China Economy Forum

[TaiShang]

Xiaomi smartphone taps into US market

Xiaomi Corp, the world's third-largest smartphone manufacturer, will launch its new smartphone in Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that falls in January 2015 in Las Vegas, the first-ever appearance of the fast-growing Chinese IT company in the US market.

According to the Economic Daily News in China, Xiaomi might launch its newest flagship smartphone Mi5 their newest flagship that has high-end specifications but with a low-end price, like most of the smartphones that have come out of China.

It was reported that the new smartphone will may pack a Quad 5.7-inch HD display, a powerful Qualcomm chipset as well as fingerprint scanning tech by default.

According to a report from International Data Corporation (IDC), Xiaomi's smartphone shipment in the third quarter 2014 ranked the third after Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.

Lei Jun, Xiaomi's founder and CEO, dubbed as "China's Steve Jobs", said the company might become the world's largest smartphone maker in the next five to ten years during a forum of World Internet Conference held in November in China.

Xiaomi stepped into global market by entering 10 new markets India, Brazil and Russia this year. It also set a goal of increasing sales to 100 million phones in 2015, according to an April 23 report from Bloomberg News.

The company recently has been making a series of aggressive investments for entering the global and US market. Analysts point out that Lei has started to make Xiaomi's own ecosystem to challenge Apple.

On Dec 1, the company announced its participation in the $40 million fundraising for Misfit, a Silicon Valley-based start-up. It is the first time that Xiaomi has taken a stake in a US mobile-device maker.

Misfit, which claims to make the biggest-selling activity and sleep tracker in China, said on Tuesday it had raised new financing from Xiaomi, e-commerce company JD.com Inc., and venture-capital firms GGV Capital and Shunwei, a VC firm set up by Xiaomi.

Xiaomi Corp, and Kingsoft Corp., announced on Dec 4 that the two companies will invest $1 billion for cloud services in next three to five years.

Lei, co-founder of both companies, revealed details of the first-round $222 million investment in the NASDAQ-listed 21Vianet Group Inc., the largest carrier-neutral Internet data center service provider in China. Temasek Holdings of Singapore also agreed to inject $74 million into 21Vianet.

"Cloud service will become one of the prime costs of IT companies in the future," said Lei on Dec 3.

"For instance, at the current data upload speed, Xiaomi after next year will have to pay an annual $488 million fee for the data storage, most of which are the pictures and videos from users of Xiaomi's smartphones and other mobile technology products," said Lei.

"Sixty-eight million Xiaomi users are uploading 90 million pictures and 2 million videos every day," said Lei.

On Nov 19, Xiaomi also made a $294 million investment in online video provider iQiyi, a unit of search giant Baidu Inc.

 

[TaiShang]

CapitaLand unveils huge real estate expansion plan

Potential house buyers visit a recent property exhibition in Beijing.[China Daily]

CapitaLand Ltd, one of Asia's largest real estate companies, plans to add four integrated development projects in China each year in the coming three years, the company's top management said.

"There is still room for growth in China," says Lim Ming Yan, the company's group president and chief executive officer. "From a risk perspective, it shall not be a problem if the investment portion of China exceeds 50 percent."

CapitaMalls Asia, a company under the Singapore-based CapitaLand Ltd, had 48 percent of its assets ratio in China.

"Although we still hope to keep some business elsewhere, we are focusing on the core markets of China and Singapore," he says, adding that the group plans to intensify investment in the five city clusters of Beijing-Tianjin, Shanghai-Hangzhou-Suzhou-Ningbo, Guangzhou-Shenzhen, Chengdu-Chongqing, and Wuhan.

As of now the company owns 150 real estate projects and real estate financial products in China, mainly in the above regions.

Lim took over as president and CEO of CapitaLand in early 2013, and carried out a series of reforms, including new appointments and realignment of operations within the company's four main business units－CapitaLand Singapore, CapitaLand China, CapitaMalls Asia and The Ascott Ltd.

The most recent personnel changes took place in September: Jason Leow, former CEO of CapitaLand China, was appointed CEO of CapitaMalls Asia. His position was taken by CapitaLand China's former deputy CEO and former CIO Lucas Loh.

