Mary Meeker’s 2019 Internet Trends Report & Highlights

Mary Meeker’s 2019 Internet Trends Report (pdf) embed below:

Internet Trends archive: https://www.bondcap.com/#archive

Highlights:

Global Internet Users 3.8B (51% of world population), Growth Slowing: +6% vs. +7% Y/Y

Top 30 Global Internet Market Capitalization Leaders: USA 18 of 30, China 7 of 30

Top 30 Global Market Capitalization Leaders: USA 23 of 30, technology 9 of 30

USA E-Commerce Growth +12.4% vs. +12.1% (Y/Y – Q1 vs. Q4)

USA E-Commerce as % of All Retail Sales: 15% vs. 14% Y/Y

Media Time vs. Advertising Spending: Mobile @ Equilibrium (2018), Desktop (2015)

Internet Ad Revenue Growth Decelerating: +20% vs. +29% at Leading USA Platforms (Y/Y  Q1 vs. Q4). Internet Ad Buying: Programmatic Gains vs. Direct, Negatively Impacting Pricing.

Effective + Efficient Marketing = One’s Own Product + Happy Customers + Recommendations

USA Digital Media Usage Growth Accelerating: +7% vs. +5% Y/Y;  More time spent on Mobile devices than TV.

Usage: Images Increasingly Relevant Way to Communicate, e.g., Twitter: >50% of Tweet Impressions include Images / Video / Other Media.

Interactive Gaming Players Accelerating: 2.4B +6% vs. +5% Y/Y. Interactive Gaming =
Real-Time Play + Talk / Text + Watch… Social in Nearly All Ways.

Freemium Business Evolution Started in Gaming, Evolving / Emerging in Enterprise + Consumer…All In… Just Getting Started.

Cloud Deployment Revenue +58% Y/Y

Digital Payments >50% of Day-to-Day Transactions

Data Collection + Analysis + Utilization Evolving From Humans to Humans / Computers: Data is now fundamental to how people work & the most successful companies have intelligently integrated it into everyone's daily workflow… Data is the new application--Frank Bien, CEO & President, Looker, June, 2019. Consumers + Businesses + Regulators Increasingly Drinking from Data Firehose.

"Problematic" Internet Content: Media Maxim "People Prefer Negative News."

World Wide Web  v.  Webs of Worlds Driven by Local Regulation.

Cyber Attacks Sophistication + Scope Continue to Rise, Particularly State Sponsored 

Global Relative GDP (Current $): China + USA + India Rising, ... Europe Falling

Cross-Border Trade is 29% of Global GDP.

USA Consumer Confidence Index High & Rising @ 97 vs. 88 Sixty-Five Year Average 
Economy / Employment (USA): Unemployment @ 19 Year Low… Job Openings @ All-Time High and Wages Rising.

ONLINE EDUCATION = BIG NUMBERS + BIG GROWTH

Areas prime for innovation in USA: 1. Healthcare; 2. Government.

See also tweets at @bondcap.

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Two Internets, One For Chinese Apps and One for U.S. Apps? (video)

Two internets will form to cater to Chinese and US apps, strategist says | World Economic Forum

Kai-Fu Lee, chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures (sinovationventures.com) (and former President of Google China), discusses the possibility of the internet splitting between the U.S. and China and discusses the AI race between the two superpowers. CNBC International TV video Feb 2, 2019.
Tweets by kaifulee

4th Paradigm becomes the 5th #AI unicorn invested by @sinovationvc https://t.co/OEJX4AtuiD via @technology

— Sinovation Ventures (@sinovationvc) December 20, 2018

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Tech Review:1) Breakup Amazon? Google? 2) China's Growth Rate Slows

Tech Review (TR 2019-01-26)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news: Features • 1) Breakup Amazon? Google? 2) China's Growth Rate Slows, 3)Investing: The Week & Notes: China, Eurozone, EU & Brexit, Sweet Dreams,  4)ICYMI Tech News: Amazon AWS, Microsoft, Apple, China, WeChat, 5G. 

