The cost of promoting TDMA

TDMA, or TD-SCDMA, is a Chinese domestic 3G standard (Wikipedia). China was not behind the west in terms of 2.5 GSM network and applications in recently years. Actually the development of mobile phones are so successful, the total users of China mobile phones users already exceeded half a billion (source: digitimes). China Mobile (NYSE: CHL), the largest mobile operator, has more than 400 millions customers at the end of 2008.

GM, China 3G standard

We all know GM is in trouble financially. Its stock (NYSE:GM) is around $6, a 50 years low. A lot pundits made fun of GM and its stock on TV or the web space. But I have a different feeling for GM. Among many reasons, I think of two:

1) In graduate school I worked in project for an automotive supplier (supplier for the Detroit big three GM, Ford and Chrysler). I went to Detroit and the Renaissance center twice because of the project. I still remember the GM engineer always asks tough technical questions.

Time to cut Spreadtrum SPRD loose

I felt lucky I did sell some Spreadtrum (Nasdaq:SPRD) shares a short while ago when it exceeded $6 (a quick pop). But I don’t know why I bought some back couple days ago at $4.48. I did not bet on earning these days, but this one had dropped quite a bit from the pop, and the expectation is low. So I thought I am relatively safe. Remember margin of safety.

Well, it turns out semi-conductor stock has no MoF. Remember a while ago the star player nVidia (NVDA) fall out from the graphics chip quality problem? My small speculation player SPRD also fell off cliff. Here is the results.

To be honest, I think 2Q results was OK, but the 3Q forecast is disaster. Quote press release: Spreadtrum currently expects revenue in the third quarter to be approximately US$20 million, which represents a sequential decrease of approximately 50% from the US$40.2 million in the second quarter of 2008.

I am not going to do any fundamental or valuation analysis. It seems to me the management (that means Dr. Wu Ping and his associates) blew up badly on this one. The business itself probablly still has some value, but I lost a lot (blind) trust on management team. So I am going to sell all my shares tomorrow morning. Take a loss 😦

Second thought on China Mobile CHL

(Update May 26 11:35PM) Just found the Google finance has the wrong EPS and PE ((EPS 2.62, PE 29.92) for CHL. Yahoo finance has the right number for CHL: ttm EPS $3.08, PE 25.44 as of Friday May 23.

Market sentiment
GS downgrade (Bloomberg): the ladies at Goldman Sachs cut the rating of 0941 (China Mobile H share) from neutral to sell, and cut price target from 135 HKD to 105 HKD. I don’t trust Goldman rating blindly (no disrespect to people at GS), this downgrade combined with the share drop both in NYSE and Hongkong, signals the big boys are leaving the table. I don’t want to stick my head out at this time, so I am going to sell 2/3 of my CHL shares tomorrow morning (Tuesday May 27).

(Source: XinHuaNet)

More background of the re-org, 3G license

Why China Mobile CHL is a buy: IV

Two important news about China wireless arena yesterday.

1) China Mobile finally started the long awaited trial of TD-SCDMA 3G network (read Chinese news story 1 , and 2 from XinhuaNet). Some features of 3G include the video conference/phone, TV program, etc.

2) The new (lower) roaming fees takes effect.

I think 2) may have slightly negative effect on CHL’s earning, while 1) is insignificant and we will not know the success of 3G/TD until 2009/10.

(Picture from XinhuaNet: people are lining up for 3G phones)

Valuation