Tencent named one of most innovative companies

Tech giant Tencent was named by the Boston Consulting Group on Wednesday as one of the most innovative companies in the world, rising to 12th from 47th in the rankings.

BCG’s 10 most innovative companies are: Apple, Google, Tesla Motors, Microsoft, Samsung, Toyota, BMW, Gilead Sciences, Amazon and Daimler.

The rankings were compiled from survey responses by 1,500 senior executives at companies from a wide range of industries. The companies were judged mainly for their speed, research and development processes; use of technological platforms; and exploration of adjacent markets.

The report’s authors said that speed has long been seen as a key attribute of strong innovators. Survey results supported speed’s growing importance.

The authors said that “overly long development times were the most-cited obstacle to generating returns on innovation and product development” and that “fast innovators are much more likely to also be strong innovators”.

“I think user platform and speed are two things that Tencent has been quite spectacular on,” said Puneet Manchanda, professor of marketing at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. “They’ve been moving very fast into many other areas, like media, streaming, advertising, and now apps for taxicab hailing and so on.”

In the past year, Tencent, headquartered in Shenzhen, China, has announced it will roll out a mobile payments service for overseas users; distribute music via its QQ Music platform; partner with a U.S. film studio to make a video-game action film; and work with U.S. publishers to sell American titles on its Tencent Literature platform. Those products extend far beyond the company’s core products like its instant messaging platform QQ and social mobile app WeChat.

“It’s a fast-acting company for sure, but it also has platforms where it can launch new services that plug and play into those platforms. That’s what has made it so fast — anything they want to do in media, advertising, e-commerce, you have close to 800 million on your various platforms and you have a lot of social media data. The platforms can be leveraged very quickly,” Manchanda said.

The report’s authors said that greater agility has the “potential to boost a company’s top and bottom lines, and flexible and mobile consumers demand it.”

Speed allows companies to gain larger market share, reduce development costs and increase forecasting accuracy, they said.

The list of 50 innovative companies includes two other Chinese brands: Huawei and Lenovo, both makers of electronic products.

“Lenovo probably makes it on the lean manufacturing criteria. It has been pretty good at streamlining manufacturing, and the brand has been nurtured reasonably well,” Manchanda said.

“Huawei is actually quite innovative — they don’t get talked about much because they don’t supply consumer-facing products as much but they are very innovative and their electronic equipment is world class,” he said.

Nokia shareholders approve acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent

Shareholders of Finnish telecommunication company Nokia approved the acquisition of French-American rival Alcatel-Lucent at an extraordinary general meeting in Helsinki on Tuesday.

Nokia said that the transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2016.

With the acquisition, the Helsinki-based company hopes to expand from telecom networks to Internet networks and “cloud” services to better compete with its global rivals.

“Nokia’s shareholders have today shown the full extent of their support for our proposed combination with Alcatel-Lucent. By ratifying the transaction in such great numbers, they have endorsed our strongly-held belief that the combined company will be better positioned to compete as a world leader in network technologies over the long-term,” said Risto Siilasmaa, Chairman of the Nokia Board of Directors.

In April, Nokia confirmed that it was negotiating a takeover of Alcatel-Lucent. The two companies have entered into a memorandum of understanding, under which Nokia will make an offer for all the shares issued by Alcatel-Lucent through a public exchange offer in France and in the United States. The total price of acquisition is 15.6 billion euros (about 16.5 billion U.S. dollars).

Under the terms of the agreement, the name of the combined company will be “Nokia”, its headquarters will remain in Finland. Nokia will hold 66.5 percent stake in the new company, Alcatel-Lucent will hold the remaining 33.5 percent stake.

Currently, Nokia ranked the third largest network equipment manufacturer after Ericsson of Sweden and China’s Huawei. Following the sale of its mobile phone business to Microsoft, Nokia focus on telecommunications infrastructure and mapping services.

Manufacturing slumps to 3-year low

China’s manufacturing activity fell to its lowest level for more than three years in November after recording its fourth straight month in decline.

The official Purchasing Managers’ Index fell 0.2 points from October to 49.6, according to the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

The demarcation line between growth and expansion is set at 50 points.

The November reading was the lowest since August 2012.

