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Jul

2011

Top five best social media stocks

by Fred Mason

It’s becoming clear that social networking is big business – particularly on the heels of news that Global X is planning a social media ETF. Throw in upcoming IPOs from Twitter and Facebook, and it’s starting to feel like 1999. Even before Facebook and Twitter go to the markets, though, there are already a handful of pure (or nearly pure) plays in the social networking space. Here’s a look at the Top 5 social media stocks to date:

1) LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE:LNKD). Trading at a P/E of 646, LinkedIn isn’t cheap. The social networking site for professionals does have some interesting tricks up its sleeve, though. For one, more than a quarter of the company’s revenue comes from subscription-based services. That gives it a steady flow of incoming cash that a lot of the company’s peers don’t have. Check out my post “LinkedIn IPO: 5 things you don’t know about the professional social network” for more.

2) RenRen Inc. (NYSE:RENN). RenRen lost $64 million last year, but the company’s growth prospects as the “Facebook of China” are tantalizing. Traffic at the site is up more than 12 percent over the past three months, according to Internet stats company Alexa.com (that’s roughly the amount of time since RenRen’s IPO). Alexa ranks RenRen.com as the 16th most-visited site in China.

3) SINA Corporation (NASDAQ:SINA). OK. SINA’s not a pure social media stock play, but the company does own Weibo.com. Weibo (pronounced “WAY-bwah”) happens to be the Chinese equivalent of Twitter on steroids. Growth at the micro-blogging site is off the charts. Over the past three months, it’s shot up 865 percent. That’s got SINA (which is partially owned by Yahoo!) thinking about spinning Weibo off.

4) Taomee Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:TAOM). Don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of Taomee. You probably wouldn’t have unless you’re a child with an Internet connection in China. Taomee operates safe social networking spaces for tykes. The virtual worlds the company has created are quickly morphing into the offline world, too, with bestselling books and upcoming TV and movie projects in the pipeline (Click to read our recent article: Five reasons to invest in Taomee IPO (TAOM) for more).

5) Tencent Holdings Ltd. (HKG:0700). I’ve listed Tencent in the No. 5 slot simply because you can’t buy shares in the Chinese tech giant on American exchanges (you’ll have to trade shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange). Tencent operates China’s second most-popular Web site: QQ.com. QQ’s instant messaging software is omnipresent in China. In fact, with more than 647 million users, it’s the largest online community in the world.

Honorable Mentions: Ancestry.com (NASDAQ:ACOM) and Jiayuan.com International Ltd. (NASDAQ:DATE). Read more on Jiayuan: 3 reasons to invest in Chinese dating site Jiayuan.com.

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Tags: ACOM, DATE, LNKD, RENN, SINA, social networking stocks, TAOM, Tencent Holdings
Posted in Chinese stocks, Internet stocks, IPOs, tech stocks | No Comments »

May

2011

5 reasons NOT to invest in the RenRen IPO

by Fred Mason

Let me preface this by saying I’ve drank the RenRen Kool-Aid. How could any self-respecting geek turn down the opportunity to invest in the first major U.S. IPO for a social networking stock – especially one that’s being dubbed “the Facebook of China”? Still, there are warning signs that warrant being pointed out (even if you ultimately decide to ignore them in what will probably be a feeding frenzy on IPO day):

1) Competition. As it stands now, Facebook.com is blocked by the Chinese government. Rumors are running rampant that a partnership with Baidu.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) – China’s largest search engine – is imminent, though. That could be bad news for RenRen. Who needs a Facebook clone, after all, when you can get the real thing? That said, I’m still not sure Facebook’s willing to turn information on its users over to the Chinese government – particularly if those users end up “disappearing” a few days later. Even if Facebook does decide to move ahead, it won’t happen overnight.

2) How many users do we have? One of the more puzzling pieces of the RenRen IPO is trying to figure out how many people use the site. RenRen itself can’t seem to spit out an accurate number. On April 15, the company claimed monthly uniques grew 29 percent (up 7 million users) during Q1 2011, per the Daily Times. Then, on April 27, RenRen back-tracked saying that monthly uniques were actually up just 19 percent (or 5 million users) during Q1. Weird…

All told, RenRen claims to have 117 million activated users as of March 31, 2011. Sources outside the company including Beijing’s Analysys International had previously reported the site has as many as 160 million registered users. I guess estimates will have to suffice.