1. Breakup Amazon? Google?

Why the Breakup of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, & Google, Will Never Happen

Arete Research (arete.net) founder Richard Kramer challenges Scott Galloway’s position on the breakup of Amazon $AMZN, Apple $AAPL, Facebook $FB, & Google $GOOGL, GOOG. L2inc.com video above published Jan 17, 2019.

2) China's Growth Rate Slows 

China growth rate at its lowest since 1990

A look behind the numbers to explain what's happening to the Chinese economy. Financial Times (ft.com) video above published Jan 21, 2019.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite +0.1% | S&P 500 Index -0.2% | DJIA +0.1%

Investing Notes:

China: "the problem is ... debt is no longer having the same kind of effect ... the amount of debt needed to produce a given impact on GDP ["credit intensity"] more than tripled ... In the next downturn ... Beijing may not be able to borrow its way out of the hole"--mauldineconomics.com. Bloomberg.com: "China’s Xi Warns Party of ‘Serious Dangers’ as Risks Mount."

Eurozone, EU & Brexit: the euro is sttll a real worry for all of Europe--cnn.com. The euro's unhappy 20th birthday--thehill.com. "... the Eurozone ... is far from being a happy place ... one cannot rule out another economic crisis. I say this as the UK exports goods and services worth €209 Billion ($237 Billion) to the EU and imports from the EU trade worth €342 Billion ($388 Billion). The UK accounts for 16.8% of all EU exports. That is a too big a hit for a bloc the size of the EU to take without a problem rippling through the economy ..."--Forbes.com.

Brexit? American Hedge Fund Billionaire Ken Griffin (Citadel LLC founder) Buys $122 Million London Home--bloomberg.com Jan 21, 2019.

Bullish: Guggenheim Partners Global Chief Investment Officer Scott Minerd says worries about a global recession are inflated, and pessimism expressed by political and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos is a “valuable contra-indicator” for investors, making him bullish.

Sweet Dreams: "go with a low-cost, one- to four-year average maturity U.S. Treasury fund ... Vanguard Short-Term Federal fund [VSGBX]. I don’t invest in anything with a maturity of five years or longer. I’m concerned about U.S. budget problems leading to a potentially much steeper yield curve, so I want to stay relatively short term. The Vanguard fund is a laddered fund. As bonds mature, the money is reinvested. You will compound your gains if interest rates go higher. Those are my picks: If you buy gold, and own the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (hedged with the S&P 500 for bearish investors), and buy this bond fund, you’ll sleep pleasantly at night"--Jeffrey Gundlach.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

Amazon's AWS is the "internet’s largest cloud provider, generating over $17 billion in revenue last year. Though Amazon makes much more in gross sales—over $100 billion—from its retail business, if you scrutinize its earnings reports, you’ll see that the majority of its profits come from AWS. Tech is where the money is, baby."--gizmodo.com

Microsoft's recently signed major enterprise cloud deals "scream of retail and healthcare companies wanting a solution not involving Amazon controlled AWS"--seekingalpha.com.

Google says it will appeal its recent $57 million fine for breaching Europe's strict new privacy rules known as GDPR.

Apple in China: "due to the ubiquitousness of WeChat, Apple's iOS holds a less prominent place in the Chinese user's mindspace - the iPhone retention rate is only 50%"--seekingalpha.com.

5G: global mobile data traffic expected to grow eight times by the end of 2023 ... with first commercial 5G networks and devices launched 2018. Ericsson estimates the number of subscriptions reaching one and a half billion by the end of 2024."--ericsson.com/en/5g

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Tencent Q3 2018 Financial Results, LIVE Webcast Nov 14, 7am ET

Tencent HKG: 0700

Tencent Holdings Limited Q3 2018 Financial Results Conference call and LIVE webcast at 7:00 a.m. EST (US) - 8:00 p.m. HKT, Wednesday, Nov 14, 2018. Replay of the webcast at the same link. PowerPoint slides will be presented during the live webcast.

UPDATE Q3 2018 Key Highlights: Revenues: +24% YoY, non-GAAP Profit attributable to equity holders of the Company: +15% YoY --full press release (pdf)

Tencent Investor Relations: tencent.com/en-us/investor.html

 Announcement press release here (pdf).