Bureau analyst Zhao Qinghe said the data suggested worsening conditions due to sluggish demand at home and abroad.

“Some traditional industries, such as nonferrous metals, are in deeper contraction as they seek to rid themselves of overcapacity,” he said.

“But performance remained stable on the whole, as emerging sectors remained in expansionary territory,” he said.

The PMI’s component indexes showed widespread weakness in manufacturing, with new orders — a proxy for domestic and foreign demand — down 0.5 points at 49.8 and exports contracting to 46.4 for the 14th straight month. Input prices fell 3.3 points to 41.1.

Economists at ANZ said this points to persistent deflation in upstream prices, which would add pressure to factory gate prices and industrial profits.

October’s Producer Price Index — a measure of inflation at the factory gate — fell 5.9 percent year on year, extending its downward trend to a 44th month.

China’s gross domestic product in the third quarter rose 6.9 percent year on year, its slowest pace in six years. In an effort to bolster growth, the People’s Bank of China has cut benchmark interest rates and banks’ reserve requirement ratio five times this year.

The moves, however, have yet to have any major impact.

According to earlier figures, the profits of China’s industrial firms in October fell 4.6 percent year on year, following a 0.1 percent dip in September.

“With soft growth momentum and deflationary pressures growing, we expect the government to further ease its monetary policy and continue to implement an expansionary fiscal policy,” said ANZ economist Liu Ligang.

Despite the poor overall performance in November, private and export-oriented companies fared better than state-owned industrial enterprises.

The Caixin China PMI, a similar measure to the official PMI but weighted toward private and export-oriented manufacturing companies, rose to 48.6 last month, from 48.3 in October and 47.2 in September.

“Activity in the sector has been in contraction in each of the past nine months, but the November figure was the best since June,” said He Fan, chief economist at Caixin Insight.

The improvement was partly due to more stable output, which had been in decline over the past six months, he said.

Meanwhile, the official non-manufacturing PMI improved to 53.6 points in November, its highest level since July.

The gains were partly due to the Singles Day online sales event, the bureau said.

Julian Evans-Pritchard, an economist at Capital Economics, said in a research note: “The services sector appears strong, and there are hints that accelerating credit growth and fiscal spending may have continued to support investment growth last month.”

B2B e-commerce to enter a phase of rapid development

Online platforms are becoming integral and crucial for business-to-business e-commerce companies across various segments amid stiff competition, a new survey said.

The study, published on Monday by SAP Hybris, an e-commerce solution provider that is part of German software giant SAP SE, and Forrester Research Inc, showed that the number of B2B firms in China, that make more than one-quarter of their purchases online, will double in the next three years.

“B2B e-commerce is expected to enter a phase of a rapid development. B2B companies that wait too long to implement e-commerce strategies are taking a big risk as they will lag in catering to client requirements and suffer in terms of sales, services and retention of customers,” said Zhang Bo, China manager of SAP Hybris.

The study polled 200 business decision-makers of B2B firms in China. About 34 percent of the respondents said 25 percent or even more of their purchases will be conducted through online channels in the next three years, compared with just 17 percent now.

The majority of the surveyed B2B e-commerce firms, ranging from automotive, high-tech, manufacturing to oil and gas, said they expect online sales to increase in the following years.

It is an opportune time for ambitious B2B firms to set up e-commerce platforms to shape the future of their individual industry, he said.

On Friday, Hangzhou Ali Venture Capital, an investment firm backed by Alibaba, said it will build an online steel trade platform with Minmetals Development Co Ltd to tap into the B2B steel industry.

The firm, in which Alibaba’s Jack Ma has an 80 percent stake, said it will invest 316.8 million yuan ($49.52 million) in the B2B e-commerce platform.

Charlie Dai, principal analyst with Forrester Research Inc, said though Alibaba already has a B2B online trading platform called 1688.com, which sells consumer products such as cloth, machinery and steel, it will still need to dig deep into each sector to become an established player.

“That’s why even e-commerce giant like Alibaba needs to team up with Minmetals to leverage their expertise in steel production and sales,” he said.

Top talent sought by foreign firms despite weaker sales outlook

More top talent was sought in China this year by multinationals with a noted shift to high-caliber local prospects, though a slightly weaker sales outlook weighed.

