VisionChina Media IPO on the deck

“For every Focus Media, there are 10 AirMedia or VisionChina Media”.

I took bus and taxi from time to time when I was in Shanghai, because I don’t have my own car. One thing I notice is those LCD screens on bus, metro and taxi. There are news on the bus LCD, the ones in metro and taxi are mostly advertisement. Twice have I seen the NFL (American national football league) stuff on metro. Anyway, I think this LCD advertisement thing should make money, both for the transportation companies and advertisers.

Now one such company, VisionChina Media (proposed ticker:VLSN), is coming to Nasdaq. Here is the excerpt from Pacific Epoch: Out-of-home advertising network VisionChina Media Inc. set the price range for its planned Nasdaq initial public offering at US$9.50 to US$11.50 per share, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. VisionChina plans to sell 13.5 million American Depository Shares in the offering to raise up to US$155 million. Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch & Co, CIBC World Markets, and Piper Jaffray are underwriting the IPO. VisionChina generated net income of US$3.7 million in the first nine months of 2007. VisionChina uses real-time mobile digital TV broadcasts to provide content and advertising on mass transit systems in China. The company began operations on April 8, 2005. VisionChina plans to trade under the ticker “VISN”.

Xiao Ke and Kiki

Xiao Ke is a German guy. His wife Kiki is my wife’s elder sister. They came back home to see the family, friends, and do some sight seeing. I think Xiao Ke is the first German guy I ever talked to. He has very good understanding of Chinese and Germany culture/philosophies.

I’m curious to learn how he think about the China, the economy development etc. Our conversation started when we saw the Starbucks at the mall. I said China is changing from a tea drinking nation to coffee drinking nation quickly. My point is China is taking (learning) everything from the west, good or bad. Xiao Ke did not agree with me fully. He said he was surprised to see how China blends western things into its own culture or systems. He talked it more from history point of view: after so many years, confucius, traditional holidays such as dragon boat and mid-autumn festival are still here. On the other hand, he thinks German are more “black” or “white”, they either take something or reject it fully. I think it’s a good thing to be precise on engineering: we want to make sure our cars, buildings and airplanes are safe, do we?

Shanghai snapshot II

Student studying at KFC, I also see students studying at McDonald. Note in China both KFC and McDonald are fashionable gathering places for middle/high school and college students.

My first Chinese KFC meal in many years, I got headache after eating that 😦

Starbucks Stock and China Plan

I mean the stocks (SBUX), not the latte. I believe the “so-so” same store sales number for the Q1 is the main reason for the recent drop. The stock is still not cheap by looking at PE (37), with projected rev/earning growth at about 20%. But this is Starbucks, normally they don’t go on sale. Near term, I believe SBUX is very much relying on the developed countries (a.k.a, US) for most of its revenue. For instance, in last 6 months I saw they opening up some new stores (some with drive through) in St. Louis and other midwest cities.

Wedding Related Business

I read a paper lately and found people in big cities like Shanghai spend a fortune in wedding (about same amount as people in developed countries). Here are some examples: limos and wedding dresses. I took these pictures last month.

 

Consumer New Trend

(Update Apr 26 morning) Shortly after this report, Wan Jia Wan Hao (Xin Yu Star) stock (600576) gained 5%, the maximum percentage it can go as this is a “ST” stock. What can I say about this crazy market? 

Dong Fang Securities, a Chinese brokerage firm, did a report about the new trend of Chinese consumers. Here is a summary. Some of the highlighted industry: medical, budget hotels, media (advertisement), and jewelry.

You can baidu the report if you are interested. The report listed some public companies (in China) may benifit from this trend.

Addict to Plastic

I’m not talking about the credit card use (I’ve talked a bit in my previous posts). 

It appears to me Chinese are using more and more plastic bags for packaging: from the morning “Bao Zi” to “Ma La Tang” (Chong Qing hot pot) on the street.

Harrah's in Shanghai?

Harrah’s is a large gaming (a better word for gambling) company in the US. It has presence in St. Louis and many US cities. Note gambling is still illegal in China. For ordinary Chinese citizens, since they can not fly to the famous southern town starts with “M”, they go for the cheaper options. The lottery and (dare I say) the stocks. Here is a picture taken at a stock broker house (Zheng Quan Gong Si) during lunch break. Unlike US market, the Chinese stock market has a “one hour and a half” lunch break. Good for the seniors who could get exhausted by the ups and downs of stocks. I am not in day trading or tape reading but I know this is not an easy task 🙂

 

GMail in China

I wrote about GMail a while ago. In that post I complained GMail is not reliable in China. One reason I can think of is that Google has not moved its servers to China. It has no plan to do so in the near future according to CnAnalyst. In this Chinese post Keso says the China’s contribution to Google’s revenue is not material at this time. This could partly explains why they have not moved the servers. Google is still building traffic (not monetizing) in China because they have plenty of cash now. Another reason is they want to protect their IP (intellectual property).

Reserve a Room in Home Inns

There are two ways to reserve a room in Home Inns (Rujia) Or other China Economy Hotels: by phone (400 820 3333 or 800 820 3333) or use the web (or ask your friend as a 3rd way). For Home Inns, my experience is reserve 2 weeks in advance for some of the “hot” locations such as Xu Jia Hui or Century Park in Shanghai. Unfortunately the reservation page is only in Chinese, but I think they have English speaking representatives on the phone. Alternatively you can use Ctrip and search for Home Inns. I used to get RMB 10 off this way.