See also: Tencent cuts marketing budget for games amid China crackdown | reuters.com.

source: statista.com

source: statista.com

source: statista.com

source: statista.com

source: statista.com

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Tech Review: Digital Outdoor Advertising Growth Due To GDPR? (video)

Tech Review (TR 2018-09-29)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Digital Outdoor Advertising Growth Due To GDPR? 2) What Is Fintech? 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: US, China, Trump & Trade Tariffs, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Digital Outdoor Advertising is growing steadily, is GDPR one of the reasons?

Digitization of traditional outdoor advertising has contributed to the healthy growth of the "Out of Home" advertising sector, says Aidan Neill, co-founder of bitposter.co. There are other reasons, too, such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which became enforceable May 25, 2018. CNBC.com video above published Sep 24, 2018. Other companies mentioned: clearchannel.com and jcdecaux.com.

2) What is fintech? 

What is fintech all about? It’s a multi-billion dollar industry that’s changing everything from how we make purchases to how we get loans.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite +0.7% | S&P 500 Index -0.5% | DJIA -1.1% 

Q3 2018: S&P 500 posts strongest quarter since 2013.

"Economic progress continues in the United States … the data coming in is some of the strongest we have seen in this cycle ... let’s start with valuation ... [S&P 500] is selling at 17 times earnings, substantially below the peak multiples reached at the end of the last century or in 2007. Using my dividend discount model ... the index is now slightly above equilibrium, or fair value. In terms of sentiment, investors are optimistic, but not as euphoric as they were in January. These factors would argue that the market could move somewhat higher, but that a major surge is unlikely … weak markets elsewhere in the world don’t necessarily have a negative impact on the United States … One of the most important tenets of my current view is that the next recession will probably not occur until after the election in 2020 ..."--Byron Wien, Blackrock.com, Sep 25, 2018.

Wall Street's Charging Bull

Investing Notes: US, China, Trump & Trade Tariffs

The US and China are in a 'classic game of chicken' says Professor

Professor James Crabtree of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy explains the political dynamics coming from both the U.S. and China: US consumers are not going to feel any impact from tariffs for quite a long time. CNBC.com video published Sep 24, 2018.

The US has an 'extremely strong economy'

CNBC.com video above published Sep 24, 2018: Todd "Bubba" Horwitz of BubbaTrading.com says the U.S. could "survive without anybody if we had to," and he's not worried about tariffs or Trump's stance on China's theft of intellectual property and unfair treatment of U.S. companies.

DAILY BRIEF:

- Household debt hits all-time high
- China’s industrial profits fall to 4-month low
- London-Shanghai stock link could be ready by December
- Turkey becomes new investment target
- WeChat Pay to allow HK users to make mainland paymentshttps://t.co/Fw6d0xv8mD

— ChinaEconomicReview (@chinaeconreview) September 28, 2018

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Amazon $AMZN still is the largest cloud provider at 34% market share, but Microsoft $MSFT at 14% share, is ahead of IBM $IBM 8%, Google $GOOGL $GOOG 6%, and Alibaba $BABA 4%, according to Synergy Research Group . Microsoft announced in July a five-year deal with Walmart $WMT to use Microsoft's cloud and AI tech. Microsoft's Intelligent Cloud revenues grew 23% in its fiscal Q4 to $9.61 billion and its Azure cloud business increased by 89%. Microsoft still maintains a strong position as software and hardware provider, while expanding into artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and IoT. Microsoft's acquisitions include LinkedIn and GitHub.

• Apple $AAPL completes deal to buy Shazam (shazam.com)--reuters.com.

• WeChat Pay vs. Alipay mobile payments: Tencent & Alibaba chase remittances in battle for Southeast Asia | reuters.com.

• Bitcoin prices may not have hit rock bottom yet, says Cboe options expert | MarketWatch.com.

• Media Madness: Comcast $CMCSA bid $40 billion for control of Sky;  Walt Disney $DIS probably paid too much for parts of Rupert Murdoch’s empire, including a stake in Sky, so selling that stake to Comcast would reduce Disney's debt to better battle streaming rivals like Netflix $NFLX. See Fox and Disney selling stake in Sky to Comcast--TheHill.com.

