bank Research:
By Andreas Lunding

Global champions in waiting - Perspectives on China's overseas direct investment (PDF).

"One specific priority for the Chinese government under the ‘Going Global’ strategy is the creation of a number of ‘global champions’ – large multinational firms with globally recognised brands able to compete in the international marketplace (see chart). Examples of such global champions, of which authorities in Beijing have estimated there will be 150 within a decade, would include Hai’er (home appliances – occupying more than half of the small refrigerator market in the US), Galanz (microwaves – producing one third of microwave ovens in the world under its own brand), and Tsingtao (beer)."

Source: Deutsche Bank Research

Want to publish on this website (newsletter, rss feed)? Propose your own research report, article or press release by sending an email to: chinanetinvestor@gmail.com

Lenovo Moves into the Black

From The Register:

"Lenovo bounced back into the black in Q1 – just. But a slump in European sales took the shine off an otherwise reasonable quarter for the world's number three PC maker.

Lenovo turned over $3.5bn for the quarter ended 30 June, from which it squeezed a teeny net profit of $5m. Strip out restructuring charges, and pre-tax income was $34m. Last quarter the company lost $118m.

Sales rocked on its home turf (that's China, not America, which following last year's $1.25bn takeover of IBM's PC business is now Lenovo's second home). Shipments in the quarter grew 30 per cent, propelled by better geographic coverage and soaring notebook sales."

Nimble Newcomer Huawei Pushes Telecoms Mergers

From Electronic News:

"The rapid emergence of China’s Huawei in the global telecom market has been the main impetus behind the rash of recent mergers and acquisitions in the industry, according to telecom analysts.

“This is really pushing the mergers among the larger players because Huawei has come out and really scared them. It really opened up the views of the big players,” said Sara Harris, senior industry analyst of Strategy Analytics.

Scott Clavenna, chief analyst at Heavy Reading, said the expansion of Huawei outside China is the “most game-changing factor in the telecoms supply market in the past five years.” "

"Recent mergers and re-alignments in the industry have involved major players such as Alcatel, Lucent Technologies, Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens."

Huawei Round Up

From cellular-news: Huawei Wins China Mobile GSM Contract

"China Mobile has awarded a GSM expansion contract to Huawei, for a mobile softswitch with a 30 million subscriber-capacity and more than 30 thousand TRXs in Q2 2006. According to the contract, Huawei will provide the EnerG GSM solution. The company will also provide its new generation GSM dual density BTS."


From TheStreet: Motorola, Huawei in UMTS Venture

"The companies will create a joint research and development center in Shanghai, where employees from both companies will work on development of the architecture and portfolio of products and services. The venture will cover the universal mobile telecommunications system, or UMTS, and high-speed packet access, or HSPA, technologies that underlie so-called third-generation wireless communications, enabling services such as email and Web browsing."

Foreigners Take Hold of China Mobile Market

From AsiaMedia:

"Deep-pocketed foreign mobile phone makers led by Finland's Nokia and South Korea's Samsung Electronics are moving to tighten their grip on the China market, as consolidation continues to sweep away smaller mainland players.

Expanded distribution and local alliances were helping the world's top three handset suppliers lead the charge to dominate China, industry experts said.

"Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung are gaining share in China at the expense of everyone else," said Ted Dean, managing director at market research firm BDA China, without providing figures."

China's Internet Revolution

From siliocon.com:

"According to research by Ipsos Insight, the mean number of hours spent online in China (17.9 in one month) surpasses all other countries.

Porter Erisman, VP for Chinese trading website Alibaba says: "The internet is at the core of community. If you look at online communities in the West... in China it's like that but on steroids. The culture is incredibly social and people always want to be connected to friends and family." "

"Chat rooms, bulletin board systems (BBS) and blogs have become extremely popular in Chinese culture. ... TR Harrington, MD of Shanghai-based Darwin Marketing, says: "The BBS forums have a tremendous influence. If you look at media in China, the government controls it, so it's not always what the people believe. They feel like they get the best opinions from their fellow men from the bulletin boards." "

Baidu Round Up

From ChinaTechNews: Baidu Ends Cooperation With Beijing Sales Agent

"Following its recent contract termination with Beijing Zhenlong Advertising, Chinese Internet search engine Baidu.com has now ended its cooperation with another key agent in Beijing, Jinghe Xinda."

"Baidu has been shifting from its agent system to direct sales in key markets in China."


From Multilingual Search: HP to load Baidu on computers in China

"Baidu, China’s largest search engine and Hewlitt Packard have announced that all HP Pavilion and HP Presario series computers that are sold in China will come with Baidu already loaded. HP users will be able to use Baidu’s search engine service through the embedded IE browser homepage or address search, without having to navigate to the Baidu website. They will also be able to access the Baidu homepage by pressing a shortcut key."


From China Web 2.0 Review: Baidu Launches Several Products

1. Baidu Space: MSN Spaces-style product
2. Baidu Focused-Advertising: Advertising based on users personalized surfing behavior
3. Baidu Disk Search Server Version
4. Baidu Toolbar 5.0
5. Baidu X: P2P video download tool and player

Free China Tech Companies Q2 2006 Earnings Conference Call Transcripts

From SeekingAlpha:

Sina Q2 2006 Earnings Conference Call Transcript (SINA)
eLong Q2 2006 Earnings Conference Call Transcript (LONG)
Sohu.com Q2 2006 Earnings Conference Call Transcript (SOHU)
Baidu.com Inc. Q2 2006 Earnings Conference Call Transcript (BIDU)

Chinese Search Engine Shows No Fear Of Large American Rivals

From Investor's Business Daily:

"China's Internet market has attracted America's two biggest search engines. But they don't come close to matching the popularity of China's homegrown search engine, Baidu.com.
Baidu has out-Googled Google, not to mention Yahoo.

Both are distant second- and third-place rivals in China's nascent search-engine market. And the gap is getting wider, analysts say. Though estimates vary, Piper Jaffray figures that Baidu commands 55% of China's search market vs. 24% for Google and 7% for Yahoo."

"Google hasn't been "terribly aggressive" in boosting its China search-engine business, Collier says. But that might change. Analysts expect Google to turn up the heat in 2007. It's building a new facility in Beijing's tech zone."