Global executive search and consulting firm Chicago-based Heidrick & Struggles International Inc, said that half of the 119 multinational executives with responsibility over China operations said headcount would likely show an increase by the end of 2015 over the previous year.

The survey of managers released in October, however, noted that the overall level of hiring expectations dropped to 50 percent from 58 percent in 2014, and the difference was accounted for by sales growth prospects.

“For those companies that are growing, they may be adding headcount,” said Seth Peterson, a partner in the Hong Kong office of Heidrick & Struggles and a member of the Industrial Practice. “Certain sectors have more favorable conditions and outlook than others.”

Sixty percent of the respondents worked at companies with more than 1,000 employees, the firm said, while Peterson noted they faced rising labor costs as domestic firms sought the same talent pools, particularly in manufacturing.

But the number of companies that said sales would increase in 2015 dropped to 75 percent from 80 percent in 2014, with just over half saying profits would likely rise this year, the survey said.

The search for local talent was a major focus for all firms, Peterson said, with a variety of programs in place such as sending Chinese staff overseas to groom them for eventual assignment back in China.

“It has been the intention of most multinationals to develop their local talent pipelines and fill openings wherever possible with local leaders,” said Peterson. Still, the survey saw 15 percent of respondents say a skills gap would lead them to hire more foreign employees.

Uber China changes name, eyes 100 cities for expansion


Uber China, Uber Technologies Inc’s independent China branch, has changed its name to China Uber, as a new start for its ambitious expansion plan, according to the Shanghai-based news portal jiemian.com.

Liu Zhen, head of strategy for China Uber, said the firm is being “increasingly more mature and independent.” And with more Chinese investors joining, it is also more “localized,” she added.

Liu said China Uber will expand to 100 cities, a big step from its coverage of 23 cities currently. “We will focus on cities with a population of more than 3 million in the expansion plan,” she said, and that more second-and third-tier cities will be reached in 2016.

The southern metropolis of Guangzhou currently completes the most number of trips daily among all cities in the world where Uber is available, according to firm’s press releases.

China’s ride-hailing market has already seen intense competition among domestic players over taxi-hailing and ride-on-demand services.

On October 8, Uber announced a plan for $1 billion of investment in China, and that it would set up an independent China branch. That branch would be the only one outside the U.S., located in the Shanghai FTZ, to play down its overseas company status.

The company Didi Kuaidi took 83.2 percent of the market share while Uber, a remote No 2, controlled 16 percent at the end of the third quarter, the research firm Analysys International said in a report.

Major carriers turn to Internet innovation


People check out their mobile phones in front of China Telecom’s billboard in Beijing.

Telecom’s Shanghai center is starting to produce online businesses while its rivals roll out new plans to boost shrinking revenue

Liang Duguo always knew he could return to his old job when he first launched Shanghai Yi Xing Information Technology Co Ltd in 2013.

The 47-year-old was a senior product manager at China Telecom Corp Ltd, the country’s third-largest carrier by the number of subscribers with 194 million customers.

But the chance to branch out on his own and turn an entrepreneurial dream into reality proved too alluring. He was also cushioned by the promise that he could go back to his old position at the State-owned telecom giant if his venture failed.

“They said I could return and take up a position at the same level,” Liang, who had spent 20 years at China Telecom, said. “That special policy gave me the courage to think about operating my own business.”

So far, his decision to set up Shanghai Yi Xing has proved successful. The company offers real-time traffic information to firms specializing in mapping and navigational services, as well as government agencies, by using mobile signals generated by China Telecom customers, without compromising personal data.

“We raised about 10 million yuan ($1.56 million) from investors earlier this year and now we are serving several enterprises,” Liang said, without disclosing further detailed information. “We are quite optimistic about our business.”

But he could not have achieved this without the help of China Telecom.

During the past three years, Liang has been just one of up to 5,000 employees at the behemoth that have taken advantage of this “safety net” to roll out their own businesses or join startup teams.

By cultivating a pool of online-savvy people, the company hopes to create new revenue streams.

The first steps were taken in 2012 when China Telecom unveiled a 10,000-square-meter “innovation center” in Shanghai, the first of its kind among SOEs.

This has allowed employees to work on new projects until they grow into independent companies. If they fail, they can return to their old jobs.