• Quantum Computing meeting at the White House: National Strategic Overview For Quantum Information Science | WhiteHouse.gov (pdf). 

• Personal Tech: Remove yourself from people search sites and erase your online presence | ZDNet.com--a step-by-step guide to reducing your digital footprint online, whether you want to lock down data or vanish entirely.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Tencent Holdings Q2 2018 Earnings, LIVE Webcast, Aug 15, 8am EDT

Tencent Holdings Ltd.

Hong Kong Stock Exchange: HKG: 0700

Tencent Holdings Ltd: HKG: 0700

Principal domain: tencent.com

Investor Relations: tencent.com/en-us/investor.html

UPDATE: Q2 2018 Earnings Release (pdf) excerpts:

• Total revenues were RMB147,203 million (USD22,248 million1 ), an increase of 39% over the first half of 2017 (“YoY”). 
• Operating profit was RMB52,499 million (USD7,934 million), an increase of 25% YoY. Operating margin decreased to 36% from 39% last year. 
• Profit for the period was RMB42,553 million (USD6,431 million), an increase of 30% YoY. Net margin decreased to 29% from 31% last year. 
• Profit attributable to equity holders of the Company for the period was RMB41,157 million (USD6,220 million), an increase of 26% YoY. 
• Basic earnings per share were RMB4.363. Diluted earnings per share were RMB4.303

See also: "Tencent's earnings disappointment, which sent the stock plunging and dragged EM futures lower..."--Tech Stocks Slammed After Tencent Shocker | ZeroHedge.com 15 Aug 2018.

Tencent Holdings Limited's release of 2018 Second Quarter and Interim Results: Wednesday, August 15, 2018. Mr. Ma Huateng, Chairman & CEO, Mr. Martin Lau, President, Mr. James Mitchell, CSO and Mr. John Lo, CFO, will host a conference call to review the Company’s business and financial performance and discuss the Company’s future plans. A live webcast of this conference call will be available on the Company’s website as follows: time: 8:00 p.m. HKT/ 8:00 a.m. EDT Webcast Access: http://www.tencent.com/webcasting/2Q18. PowerPoint slides will be presented during the live webcast. Archived webcast will be available at the same link above.

Dial-in numbers: US Toll Free: 184 4760 0770; UK: +44 20371 35084; China (Landline): 80087 00532; China (mobile): 40062 40407; International: +65 6713 5330; HK: +852 3018 8307; Passcode for Participants: 267 9428. A replay of the conference call can be reached at 185 5452 5696 (US Toll Free), or +61 2 9003 4211 (International). Conference ID number is 267 9428.

Tencent Holdings Limited is a Chinese multinational investment holding conglomerate founded in 1998, with subsidiaries specialize in various internet-related services and products, entertainment,  artificial intelligence and technology both in China and globally. 

Headquarters: Its twin-skyscrapers headquarters Tencent Seafront Towers (also known as Tencent Binhai Mansion) are based in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, China.

According to its Wikipedia.org profile: "Tencent is the world's biggest investment corporation, one of the largest internet and technology companies, one of the biggest venture capital firms, and the largest and most valuable gaming (Tencent Games) and social media company. Its many services include social network, music, web portals, e-commerce, mobile games, internet services, payment systems, smartphones, and multiplayer online games, which are all among the world's biggest and most successful in their respective categories. Offerings in China include the well-known instant messenger Tencent QQ and one of the largest web portals, QQ.com. Its mobile chat service WeChat has helped bolster Tencent's continued expansion into smartphone services, and has been credited as one of the world's most powerful apps. It also owns the majority of China's music services (Tencent Music Entertainment), with more than 700 million active users and 120 million paying subscribers, the world's largest and most profitable."

• Revenue: 237.8 billion CNY (2017)
• Subsidiaries: Epic Games, Tencent Games, Riot Games, Supercell, WeChat and more.
• Founders: Ma Huateng a/k/a Pony Ma, Chen Yidan, Zhang Zhidong, Xu Chenye, Zeng Liqing

See also: Government of China blocks Tencent fantasy game days after launch--chinaeconomicreview.com 14 Aug 2018.