3) Accounting abnormalities. “Prior to this offering, we have been a private company with limited accounting personnel and other resources for addressing our internal control over financial reporting,” RenRen writes in its F-1 filing with the SEC. An independent review of the company’s accounting procedures turned up “one material weakness and one significant deficiency.” Namely, the company has “insufficient accounting personnel with appropriate U.S. GAAP knowledge,” no stated plan for investing cash surpluses, and poor management of “treasury functions.” That makes RenRen the sort of company that embezzlers and fraudsters love. And fraudsters aren’t in short supply in China (take, for example, the recent news that the CEO of China’s Puda Coal secretly sold the company and forgot to mention that fact to shareholders).

4) PengYou. Ultimately, RenRen’s biggest competitor might not be Facebook, but rather a homegrown rival in PengYou.com. Two weeks ago, analysts at Goldman Sachs went on the record proclaiming PengYou will “become the dominant social network in China by leveraging (Tencent’s) much larger QQ community and more developed platforms.” Although PengYou launched just five months ago, it’s already the 26th most-visited site in China (check out my post RenRen IPO’s biggest hurdle might be PengYou for more).

5) What are ethics? When RenRen first launched in 2005 as XiaoNei.com, the company labeled itself a “Mark Zuckerberg production.” Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, had nothing to do with the site, of course, but that didn’t really matter to RenRen’s founders. They just made a copy of Facebook and pushed it live. RenRen has something of a reputation for stealing ideas. When Kaixin001.com launched a social networking site in China, RenRen copied it (all the way down to the color scheme) and launched the doppelganger on Kaixin.com. Kaixin001.com eventually won a lawsuit against RenRen, but you can still type in Kaixin.com and get re-directed to RenRen.com. Maybe nice guys do finish last, after all.

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Tags: BIDU, Facebook, PengYou, QQ, RenRen, RenRen IPO, social networking stocks, Tencent Holdings
Posted in Chinese stocks, GS, Internet stocks, IPOs, NASDAQ, private companies, tech stocks | No Comments »

Apr

2011

RenRen IPO’s biggest hurdle might be PengYou

by Fred Mason

With RenRen’s IPO date looming on May 4, investors are salivating over the first major social networking site to hit American stock exchanges. The so-called “Facebook of China” may face stiff competition in the months to come, though, as both Baidu.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) and Tencent Holdings Ltd. (HKG:0700) have moved to aggressively ramp up their social marketing efforts in China.

China’s largest search engine, Baidu.com, is well-known among investors. Shares in the company debuted on the Nasdaq in 2005, and they’ve risen more than 1140 percent since. Earlier this month, ~~Facebook announced~~ rumors surfaced that Facebook struck a deal with Baidu to launch a new social networking site in the country (per MSNBC). No launch date has been announced (if it does indeed come to pass), but the companies will reportedly work together to build a new social networking site from scratch, as Facebook.com remains blocked by the Chinese government.

A partnership makes perfect sense. Baidu currently owns 73 percent of the search market in China but has struggled to succeed in the social networking space. The site’s reach should help it heavily promote a new social networking venture much the way Google has done with its Chrome Web browser. Facebook benefits from Baidu’s close working relationship with the Chinese government – something its needed to get past the Great Firewall.

Time is of the essence, though, and Tencent already has a head start on Baidu. Tencent operates the world’s largest online community with its wildly popular instant messaging platform, Tencent QQ. QQ claims more than 636 million active users. To put that in perspective, that’s more than twice the population of the U.S.

Tencent’s earliest foray into social networking started in 2009 with the launch of XiaoYou, a Facebook-like platform targeted at students. XiaoYou allowed users to create profiles based on nicknames (rather than real names) much like MySpace.com. We saw how well MySpace played out here, and Tencent must have taken notice.

The company scrapped XiaoYou last summer in favor of a new “real-name” social networking site dubbed PengYou (per TechRice). When PengYou launched public beta testing in September, invites were extended to employees at publicly-listed Chinese companies, including Fortune 500 companies in China, TechRice writes. By December, the site fully opened up to the public, and an Open API was released so that developers could write custom software for PengYou.

The site allows users to sync up with their QQ accounts and their SINA Weibo microblogging accounts (think the “Twitter of China”). Investors like those ideas. Late last week, analysts at Goldman Sachs actually downgraded SINA Corporation (NASDAQ: SINA) from Neutral to Sell citing a belief that SINA’s Weibo won’t be able to compete with full-scale social networks like PengYou.

