We'll see how it goes, most of his points from investment and the housing market can be debated upon (if not said by previous analysts already) and the stats aren't fully convincing (mentioning HSR again makes me wonder just whether claims of them being empty are true). I'm not saying we won't see a china crash or slow down ever (we're already starting to see a "slow down"), but I'm not sure if china's developed to the stage where they can have a japan-esque slow down.
From the other top read time article on the chinese economy it sounds like popular notion is that a slightly slower chinese economy might be better for it long term. Who knows, I at least am not very knowledgeable about these matters.
---------- Post added at 05:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:35 PM ----------
On a less controversial note... WSJ writing on huawei
arch 7, 2012, 6:24 p.m. ET
Huawei's Handset Progress Could Squeeze Big Players
By BEN ROONE
You may not be able to pronounce its name but you could not miss the Chinese giant Huawei at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
While its closest rival, ZTE, was emblazoned on the lanyards of everyone of the more than 60,000 delegates, Huawei's branding around the show was ubiquitous.
Pride of place was a 19 foot statue of Pegasus, the winged horse, crafted from 3,500 of the company's latest mobile phones, gazing down across the sprawling Fira complex. As a statement of its international aspirations it was no coincidence that Huawei, a Chinese company, chose a figure from Western culture, made by London's Machine Shop studio.
This year Huawei had on display its Ascend range, which the company claims features both the fastest, and the thinnest, mobile devices available today. In a very crowded field of hard-to differentiate, high-end phones, all of which are powered by Google's Android operating system, the range holds its own against the likes of well-established mainstream brands Samsung, HTC and LG. Interestingly, the phone's quad-core processor is an "in house" design by Huawei Hisilicon rather than a commercially available product from makers like NVIDIA or Qualcomm. Given Huawei has 140,000 employees, of which 44% are in R&D, perhaps we should not be surprised.
But what a difference a year makes. Going back to the same conference in 2011, it is hard to overstate the huge leap this Shenzhen giant has made.
In 2011 the only smartphone the company launched at MWC was the IDEOS X3, a run-of-the-mill budget handset that did little to impress. With ranges like the Ascend, Huawei—ranked eight in world-wide mobile-device sales—aims to be one of the top three mobile-phone brands by 2015. In the year ended Feb. 12, its global market share grew from 1.5% to 2.3%, according to research firm Gartner, still pretty small compared to the likes of Nokia and Apple.
But behind Apple, ZTE and Huawei were the fastest-growing vendors in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Huawei aims to sell 50 million to 60 million smartphones this year, up from 20 million in 2011, the chief executive of its devices unit Wan Biao told Dow Jones Newswires in Barcelona.
If you want to understand what the arrival of this Chinese giant means to the handset business, take a look at what it did to other parts of the industry.
"Anyone who has studied the infrastructure market and seen what Huawei did to the equipment market should see that as a very cautionary tale for its aspirations," said Ben Wood, who leads analysts CCS Insight. "They took no prisoners. There are companies that don't exist anymore because of that, like Nortel and others and there are other companies that are still under immense pressure, like Nokia Siemens Networks, like Alcatel-Lucent."
Even Sweden's Ericsson, the world's top-selling telecoms equipment maker with a market cap of around $32 billion, is feeling the heat. In January it released disappointing fourth-quarter net profit figures. It has led the mobile telecom equipment market for many years, but when Huawei releases its numbers in April some commentators are expecting to see it overtake Ericsson. A spokesman for Huawei would not comment on the speculation.
If Huawei repeats its success in the handset sector, who is going to be the loser? Nokia should be worried, but perhaps not as much as many have predicted, says Carolina Milanesi of analysts Gartner. "Nokia commands much better brand presence in the market despite the issues they have had over the last few years. The quality is still superior," she said.
According to Mr. Wood it is the likes of LG and HTC that will find themselves being squeezed. "If you don't have the scale of Samsung and the ability to throw millions of marketing dollars at a phone it is going to be hard to compete."
But the increasing profile of Huawei is forcing this privately owned company, which, according to a spokesman is owned entirely by its employees and was founded by CEO Ren Zhengfei 25 years ago, into a more public stance. An investigation by The Wall Street Journal documented how Huawei's business grew in Iran following a pullback by Western companies after the government's bloody crackdown on its citizens two years ago. The investigation prompted the company to publicly promise that it would "voluntarily restrict its business development there by no longer seeking new customers and limiting its business activities with existing customers." That was a move activists hailed as the first time a major Chinese company had decided to scale back its business in Iran.
And no matter what the company does, it cannot shake off the allegations of links with the People's Liberation Army, or shadowy connections with China's Communist Party. In November last year a U.S. House intelligence committee investigation was announced to look into whether the expansion into the U.S. by Huawei and rival ZTE represented a security threat.
In response Huawei has promised to be more open in is financial reporting.
Although a private company, it produces an annual report, audited by KPMG.
Its next report, due out in April, promises more details on the management board and the financial structures of the company.
To a large extent the problems that Huawei is suffering are the problems that other Chinese companies are going to face as they expand out of their home markets. Huawei looks set to become one of China's first global brands and as such has to shoulder the burden not only of selling its own products but, to an extent, selling the whole country.