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Tech Review: 1) Tencent & WeChat's Pony Ma, 2) Browser Market Share

Tech Review (TR 2018-08-04)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Tencent & WeChat's Pony Ma, 2) Browser Market Share--Where's Amazon Silk? 3) Investing: The Week: Apple at $1T, Investing Notes: a. Disrupted, b. $FB Record Loss, c. U.S. at 3% Growth Next 4-5 Years? 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) China’s Tencent & WeChat Billionaire

Pony Ma is one of the richest people in the world. He created Tencent (domain: tencent.com), China's tech colossus, one of the ten largest companies in the world and developer of the WeChat app (domain: wechat.com), China's ubiquitous multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app. But few signs in his early years suggest that he would become such a success. Bloomberg.com video above first published 11 Jul 2018.

Tencent Holdings Ltd   HKG: 0700

Tencent's $143 Billion Rout Is World's Biggest as Tech Sinks--Bloomberg.com July 30, 2018--Tencent's stock has dropped 25% from its January peak, erasing $143B in value, as global investors became wary of big tech's potential growth.

2) Browser Market Share Worldwide (all devices) June 2018--Where's Amazon Silk?

• Chrome 58.94% (Google)
• Safari 13.7% (Apple)
• UC Browser 7.46% (Alibaba)
• Firefox 5.17% (Mozilla Foundation, Mountain View, California)
• Opera 3.5% (Chinese consortium)
• IE 3.12% (Microsoft)

Editor's note: The dominant market leader is definitely Google's Chrome browser, and #2 Safari offers real competition only on Apple devices (Apple's 'walled garden'). But watch Opera's future market share growth on cheap smartphones, particularly in China, India, and Brazil. Also watch if Amazon's Silk browser expands beyond Amazon devices. Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), could be just a few steps away from a broad array of new products and services, including a competitive search engine to Google and Microsoft's Bing, built on its core ecommerce platform, its AWS technology (aws.amazon.com), its Twitch (twitch.tv) subsidiary, and its expanding Amazon Advertising Platform--advertising.amazon.com/amazon-advertising-platform.

source: Statista.com

source: Statista.com

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite +0.9% | S&P 500 Index +0.8% | DJIA +0.1%

Apple $AAPL Jul 27-Aug 2, 2018

Apple $AAPL on Thursday, August 2, 2018, became the first $1Trillion market cap company.

Wall Street's Charging Bull

Investing Notes:

a. Disrupted: "the staid taxi industry slept through the arrival of smartphones – and what an app-based system could do. While there are now apps for taxi services, it’s too little too late"--WolfStreet.com.

b. Facebook's Big Single Day Market Cap Loss in Context:

source: Statista.com

c. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he sees at least 3 percent growth for next 4-5 years--reuters.com.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Q2 2018 Results of note this past week: Apple $AAPL & Tesla $TSLA. 

• 342M smartphones were shipped worldwide in Q2 2018, down 1.8% YoY from 348.2M, with Huawei passing Apple to ship the second-most smartphones--IDC.com.

• Chinese smartphone market declined 7% YoY in Q2 2018, fourth consecutive quarter of annual decline; Huawei's marketshare grew from 20% to 26%--counterpointresearch.com.

• Amazon has 70% of the U.S. home speaker market, followed by Google with 24% and Apple only 6%. The number of smart speaker devices in use in the U.S.? 50 million--CNET.com.

• 5G: Nokia & T-Mobile US agree to $3.5B 5G network hardware deal--reuters.com.

• "Logistics is hard"--Walmart stumbles with its 'last mile' package delivery plan--reuters.com.

• Cryptocurrency: California college student who allegedly was a member of OGUSERS, allegedly stole over $5M in cryptocurrency by "SIM swapping" (hijacking cellphone numbers)--motherboard.vice.com.
• Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic--Paul Krugman in the New York Times | NYTimes.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Tencent, Parent of WeChat, China's Most Valuable Company? (video)

Tencent's vertical campus

Financial Times (ft.com) video above published May 30, 2018: Tencent, China's largest tech company, built its new HQ with all the features of a campus in a skyscraper. The FT's Louise Lucas asks whether skybridges and pool tables create a successful office environment

An inside look at Chinese tech giant Tencent's vertical campus

CNBC International video above published Jun 6, 2018: Tencent has quickly become Asia's largest publicly traded company. CNBC's Uptin Saiidi visited its new headquarters in China.