In addition to the normal startup services such as office space, financial incentives and mentoring classes, the group’s staff can also access telecommunication network resources, tap into the technology support system and marketing network operations.

A fund of up to 200 million yuan has been put aside to invest in these startups.

“We are sparing no efforts to learn from Internet companies about how to inspire innovation,” Li Anmin, general manager of the innovation business department at China Telecom, said.

With a 450,000 workforce, China Telecom also has the luxury of numbers on its side. But there are other down-to-earth business reasons behind the decision.

As the country’s “big three” carriers struggle with declining revenue from text messaging and voice calls, they are coming up with new ways to push growth.

One solution has been to awaken the entrepreneurial spirit in employees, illustrated by China Telecom’s policy.

“Rising competition from Internet firms that offer instant messaging services has eaten into the revenue of text messaging and voice calls,” Xiang Ligang, an independent telecom analyst and founder of the industry website cctime.com, said.

“These were two major revenue sources, so the telecom companies are now looking at other ways to make money by encouraging innovation.”

Overhauling the existing business model had to happen, according to Xi Guohua, former chairman at China Mobile Ltd, the largest telecom carrier in China with 823 million subscribers.

He said in August that revenue from text messaging and voice calls had been declining at an annual rate of between 15 and 20 percent in the past several years.

Although the figures were slightly better in the first nine months of 2015, China Mobile still reported that “voice call duration” shrank by 1.2 percent and text messaging declined by 6.4 percent.

It was a similar story at China Telecom and China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd.

Naturally, the big three players have been moving into other areas to stem the tide, including what is known as Internet-enabled services, which involve online music streaming and gaming.

Last month, China Unicom announced it would invest 3.3 billion yuan into a 110,000-square-meter innovation center in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. The aim is to help nurture Internet-enabled companies. “We will offer storage services, big data analysis, marketing and channel resources as well as financial investment,” Li Han, who is in charge of the Internet business at China Unicom’s Guangdong branch, said.

China Mobile is also moving in the same direction. In May, it established a 2.55 billion yuan fund with State Development and Investment Corp and a fund management firm. The new company will invest in rapidly growing or mature mobile Internet businesses. China Mobile has pumped 1.5 billion yuan into the venture.

“Telecom operators are investing in startups because they need to innovate,” Xiang at cctime.com said. “They hope to do that by funding enterprises in this mobile era.”

China Mobile is also refining its existing operation. Earlier this month, it set up an Internet division, literally translated as China Mobile Internet Co.

The plan appears to involve integrating the company’s nine Internet business centers across China, which are involved in gaming, music streaming and online reading material.

Analysts are not convinced if this is the right road to take.

“The new branch is a baby born late,” Fu Liang, a longtime independent telecom expert, said, adding that China Mobile announced as early as 2012 that it would set up a special Internet unit.

“In fact, China Mobile missed a golden opportunity back then to promote a mobile Internet business. But it still has a chance to rectify that,” he added.

“In the past, its Internet centers were run separately. Now the new branch will coordinate this operation.”

Yet it is uncertain whether telecom carriers will be able to compete with leading Internet companies when it comes to specialized content.

“A better way is for Internet companies to work with carriers by setting up premium services for customers,” Gene Cao, a senior analyst at consultancy Forrester Research Inc, said.

“They would pay, say a 15 yuan membership fee, to enjoy free data traffic, while listening to songs which are unavailable to normal users.”

“The combination will enhance the appeal of premium services to customers. In this way, Internet companies can boost their revenues by offering more value-added services, and telecom carriers can also increase data traffic,” Cao added.

Fu is in total agreement. The strength of the big three carriers is their sprawling infrastructure network and massive customer base.

“They are equipped with resources, which will give them a larger say in partnerships with Internet companies,” he said.

In September last year, China Mobile reported that it had 823 million customers. In comparison, Tencent Holdings Ltd’s WeChat, the most popular instant messaging platform in China, had just 650 million users.

But turning those strengths into lucrative revenue streams will not be easy. “The lack of Internet talent at SOEs’ corporate governance structure is a bottleneck to growth,” Fu said.

Still, progress is being made. China Telecom, for example, has shaken up its management structure for its Shanghai “innovation center”.