"We streamlined our structure, made it more flexible and carried out other major moves since last year, which are all oriented to our development strategy, our core markets," Lim says.

CapitaLand has about 50 projects with investment volume of S$36 billion ($27.58 billion), which would be completed in three years, and more than half of these are in China.

Besides China and Singapore, the company also sees potential in other Asian markets including Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia.

CapitaLand is not alone in its "China craze". Despite the Chinese government's efforts to curb inflation and surging property prices, foreign capital is still bullish about the market.

In March, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board announced a plan to invest $250 million in the Chinese real estate market through a new venture with China Vanke Co Ltd, the nation's largest residential developer.

Private equity firms like Blackstone Group and KKR have already raised tens of billions of dollars targeting property investments in the Asian market.

Shen Jianguang, chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd, said in a recent speech at the 2014 Boao Real Estate Forum in Hainan province that foreign investors will show greater interest in China's capital market, especially the real estate market.

The Chinese government started to ease the monetary policies since May, with more than 20 percent growth in fiscal expenditure and more than 20 percent decrease in effective interest rate, which made investors across the globe perceive lower risks for hard landing of China's economy, he says.

"With fundamentals continuing to improve and the addition of more liquidity, there has been a large increase in overseas capital flows, and the trend will continue," he says.

Lim sees market changes amid the fast urbanization process in China.

"In the preliminary stage of urbanization, residential property enjoyed great market prospects. Now the development direction seems to have shifted to urban infrastructure since 2012 or 2013," he says.

However, in spite of chances in developing commercial property such as shopping centers, the booming e-commerce platform in China is posing new challenges, says Jason Leow of CapitaMalls Asia.

"While e-commerce is gaining larger retail market share, some clients are either reducing the number of their stores or narrowing the store area, which does pose new challenges," Leow says.

To cope with the situation, CapitaMalls Asia is integrating its 104 malls in China to collect data on buying habits of customers.

"It is easy for online stores to learn consumer preferences by collecting data on the Internet, while it is not so easy for physical stores. So we are gathering data from customers to help the stores better understand their consumption habits, so that they can develop ideas for site selection, planning and designing," he says.

 

[TaiShang]

China's exports rise 4.7 pct in Nov.

China's exports rose 4.7 percent year on year to 211.66 billion U.S. dollars in November, customs data showed on Monday.

Imports stood at 157.19 billion U.S. dollars, down 6.7 percent, the data showed

 

[Aepsilons]

The Shanghai Composite veered between gains and losses on Friday as a recent rally survived a series of short-lived selloffs to cap a weekly gain of 9.5%. The value of shares traded in Shanghai hit a daily record of 639 billion yuan ($103.8 billion).

WOW. Talk about size.

 

[dray]

@DRAY actually, if you could read, the article is criticizing the study as "lousy".

This thread is now about India's alleged capabilities in English, and how they're non-existent in fact.

Read. The figure they arrived at has nothing to do with individual projects being surveyed and deemed "worthless".

Are you retarded? Chinese banks alone hold $18trillion in desposits, which is nearly 6x the total net worth and 10x the GDP of India.

haha more nonsense from the guy who has never taken an economics class. Just because China doesn't record some of its consumption, doesn't mean it doesn't consume.

Take that lesson and maybe get your economic growth above that pathetic $100 billion a year ...

And what is the debt of chinese banks that has gone bad or expected to go bad? I have already given enough material here, read those before posting your 'beliefs'. Rest of your post is not worth replying.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Can you believe that America has more roads than China does? Despite China having a vastly larger population?

That's why we are still a developing country. Our per capita infrastructure levels are still low.

In order to eventually become a developed country, we are going to have to build infrastructure at a pace never seen before in history, due to our population of over a billion.

India has a similar population level, but they failed hard in terms of infrastructure, even basic things like sanitation.

Wasteful investment is a big problem in China, but at least the houses have been built. Tell a starving person on the street if it's better to have a house you can't sell, or no house at all.