“In our new analysis, we believe the most likely outcome is for Weibo to become an alternative loosely-engaged social network weighted toward its distinctive social media elements, and for Tencent Pengyou to become the dominant social network in China by leveraging its much larger QQ community and more developed platforms,” Goldman writes.

Since its launch in December (just five months ago), PengYou has grown rapidly. The social network’s currently ranked by Alexa.com as the 26th most-visited site in China. That puts it in striking distance of RenRen.com, which is ranked as the 15th most-visited site in China. It’s clear we’re witnessing the start of what promises to be a dogfight over social networkers in China. Tencent, Facebook and Baidu have entered the race late, but the finish line is a long way over the horizon.

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Tags: BIDU, Facebook, HKG:0700, PengYou, QQ, RenRen, SINA, Sina Weibo, Tencent Holdings, Weibo
Posted in Chinese stocks, Internet stocks, IPOs, NASDAQ, private companies, tech stocks, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Apr

2011

Is Rekoo China’s Zynga?

by Fred Mason

With a valuation around $10 billion, there are few companies that epitomize the growth in social and mobile gaming like Zynga. The maker of FarmVille, Vampire Wars and Scramble Live attracts more than 275 million users to its Facebook games every month – enough to generate an estimated $500 million in revenue every year, according to Dealbook.

Zynga’s clout may overshadow Chinese competitor Rekoo, but Rekoo’s approach closely mirrors Zynga’s and the company’s growth is just as potent. Based in Beijing, the small gaming start-up has looked beyond the Great Firewall as it pushes out titles like Sunshine Ranch, Sunshine Deep Sea and Animal Paradise.

Rekoo first started developing games for Facebook in March 2009. Within six months, Sunshine Ranch and Animal Paradise were so popular that the company was among the Top 10 most successful developers on Facebook, according to Sherman So of Asia Times.

The company’s success outside of China was an eye-opener for Rekoo’s founder Liu Yong. His games were getting just 3 million visitors a day in the U.S., and they were generating revenue of $1 million a month, So writes. Rekoo was getting more than three times as much traffic as that in China, but generating 85 percent less revenue.

Liu saw the writing on the wall, and quickly put the company’s focus on foreign markets. In particular, Liu targeted Japan’s leading social networking site, Mixi.co.jp. The Japanese market was larger than the U.S. market, and customers there were just as willing as Americans to pay for virtual goods. The fact that there was less competition in Japan didn’t hurt either.

Good move. A year and a half later, Rekoo claims 2-3 million visitors to its games in Japan every day. That’s enough for “several million dollars a month” in revenue, So reports. Now, the company’s turning its attention back to the Chinese market with a partnership with China’s largest internet company Tencent.

Liu expects the deal to push Rekoo’s revenue in China from $150,000 a month to $1-$2 million a month by the end of 2011. That would give the company total revenues of more than $50 million a year. Zynga generates ten times as much cash, but a strong foothold in in China could start to close the gap between the two companies. Now, if only Rekoo would consider an IPO.

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Tags: gaming stocks, social networking stocks, Tencent Holdings, Zynga
Posted in Chinese stocks, Internet stocks, private companies, tech stocks | No Comments »

Mar

2011

Is China’s Qihoo IPO a buy? (Ticker:QIHU)

by Fred Mason

The Chinese anti-virus software-maker Qihoo 360 Technology Co. Ltd. is expected to begin trading on Wednesday under the ticker QIHU on the NYSE. The Web security company makes an assorted suite of anti-virus software, the most popular of which is “360 Safe Guard,” which had 301 million monthly active users as of January, according to the company’s F-1 Filing.

Why buy Qihoo 360 shares? Anti-virus + browsers + online games = Big Business.

Qihoo 360 has its fingers in a lot of pots and that adds up to a steady income stream. In 2010, the company booked net income of $8.5 million on $57.7 million in sales. Qihoo pulls in that cash from a number of sources. Chief among them? Paid anti-virus software. In addition to “360 Safe Guard,” the company offers “360 Anti-Virus,” “360 Mobile Safe,” “360 Online Shopping Bodyguard” and more.

There’s a lot more to Qihoo 360, though. The company also makes China’s second most popular Web browser: 360 Safe Browser, which claims 172 million monthly active users and a user penetration rate of 44.1 percent. Safe Browser’s biggest competition is Microsoft Corporation’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Internet Explorer.