As of November, the carrier had invested 50 million yuan in startups and 162 related projects. Four of them?the one set up by Liang Duguo, Shanghai Changshi Network Technology Co Ltd, woyoushi.com and Shanghai Zewei Information Technology Co Ltd?have received funding from venture capital firms.

“The innovation business is the fastest-growing department at China Telecom, with an annual growth rate of 50 percent,” Li Anmin, who is in charge of the division, said. “We also plan to establish 10 more incubators across China and open the innovation ecosystem to all startups.”

Baidu partners with China CITIC Bank in direct banking business

China CITIC Bank Corp Ltd confirmed Tuesday that it will collaborate with China’s biggest online search engine, Baidu Inc, to build a direct banking business.

China CITIC Bank said it will hold a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday to officially cement the strategic partnership. Beijing-based Baidu said it will participate Wednesday’s event with China CITIC Bank but refused to reveal details about the two’s cooperation.

Through a working relationship with China CITIC Bank, Baidu is expected to finally enter China’s nascent private banking sector. Baidu’s rivals- Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd-have already successfully gained private banking licenses by forming similar alliances with different partners.

Baidu hasn’t gained a private banking license, but analysts say that in China, to get involved in the direct banking business, which is a bank without any branch network that offers its services remotely via online banking and telephone banking, it’s not required to have a private banking license.

Private firms lead in innovation and job creation, says report


China’s top 500 private companies have made significant contributions in fostering innovation, creating jobs and tax contributions, a new report said on Monday.

The report, published by the China Federation of Private Enterprises, an industry association, and the China Academy of Management Science, a government think tank, ranked Legend Holdings Corp, the largest shareholder in personal-computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd, as the leading private enterprise in China with operating revenues of 289.5 billion yuan ($45 billion). It was followed by telecom giants Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and retail giant Suning Commerce Group Co Ltd with revenues of 288.2 billion yuan and 282.9 billion yuan, respectively.

Private firms have made an increasingly larger contribution to the economy and made more efforts in innovation, investment and international competitiveness, in addition to job creation and tax contributions, the report said.

Sectors like big data, cloud computing, biology and new materials have tremendous growth potential due to the new trade initiatives like the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

Overall, manufacturing enterprises are still better off than others in terms of growth potential. Sectors like electrical machinery, construction and nonferrous metal metallurgy have done reasonably well, the report said.

Breaking down the numbers, there were 33 nonferrous metal metallurgy companies and 38 iron and steel enterprises in the list. Shandong Weiqiao Pioneering Group Co Ltd, a super-large enterprise that focuses on textiles, garments and dying services as well as thermoelectricity and aluminum, was ranked fourth.

Private enterprises also made further inroads into overseas markets and increased their investments, due to the new opportunities from the Belt and Road Initiative. This year, about 500 companies achieved revenues of $316.7 billion through overseas operations, up 48 percent from a year earlier.

Companies in eastern China accounted for 61 percent of the country’s private enterprises, with Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces taking the most spots. But, companies in central and western regions are catching up, and added 23 companies to the list from last year.

Sun Lijian, vice-dean of the school of economics at Fudan University in Shanghai, said: “Most of the enterprises made it to the list with their own independent innovation. They braced for competition in the marketplace instead of growing on the support of encouraging policies.

“Some leading private companies such as Huawei, and foreign companies such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, established leading positions in their sectors by specializing and diversifying their products.”

The government should help break the monopolies, open up the market and encourage competition to let private enterprises speed up innovation, Sun said.

Chinese entrepreneurs less satisfied about business situations

Chinese entrepreneurs are feeling the pressure from economic slowdown and are less content with their current business situations than previous years, a latest survey showed.

Business owners that are “very satisfied” or “relatively satisfied” about current situations accounted for 28.3 percent of the total surveyed owners, down 6.5 percentage points from a year earlier, according to a survey of more than 2,500 companies by the China Entrepreneurs Survey System.

A third of surveyed business owners said they were not satisfied about the business situations at present.

The average score of their level of satisfaction was 2.9, with 5 being the highest, the survey showed. The figure was lower than those for the previous two years.

More entrepreneurs have a negative view on the current macroeconomic conditions, showing dropping confidence as the economy slows.

China’s economy expanded by 6.9 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2015, the lowest quarterly growth in six years.