 

[dray]

I don't believe in that. America and Europe position is far worse than that. US economy is like a fairy tail running on magic, this is clearly the case of the art of misdirection. Hey, magic works cause i always get fooled.

US controls the world economy in more ways than you can imagine, you are playing their game by their rules. I would rather take the opinion of western economists than anybody else. Btw, even many chinese economists are not very positive about the economic mess in China.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

US controls the world economy in more ways than you can imagine, you are playing their game by their rules. I would rather take the opinion of western economists than anybody else. Btw, even many chinese economists are not very positive about the economic mess in China.

I'm sure you've seen all the "China asset bubble collapse" stories out in the last few years.

Many of these stories come out of Chinese economists.

Now look back in hindsight, and see how it played out.

If you compare on indicators like currency reserves, and public debt, China is in an enviable position. We have $4 trillion in currency reserves, and one of the lowest public debt levels in the world.

 

[dray]

Can you believe that America has more roads than China does? Despite China having a vastly larger population?

That's why we are still a developing country. Our per capita infrastructure levels are still low.

In order to eventually become a developed country, we are going to have to build infrastructure at a pace never seen before in history, due to our population of over a billion.

India has a similar population level, but they failed hard in terms of infrastructure, even basic things like sanitation.

Wasteful investment is a big problem in China, but at least the houses have been built. Tell a starving person on the street if it's better to have a house you can't sell, or no house at all.

The last paragraph sums up yout entire post, as you have admitted; wasteful investment is a big problem in China, and I think the problem can actually be bigger than the 2008 sub-prime crisis. And no, poor people of China can't afford those houses, and giving it free to them will not help chinese economy.

 

[Beast]

US controls the world economy in more ways than you can imagine, you are playing their game by their rules. I would rather take the opinion of western economists than anybody else. Btw, even many chinese economists are not very positive about the economic mess in China.

Western economist? Aren't they the one screwing up their own economic? And you still can trust their words?

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

The last paragraph sums up yout entire post, as you have admitted; wasteful investment is a big problem in China, and I think the problem can actually be bigger than the 2008 sub-prime crisis. And no, poor people of China can't afford those houses, and giving it free to them will not help chinese economy.

It's funny that you think we'll be the ones having a crisis.

We have $4 trillion in currency reserves, which alone is more than double the Indian GDP. And we have one of the lowest public debt levels in the world, much lower than India.

And we have an enormous trade surplus, whereas India only has deficits.

But I'm happy you think that way. I told the Indian members here the same thing when I joined the forum back in 2010. Fast forward, and today and India's growth rate is 4-5%.

 

[dray]

I'm sure you've seen all the "China asset bubble collapse" stories out in the last few years.

Many of these stories come out of Chinese economists.

Now look back in hindsight, and see how it played out.

If you compare on indicators like currency reserves, and public debt, China is in an enviable position. We have $4 trillion in currency reserves, and one of the lowest public debt levels in the world.

And total chinese bank debt has risen to $25 trillion, that $4 trillion can be an effective tool for trolling, but it is not the solution to every problem China faces or going to face @Chinese-Dragon

 

[Beast]

And total chinese bank debt has risen to $25 trillion, that $4 trillion can be an effective tool for trolling, but it is not the solution to every problem China faces or going to face @Chinese-Dragon

25 trillion debt? Are you high on drugs?

 

[dray]

It's funny that you think we'll be the ones having a crisis.

We have $4 trillion in currency reserves, which alone is more than double the Indian GDP. And we have one of the lowest public debt levels in the world, much lower than India.

And we have an enormous trade surplus, whereas India only has deficits.

But I'm happy you think that way. I told the Indian members here the same thing when I joined the forum back in 2010. Fast forward, and today and India's growth rate is 4-5%.

1. The thread is not about India.

2. You have clearly gone into trolling mode, not gonna work.

25 trillion debt? Are you high on drugs?

NO.

Wake up!

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

1. The thread is not about India.

2. You have clearly gone into trolling mode, not gonna work.

I know you're trying to keep this thread bumped up to the top of the list, and guess what I'll help you.

I'm glad people are still underestimating China. It serves our "Tao guang yang hui" strategy perfectly.