By the way, it is a two syllable word, pronounced "WAH-wey".
From the other top read time article on the chinese economy it sounds like popular notion is that a slightly slower chinese economy might be better for it long term. Who knows, I at least am not very knowledgeable about these matters.
---------- Post added at 05:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:35 PM ----------
On a less controversial note... WSJ writing on huawei
arch 7, 2012, 6:24 p.m. ET
Huawei's Handset Progress Could Squeeze Big Players
By BEN ROONE
You may not be able to pronounce its name but you could not miss the Chinese giant Huawei at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
While its closest rival, ZTE, was emblazoned on the lanyards of everyone of the more than 60,000 delegates, Huawei's branding around the show was ubiquitous.
Pride of place was a 19 foot statue of Pegasus, the winged horse, crafted from 3,500 of the company's latest mobile phones, gazing down across the sprawling Fira complex. As a statement of its international aspirations it was no coincidence that Huawei, a Chinese company, chose a figure from Western culture, made by London's Machine Shop studio.
This year Huawei had on display its Ascend range, which the company claims features both the fastest, and the thinnest, mobile devices available today. In a very crowded field of hard-to differentiate, high-end phones, all of which are powered by Google's Android operating system, the range holds its own against the likes of well-established mainstream brands Samsung, HTC and LG. Interestingly, the phone's quad-core processor is an "in house" design by Huawei Hisilicon rather than a commercially available product from makers like NVIDIA or Qualcomm. Given Huawei has 140,000 employees, of which 44% are in R&D, perhaps we should not be surprised.
But what a difference a year makes. Going back to the same conference in 2011, it is hard to overstate the huge leap this Shenzhen giant has made.
In 2011 the only smartphone the company launched at MWC was the IDEOS X3, a run-of-the-mill budget handset that did little to impress. With ranges like the Ascend, Huawei—ranked eight in world-wide mobile-device sales—aims to be one of the top three mobile-phone brands by 2015. In the year ended Feb. 12, its global market share grew from 1.5% to 2.3%, according to research firm Gartner, still pretty small compared to the likes of Nokia and Apple.
But behind Apple, ZTE and Huawei were the fastest-growing vendors in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Huawei aims to sell 50 million to 60 million smartphones this year, up from 20 million in 2011, the chief executive of its devices unit Wan Biao told Dow Jones Newswires in Barcelona.
If you want to understand what the arrival of this Chinese giant means to the handset business, take a look at what it did to other parts of the industry.
"Anyone who has studied the infrastructure market and seen what Huawei did to the equipment market should see that as a very cautionary tale for its aspirations," said Ben Wood, who leads analysts CCS Insight. "They took no prisoners. There are companies that don't exist anymore because of that, like Nortel and others and there are other companies that are still under immense pressure, like Nokia Siemens Networks, like Alcatel-Lucent."
Even Sweden's Ericsson, the world's top-selling telecoms equipment maker with a market cap of around $32 billion, is feeling the heat. In January it released disappointing fourth-quarter net profit figures. It has led the mobile telecom equipment market for many years, but when Huawei releases its numbers in April some commentators are expecting to see it overtake Ericsson. A spokesman for Huawei would not comment on the speculation.
If Huawei repeats its success in the handset sector, who is going to be the loser? Nokia should be worried, but perhaps not as much as many have predicted, says Carolina Milanesi of analysts Gartner. "Nokia commands much better brand presence in the market despite the issues they have had over the last few years. The quality is still superior," she said.
According to Mr. Wood it is the likes of LG and HTC that will find themselves being squeezed. "If you don't have the scale of Samsung and the ability to throw millions of marketing dollars at a phone it is going to be hard to compete."
But the increasing profile of Huawei is forcing this privately owned company, which, according to a spokesman is owned entirely by its employees and was founded by CEO Ren Zhengfei 25 years ago, into a more public stance. An investigation by The Wall Street Journal documented how Huawei's business grew in Iran following a pullback by Western companies after the government's bloody crackdown on its citizens two years ago. The investigation prompted the company to publicly promise that it would "voluntarily restrict its business development there by no longer seeking new customers and limiting its business activities with existing customers." That was a move activists hailed as the first time a major Chinese company had decided to scale back its business in Iran.
And no matter what the company does, it cannot shake off the allegations of links with the People's Liberation Army, or shadowy connections with China's Communist Party. In November last year a U.S. House intelligence committee investigation was announced to look into whether the expansion into the U.S. by Huawei and rival ZTE represented a security threat.
In response Huawei has promised to be more open in is financial reporting.
Although a private company, it produces an annual report, audited by KPMG.
Its next report, due out in April, promises more details on the management board and the financial structures of the company.
To a large extent the problems that Huawei is suffering are the problems that other Chinese companies are going to face as they expand out of their home markets. Huawei looks set to become one of China's first global brands and as such has to shoulder the burden not only of selling its own products but, to an extent, selling the whole country.
By the way, it is a two syllable word, pronounced "WAH-wey".