Some 98 million of those 172 million monthly active users of Safe Browser access Qihoo 360′s “Personal Start-up Page,” which acts as a content portal and gives Qihoo a platform to promote its other services, including an open gaming and e-commerce platform that’s set up to let developers build and distribute online games and shopping services. Game developers are among Qihoo’s heaviest advertisers, often paying the company to promote new games or inking rev-share agreements with the company.

All this adds up to Qihoo claiming to be China’s third-largest Internet company with more than 300 million monthly active users. That’s a great base to promote products and it lead to year-over-year revenue growth of 79 percent in 2010, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Bigger and better things. Qihoo 360 plans to use funds from its IPO to research and develop new products. The company will also consider strategic acquisitions that could boost its marketshare in China. One of the most appealing aspects of Qihoo 360, though, is its aggressive expansion into the mobile realm. If mobile anti-virus software becomes a standard paid download for Web users in China, Qihoo could accumulate piles of yuan as the mobile market in China is set to explode.

“Users are also increasingly conducting Internet activities through mobile devices, including mobile-banking, mobile-commerce, mobile-gaming and mobile social networking, among others,” Qihoo 360 writes in the company’s F-1 Filing. “According to iResearch, the number of mobile Internet users in China increased from 17 million in 2006 to 303 million in 2010, representing a CAGR of 105.3%, and is expected to grow further to reach 658 million by the end of 2013.”

658 million mobile users. Think about that number. It’s more than twice the population of the United States.

Bumps in the road: Still, for all the positives, there’s a big unknown in Qihoo 360′s future as the company’s embroiled in a legal dispute with Tencent Holdings Ltd. (HKG:0700). Tencent, which develops China’s leading instant messaging software QQ, started bundling its own anti-virus software, QQ Doctor, with downloads of its instant messaging platform. To run QQ Doctor, users have to uninstall Qihoo 360 software. Both companies have since launched smear campaigns targeting one another as they struggle to maintain market share, according to a Wikipedia page (360 v. Tencent) that details the dispute.

No matter what the ultimate outcome of the case, Qihoo 360 is forging ahead with its IPO. The company plans to sell 12.1 million American depositary shares at $10.50-$12.50 a pop. Every two ADSs will represent three Class A ordinary shares. It’ll be interesting to see how investors respond. I, for one, wouldn’t want to take on Tencent head-to-head, but in China’s cut-throat online market, competition is the name of the game. To the victor go the advertising dollars.

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Tags: China, HKG:0700, MSFT, QIHU, Tencent Holdings
Posted in Chinese stocks, Internet stocks, IPOs, private companies, stock tips, tech stocks, trading stock | 1 Comment »

Mar

2011

3 reasons to buy Baidu stock (BIDU) even at record levels

by Fred Mason

Late last week, Chinese search engine company Baidu.com Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) overtook Web conglomerate Tencent Holdings Ltd. (HKG:0700) as China’s largest Internet company. Baidu’s market value surged to $46.06 billion compared to Tencent’s $44.6 billion, according to Business China. A lot of investors may be questioning just how big Baidu can get, but there are still compelling reasons to consider adding the stock to your portfolio. Here are three of them:

1) A monopoly on search. After Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) pulled out of China last March, Baidu’s share of the Chinese search market has steadily risen to 83.6 percent (per ResonanceChina). That’s led to a big bulge in Baidu’s wallet. During Q4 of 2010, Baidu’s revenue was up 94 percent year-on-year to RMB 2.45 billion with most of that cash coming from online advertising services.

2) A new way to browse. Baidu looks to be aggressively expanding its offerings. Now that it dominates search in China, the company’s announced that it’s hard at work on a Web browser that will compete head-to-head with Google Chrome and Microsoft Corporation’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Internet Explorer. Baidu should be able to leverage its high-visibility search results pages as a platform to advertise the browser and encourage surfers to download it; much like Google did with its Chrome browser. A browser that’s optimized for the Chinese language and surfing habits could make consumers more comfortable (or even dependent) on Baidu’s services.

3) Mobile OS. Rumors surfaced last week that Baidu’s also working on its own “light operating system” for mobile devices to be launched in three to five years. It’ll be interesting to see if Baidu opts for an open-source OS that would compete directly with Google’s Android OS, or if they elect for a closed OS along the lines of Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS, which runs the iPhone and iPod Touch. Either approach could open up valuable revenue streams for Baidu in the mobile app realm.

