Tag Archives: bidu

China Internet Giant JD.com Dives After Mixed Q1 Earnings

JD.com ( JD ), one of China’s four biggest Internet companies, posted mixed Q1 earnings early Monday and gave an outlook slightly short of views. Its shares were among the many U.S.-traded techs falling after Chinese markets retreated overnight on renewed concerns about that nation’s economic recovery. JD, China’s largest online direct sales company, similar to Amazon.com ( AMZN ), reported revenue of $8.4 billion, slightly above the consensus of $8.35 billion and up 48% in local currency year over year. Its revenue has grown at double- or triple-digit rates for more than 18 quarters. The company recorded a per-share loss of 2 cents minus items, matching the consensus estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. Its Q2 revenue guidance of $9.8 billion to $10.1 billion was slightly below the consensus of $10 billion at the midpoint. IBD Take: JD.com ranks just No. 17 in its group. IBD Stock Checkup can help explain why. JD stock was down 8.5%, near 23, in morning trading in the stock market today , but U.S. shares of Alibaba ( BABA ) and  Tencent Holdings ( TCEHY ) were flat. Baidu ( BIDU ) stock was down 3%, near 168, Monday morning after it announced new measures  in response to a student’s death and a government probe into its health care advertising Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu are China’s largest Internet companies, along with JD. Alibaba is China’s largest etail company, while Baidu is China’s largest search company, and Tencent leads in gaming and social networking. JD said its gross merchandise volume, which is the total value of goods sold on its website, rose 55% in local currency to the equivalent of $20 billion. “We had a solid first quarter of the year with healthy growth in revenues, new users and mobile traffic,” said JD CEO Richard Liu said in the company’s earnings release. Alibaba turned in a quarterly earnings report Thursday that largely eased concerns of slowing performance, despite a sluggish Chinese economy.

Baidu Stock Falls On Sponsored-Post Limits; Shanghai Index Down

Baidu ’s ( BIDU ) stock fell again Monday amid a broad sell-off on Shanghai’s stock exchange after China’s biggest Internet search firm announced new measures in response to a student’s death and government probe into  health care advertising. U.S.-listed shares of Baidu fell 3.2% to 168.34 in morning trading on the stock market today . The stock tumbled 10.5% last week on the China probe, but had closed Friday just above its 200-day moving average. IBD’s Take: How healthy is Baidu’s stock and how does it compare to its peers? Find out at IBD Stock Checkup The Shanghai stock exchange fell 2.7% on Monday. Baidu said it would create a $150 million fund to fight Internet fraud and limit the number of sponsored posts to 30% of the search results page. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has reportedly set up a task force to probe Baidu amid mounting criticism over its prominent placement of sponsored health care services providers in its search results. Wei Zexi, a 21-year-old university student, died last month of a rare form of cancer. He had used the Chinese search engine to look for treatment for his cancer and later died after receiving care at a hospital he had found on Baidu search results. According to Nomura Securities , Baidu garners 20% to 30% of its  search revenue from health care. In 2010, China’s state-run television accused Baidu of promoting counterfeit drugs through its search engine.

Alibaba’s Audacious Goal To Reach $1 Trillion In Merchandise Sales

Alibaba ( BABA ) says it’s on a path to realizing its vision of achieving $1 trillion in gross merchandise volume in about four years, as it also pursues a goal of reaching 2 billion consumers on its e-commerce platforms. During the company’s conference call after posting its fiscal-fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday, company CEO Daniel Zhang cited reasons he’s optimistic of hitting the $1 trillion GMV goal. One big reason, he noted, is Alibaba’s successful transition from PCs to mobile devices. By comparison, e-commerce software firm ChannelAdvisor ( ECOM ) estimates Amazon.com ‘s ( AMZN ) GMV in 2015 at $225.6 billion, with 310 million users. At the time of Alibaba’s initial public offering in September 2014, mobile contributed less than 40% of GMV. Today, it’s 73%. Success also depends on international expansion and in continuing to transform its e-commerce business, along with continued investments and growth in its media and digital entertainment platforms, as well as its cloud computing business. Alibaba is one of the four largest Internet companies in China. The others are JD.com ( JD ), which runs a direct-to-consumer e-commerce site similar to Amazon ( AMZN ); China search-engine leader Baidu ( BIDU ); and Tencent Holdings ( TCEHY ), which dominates in gaming and mobile messaging. For all Zhang’s bravado, Alibaba is less than halfway toward its goal: For its fiscal year ended March 31, Alibaba had GMV of $485 billion, up 27%. And it said it had 423 million active buyers, up 21%. GMV is the total value of goods sold across Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms. Alibaba does not take part in direct sales, hold inventory or compete directly with its merchant base. Businesses and consumers use Alibaba’s e-commerce platform, and Alibaba takes about a 2.5% cut of GMV sales. It also makes money from advertising. Alibaba Counts On Growth For Tmall, Taobao Alibaba’s core e-commerce retail platforms are Taobao, Tmall and Juhuasuan. Together, they have 367 million active buyers, with about 90% of Alibaba’s revenue generated in China. Getting to $1 trillion will depend on the growth and expansion mainly of Tmall and Taobao. Tmall is China’s largest business-to-consumer website. Taobao is a consumer-to-consumer e-commerce website similar to eBay ( EBAY ). Taobao is the larger of the two. In fiscal 2016, it hit GMV of $295 billion, up 18%. Tmall reached $190 billion, up 43%. Part of Alibaba’s GMV growth is pegged to global expansion. Alibaba last month announced it acquired a controlling stake in Singapore-based Lazada, a leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, for $1 billion. Lazada operates online retail platforms across Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore, with GMV of $1 billion in 2015. “Our acquisition of a controlling stake in Lazada will allow access to 560 million consumers in one of the most promising markets for e-commerce,” said Chung Tsai, Alibaba executive vice chairman, in the earnings conference call. Alibaba in the March quarter showed its highest growth rate in a year, despite an economic slowdown in China. “In these challenging times for the global economy, Alibaba is bucking the trend,” said Tsai. He said Chinese households today have aggregate net cash reserves of more than $4.6 trillion. “This accumulated wealth and liquidity is the result of real double-digit wage growth over the past decade,” he said. Kerry Rice, an analyst at Needham, says Alibaba has a lot of room for growth ahead. “We expect the company’s core business to continue to be the engine of growth, and despite its scale and dominant market share, we believe it still has significant room for growth,” Rice wrote in a research report. Rice rates Alibaba stock a buy, with a price target of 95. Alibaba stock was up a fraction in afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 79.50. Alibaba stock is up nearly 30% since touching a seven-month low in early February. Alibaba’s stock has had a rocky trip since its blockbuster IPO raised $24 billion, the most ever. Shares priced at 68 and hit a peak of 120 in November 2014. RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney has an outperform rating and price target of 105 on Alibaba stock, up from a previous target of 89. Based on its strength in mobile, “we believe this means Alibaba can sustain premium growth rates in its key retail segment for the foreseeable future,” Mahaney wrote in a research note.