Most U.S.-based investors know about Alibaba (BABA) and Baidu (BIDU), often compared to Amazon (AMZN) and Alphabet (GOOG), but Tencent (TCEHY), is China's first or second most valuable company (depending on daily stock price valuations as compared to Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA).

Tencent (domain: Tencent.com), trades as an ADR and is also available in iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index ETF (FXI), Global X Social Media Index ETF (SOCL) and Guggenheim China Technology ETF (CQQQ). Among Tencent's many different units, is the WeChat (wechat.com) messaging app, which has over one billion million monthly active users, making it one of the most used social networks in the world. WeChat has effectively become an operating system for Tencent.
In the gaming vertical, Tencent sells both PC based and smartphone games, it owns LA-based Riot Games and also has stakes in Epic and Activision. The company also owns Honour of Kings, which some press accounts describe as “The most profitable game in the world” making “$1 billion a quarter.”
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Chinese New Year, Red Envelopes, Tencent & WeChat (infographics)

source: Statista.com Feb 15, 2018

Over a billion people celebrated the Chinese New Year. Many prepared for the celebrations for days and a key aspect of the holiday involved people cleaning their homes, a tradition called "sweeping the dust" which symbolized the removal of misfortune and the welcoming of something new. When all of the cleaning was completed, homes were decorated with posters and red lanterns before revellers enjoyed spectacular fireworks and firecrackers. Technology played an increasingly important role in the world's biggest party with red envelopes or hóngbāo central to the festivities.

In China and other Southeast Asian societies, a red envelope is a monetary gift exchanged during holidays or special occasions. Over the past couple of the years, the tradition has gone digital with Tencent (domain: tencent.com) and Alibaba (domains: alibaba.com and alibabagroup.com) both offering virtual red envelopes. The digital version has caught on and last year, the number exchanged on Tencent's WeChat (domain: wechat.com) app was an impressive 46.6 billion = 33 envelopes full of cash for every person in China. That's a huge increase on 2016 when the red envelope count came to 8 billion.

 Statista.com
Statista.com
 Statista.com

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China's Mobile Wallet-Free Lifestyle via WeChat Pay & Alipay (video)

China's Great Leap Into Wallet-Free Living

No cash? No problem. A trip to Shenzhen, China highlights how the explosive growth of mobile payments is driving a wallet-free society. WSJ's Jason Bellini reports. Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) video above published Jan 18, 2018.

China is living the future of mobile pay right now | CNBC.com 8 Oct 2017: "Mainland Chinese stores and services are increasingly centered around mobile pay apps like WeChat Pay and Alipay. Chinese mobile payment volume more than doubled to $5 trillion in 2016, according to Analysys data cited by Hillhouse Capital. Mobile pay is growing so rapidly in mainland China that as a foreigner, I sometimes found it difficult to complete basic transactions without it. The dominance of mobile transactions lends itself to greater data collection by the Chinese government."

Mobile Internet Users in China

China's GDP 1960-2016

China's Mobile-Payment Market 2017

Leading Mobile Payment Platforms in China: WeChat Pay, Alipay

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Tech Review | Tencent Reaches $500 Billion Market Capitalization (video)

Tech Review (TR 2017-11-25)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Tencent Reaches $500 Billion Market Capitalization, 2) Media & Advertising Disrupted, 3) Investing: Stock Indexes at Record Highs, Trump's First Year & Legacy, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Tencent Reaches $500 Billion Market Capitalization

Tencent on Monday punched through a stock market capitalization of $500 billion, becoming the first Chinese technology company to join an elite group dominated by US corporations. Financial Times (ft.com) video above published Nov 20, 2017.

Tencent Holdings Limited (domain: tencent.com) is a Chinese investment holding conglomerate whose subsidiaries provide media, entertainment, social network, payment systems, smartphones, internet-related services, value-added services, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, property services, and online advertising services, principally in China. Global ambitions: will Tencent be as successful competing in the global marketplace as it is on China's state-controlled internet?