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Tags: aapl, BIDU, GOOG, HKG:0700, MSFT, search engines, Tencent Holdings
Posted in Chinese stocks, Internet stocks, NASDAQ, stock tips, tech stocks, trading stock | No Comments »

Jan

2011

China’s e-commerce market dominated by four companies

by Ed Roven

With Credit Suisse (NYSE:CS) predicting that China’s e-commerce market will more than quadruple by 2015, you can expect a lot of investors eager to capitalize on revenue growth that might be as high as 100+ percent per year. Here’s a short list of the Top 4 leading e-commerce sites in China per 247WallSt.

Company	% of online sales in China	Site traffic rank in China	Stock ticker
Taobao	75%	3	Owned by Alibaba Group
Paipai	10%	45	Owned by Tencent
360buy	2.5%	28	N/A
Dangdang	0.7	76	DANG

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) also operates Joyo.com in China. The site currently has a traffic rank of 75 in China, according to Alexa.com. Speculation has been running high that Taobao.com and 360buy.com could IPO as early as this fall.

Tags: 360buy.com, Alibaba Group, AMZN, CS, DANG, Joyo.com, Taobao.com, Tencent Holdings
Posted in Chinese stocks, Internet stocks, IPOs, private companies, tech stocks | No Comments »

Jan

2011

China’s Facebook: RenRen.com?

by Ed Roven

With Facebook shut out of China for now, a number of Chinese companies are vying for social networking supremacy in a crowded marketplace, and the crown seems to belong at the moment to RenRen.com. Founded late in 2005, RenRen.com started as XiaoNei.com – a near carbon-copy of Facebook. The site so closely resembled Facebook that it even labeled itself a “A Mark Zuckerberg Production” at the bottom of its pages, according to TechRice.com.

As XiaoNei blossomed across college campuses throughout China, it proved that the Facebook model can work just about anywhere it’s planted. Soon, it spread to high schools and middle schools, and its now in tens of thousands of Chinese cities, towns and villages.

In 2006, the Chinese holding company Oak Pacific Interactive took note, buying XiaoNei and soonafter changing the site’s name to RenRen.com. Three years later, RenRen is a true social force in the country with 160 million registered users (per Techrice) – all of whom use their real names on the site. That factor helps separate the site from rival Tencent Holding’s Qzone, which claims more registered users (although many Qzone users signed up with usernames rather than their actual names).

“Between October 2009 and October 2010 RenRen’s user base increased by 60 million, with a total of 160 million registered users out of a total 420 million internet users in China,” Techrice reports.

That’s helped RenRen.com become the 17th most visited site in China. Still, RenRen hasn’t yet distinguished itself as a truly innovative website. It’s innovations come from slight modifications of the enhancements that Facebook has already made in the U.S.

Late last year, for instance, the company announced the launch of RenRen Like, RenRen Places and RenRen Public Pages. Ring a bell?

There are at least two enhancements that might be foreign to Facebook users, though: Renren Aiting, which allows users to listen to music and share radio stations with other RenRen users and a Groupon-style couponing system for local advertisers in China.

Slowly, it appears the company’s experimenting with its own ideas, and, if they’re successful I suspect Facebook will return the favor and start borrowing some ideas from RenRen.com.

Five reasons to invest in the RenRen.com IPO

Tags: Facebook, RenRen, social networking stocks, Tencent Holdings, Xiaonei
Posted in Chinese stocks, Internet stocks, NASDAQ, private companies, tech stocks | No Comments »

Jan

2011

How to invest in Digitial Sky Technologies and Mail.ru

by Fred Mason

I’ve long been intrigued by the chance to invest in the Russian tech sector’s heavyweights: Digital Sky Technologies and Mail.ru. Digital Sky Technologies seems to have a knack for investing in major U.S. tech companies long before American investment banks have the guts to do so.

They were in early on Facebook (when Facebook had a $10 billion valuation), and they’re currently holding stakes in Facebook game and app-maker Zynga, Inc. as well as deal-of-the-day coupon company Groupon, Inc. All told, they’ve got a 10 percent stake in Facebook, and their partnership with Mail.ru entitles Mail.ru to a 2.4 percent stake in Facebook.

