Internet

Big American dreams mark peak China e-commerce

30 Aug 2022

Shares of Alibaba challenger Pinduoduo jumped 15% after smashing earnings expectations. It is doing well chasing down its rival but the company’s march to U.S. shores, inspired by the success of mysterious fast-fashion retailer Shein, is a telling sign of a limited runway at home.

Capital Calls: Paytm protest vote

22 Aug 2022

Concise views on global finance: A majority of the Indian fintech posterchild’s public institutional investors voted against the pay of founder and boss Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

Capital Calls: Cineworld needed AMC’s apes

19 Aug 2022

Concise views on global finance: The U.K.-based cinema chain is preparing for bankruptcy, according to the Wall Street Journal, while similarly debt-beleaguered AMC is still standing – an object lesson in the power of becoming a favorite of retail traders.

Alibaba offers false ray of China’s economic dawn

4 Aug 2022

Quarterly revenue at the $260 bln e-commerce giant was flat, beating horrid expectations. As lockdowns ease, the hope is that consumers will spend more. But online advertisers, Alibaba’s core customers, are cutting budgets, suggesting a protracted slowdown is on its way.

Capital Calls: Spotify hums along

27 Jul 2022

Concise views on global finance: The music service led by Daniel Ek added more subscribers and revenue in the quarter outperforming Netflix and Twitter.

Capital Calls: Shopify’s mea culpa

26 Jul 2022

Concise views on global finance: A memo from the e-commerce company’s CEO spells out how they miscalculated the "new normal."

Hard tech fad leaves Chinese apps out in the cold

26 Jul 2022

Tencent-backed Soulgate is among the country's startups rushing to list in Hong Kong as investors pile into chips and robotics. Ballooning losses at the $2 bln social network will be a tough sell. For larger peers like TikTok-owner ByteDance, the clock to go public is ticking.

Europe’s $6 bln space M&A is governance Death Star

25 Jul 2022

France’s Eutelsat and Britain’s OneWeb may merge to pool the cost of new broadband satellites. It de-risks things for UK shareholders, including the state, but Eutelsat investors hate it. Reconciling the interests of two governments and financial backers looks a thankless task.

ECB plays with fire while unspooling its hose

21 Jul 2022

President Christine Lagarde hiked interest rates by 0.5%, double the amount she flagged last month, and unveiled a vague tool to control euro zone bond yields. If monetary tightening hastens an economic slowdown, the central bank will need its new powers sooner rather than later.

Alibaba suffers under someone else’s cloud

15 Jul 2022

Investors erased $14 bln of the company’s value on news that authorities summoned executives after a breach of a police database it hosts. The hack of 1 bln Chinese citizens’ details seems mostly an embarrassing government cybersecurity flop. But Alibaba is an easy proxy target.

India’s crisis buffers are part optical illusion

4 Jul 2022

New Delhi is loosening purse strings to cushion imported inflation as the central bank hikes rates. Rising trade and fiscal deficits put economic recovery at risk, but there’s no good alternative. In that context, throwing precious reserves at a plunging rupee could be rash.

India’s Zomato gorges on a deal in lean times

27 Jun 2022

As tech companies tighten their belts, half the country’s food-delivery duopoly is paying $570 mln for grocery outfit Blinkit. SoftBank and other sellers swap a down round for a safety net. Using richly valued stock should make it more palatable for the buyer’s shareholders.

Baidu video sale hints at a China tech plot twist

16 Jun 2022

The search-engine operator may divest its Netflix-like streaming arm in a $7 bln deal. Ordinarily rivals like Tencent would welcome the opportunity, but the recent anti-trust crackdown will deter them. That clears the way for otherwise unlikely bidders, including state companies.

Capital Calls: Turkey, Nintendo/Sony, India IPO

10 May 2022

Concise views on global finance: President Erdogan makes another ham-fisted monetary intervention; the Switch maker weathers supply chain ructions better than its larger rival; New Delhi needs to be even more generous in its landmark listing of Life Insurance Corp of India.

China’s private cloud giants sail into storm

10 May 2022

Alibaba and Tencent want to dominate the country's $35 bln data storage and services market. But cybersecurity hawks are pushing contracts toward state-backed firms. Trying to identify and back China's answer to Amazon Web Services may not turn out the way investors expect.

Switch may be high-water mark for data center M&A

3 May 2022

The company, in which activist Elliott has invested, could attract a bid from Brookfield. Even after 2021’s landmark deals, a market cap of nearly $8 bln would make Switch a pricey target. With tech valuations under pressure, this might be the top for data-center dealmaking.

Bitcoin’s African outpost raises several red flags

2 May 2022

War-torn Central African Republic is following El Salvador in adopting the crypto unit as legal tender. The surprise of the region’s central bank and Bangui’s use of sanctioned Russian mercenaries are warning signs. Bitcoin’s quest for mainstream acceptance just got harder.

Musk has at least three Twitter problems to fix

28 Apr 2022

In the first quarter, the $37 bln network’s expenses rose twice as fast as revenue. Users were up 16%, but Twitter admitted it had mistakenly puffed those up in the past. Plus, still it hasn’t proven it can be regularly profitable. That all takes attention Musk may not have.

Big Tech’s growth story faces a one-two punch

26 Apr 2022

Inflation means advertisers and subscription clients have less money to spend at places like Google and Microsoft. Meanwhile, a tight labor market makes hiring more difficult and expensive. Without new business to sell or people to sell it, tech companies lose their shine.

Netflix with ads is worth the change of heart

25 Apr 2022

A rare drop in subscribers helped make co-founder Reed Hastings open to a cheaper advertising-supported package similar to HBO Max. If Netflix can reap the equivalent of Spotify's ad revenue, it could add nearly 40% to its worth. With shares cratering, every bit helps.