On top of its great investment portfolio, Mail.ru runs the largest free email service in Russia, two of the three largest social networking sites in the country, and it claims to be the largest social gaming company in Russia as well. The simplest way to invest in Mail.ru (and get a piece of the privately-held Digital Sky Technologies in the process) is to directly buy shares in Mail.ru.

In November of 2010, shares in Mail.ru started trading on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker MAIL. The stock’s up 30 percent since trading started two months ago.

Don’t have access to London-based shares? You could also consider an investment in the South African media giant Naspers Limited (ADR) (PINK:NPSNY). Naspers announced last summer that it had taken a “substantial stake” in Digital Sky Technologies according to Maija Palmer at FT.com.

Shares in Naspers have risen 44 percent over the past year. As an added bonus, Naspers also has a 35 percent stake in Tencent Holdings Limited (SEHK:700) – a company that’s often cited as China’s most profitable Internet company.

Tags: Digital Sky Technologies, Facebook, Groupon, MAIL, Mail.ru, Naspers Limited, NPSNY, Tencent Holdings, Zynga
Posted in Chinese stocks, Internet stocks, IPOs, NASDAQ, Russian stocks, tech stocks | No Comments »

Dec

2010

Top seven largest Chinese tech stocks of 2010

by Fred Mason

Tencent Holdings Ltd. (HKG:0700) has knocked Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) off its perch to become the world’s best-performing technology company, according to Businessweek.com. Boasting China’s largest market cap for a tech company on the strength of its free instant messaging platform Tencent QQ, or, simply, QQ, Tencent commands more cash than even Baidu.com, Inc. (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU).

Over the past 12 years, QQ has helped grow Tencent from from an instant messaging business into a sort of Wal-Mart of services for China’s Web user. The company makes online games, provides Internet dating services and online storage. Most of its income, though, comes from the premium services it provides for its QQ users. For a modest monthly fee, you can add things like avatars, games, music, virtual pets and more to your IM account, and since Tencent has more than 636 million users, those modest fees have started piling up as monumental mounds of cash. We all know, too, that growth in China’s Internet market shows no signs of slowing.

Here’s a run-down of four other Chinese tech stocks you might want to consider investing in:

1) Baidu.com, Inc. (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU). The most popular search engine company in China, Baidu is the seventh most-visited Web site on the Internet. Available in China at baidu.com, they’ve also recently branched out into Japan with their domain baidu.jp. The company’s stock isn’t cheap, though, as it trades at a P/E ratio of 81 (compared to Google’s P/E of 24).

2) NetEase.com, Inc. (ADR) (NASDAQ:NTES). The owner of a popular Chinese Web portal, NetEase’s 163.com is the sixth most-visited site in China, which gives it more traffic than American heavyweights like ESPN, Craigslist and CNN. One of the company’s most successful products is its online role-playing game Fantasy Westward Journey.

3) SINA Corporation (NASDAQ:SINA). A news and blogging site that caters to a wide audience in China, sina.com and its subdomains attract some 3 billion page views per day. The company’s $4.3 billion market cap makes it the fourth-largest tech company in China.

4) Sohu.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOHU). A search engine and online gaming company, Sohu.com often falls under the giant shadow cast by Baidu, but the company’s still got a market cap of $2.5 billion, and it trades at a much more reasonable P/E ratio than Baidu (20 vs. Baidu’s 81). Sohu was ranked by Fortune as the world’s 12th fastest-growing company in 2010.

Other Chinese tech stocks to keep an eye on:

Youku.com, Inc. (ADR) (NYSE:YOKU). The Chinese version of YouTube.com, Youku.com is (like its American counterpart) yet to make a profit, but that hasn’t stopped them from an IPO on American exchanges. Over time, Youku’s focus has shifted exclusively from user-generated videos to professionally-produced videos, which it licenses from more than 1,500 content partners. Call it the Chinese equivalent of Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX).

Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd. (ADR) (NASDAQ:SNDA). China’s leading publisher of online games (and a major online and paper-bound book publisher), Shanda claims to have more than 1.2 million users playing its online games at any given time – and that’s based on numbers from 2005! The company’s trading at a P/E ratio of 20.4.

Tags: aapl, BIDU, GOOG, HKG:0700, NFLX, NTES, SINA, SNDA, SOHU, Tencent Holdings, YOKU
Posted in Chinese stocks, IPOs, NASDAQ, tech stocks | 1 Comment »

Posts Tagged ‘Tencent Holdings’

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