• Tencent Holdings Ltd shares HKG: 0700 (pricing in HKD) Disclaimer
• Headquarters: Shenzhen, China
• Revenue: 151.9 billion CNY (2016)
• Subsidiaries: Supercell, China Literature, WeBank, MORE
• Founders: Ma Huateng, Zhang Zhidong, Chen Yidan, Xu Chenye, Zeng Liqing
• Tencent is the world's fifth-largest internet company by revenue according to wikipedia.org.

Tencent's killer app is WeChat (domain: wechat.com), a social mobile application with voice and text messaging service. It is the most popular social mobile application in China and some overseas Chinese communities, such as Malaysia. See: Tencent turns to WeChat, games and deals for global strategy: "Malaysia the first foreign country to roll out its WeChat ecosystem," an executive told Reuters.com.

2)  Media & Advertising Disrupted: Why there's so much anxiety in the media business right now | CNN.com: "The digital advertising duopoly of Google and Facebook -- in which they take in 2017 about 90% of all the digital ad dollar growth -- drives everyone else in media to run tighter ships," said analyst Ken Doctor. 

See also:

• Angst Among Digital Media CEOs as Ads Fall: Is It Time to Sell? | Bloomberg.com: "With ads tough to sell and new capital hard to raise, dreams of creating new digital behemoths have given way to a more realistic view that survival may hinge on being part of a larger company."
• Mainstream Media Turns On Social Media--"Mark Zuckerberg's Long Litany Of Failings."--ZeroHedge.com.
• New model? Move Over WaPo & NYTimes: Axios.com Raises $20 Million to Fund Newsroom Expansion | WSJ.com: "The 10-month-old media startup plans to increase staffing to 150 by the end of 2018, develop new coverage areas, and expand its data analysis and product offerings." 

3) Investing

The Week: Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. made this a short week for investors, but a time to reflect on the year and give thanks:

"... Donald Trump is a lucky guy, and the economy during his first year in office has been a dream cocktail of favorable results. Real growth has increased from 2% over the past few years to 3% in the second and third quarters. (The third quarter was a real surprise. Everyone expected growth at 2% or below because of hurricanes Irma and Harvey.) Inflation is tame at 2%, very low for the late stage of an expansion (unless this isn’t a late stage). The 10-year U.S. Treasury is yielding a very unthreatening 2.4%, the unemployment rate is just over 4% and looks like it is headed into the 3% range, household net worth is at an all-time high, consumer confidence is at a 15-year high and the Standard & Poor’s 500 is at an all-time high. That’s a pretty good set of statistics for less than a year in office. Perhaps giving President Trump credit for all of it isn’t right, but it did occur on his watch ..."--Byron Wien Commentary | blackstone.com (excerpt)(emphasis added)

For the week ending Friday Nov 24, 2017, U.S. stocks: the S&P 500, NASDAQ, and Russell 2000, all end the week at all-time record highs--MarketWatch.com and S&P 500 closes above 2,600 for first time | CNBC.com.

Investing Notes:

• Tax Bill: "After I saw that tax bill, I lost hope with the drain the swamp concept, the swamp keeps getting bigger."--DoubleLine's Jeffrey Gundlach. See also: The Republican Tax Plan Is Very Swampy | ZeroHedge.com.
• Wall Street Betting on Tax Reform Passing? "Key point about the Shiller PE is therefore NOT that stocks are expensive. Rather, it is that markets expect inflation/interest rates to remain low and corporate earnings to stay elevated."--datatrekresearch.com 
• Trump's Legacy: "Tax reform and the end of year spending deal will consume all of Washington's oxygen until the end of the year" but next week the Senate is scheduled to confirm President Trump's ninth judicial appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals this year, which beats President Reagan's eight  in his first year, and President Obama's three in his first year in office. "This [judicial appointments] will be the single most important legacy of the Trump administration"--Sen. Chris Coons, Delaware Democrat and Senate Judiciary Committee member.--BusinessInsider.com
• Goldman Sachs says 2017 was surprisingly good, 2018 will be more of the same: "2017 is shaping up to be the first year of the expansion in which growth surprises to the upside ... We expect 2018 to deliver more of the same"--Goldman analyst Charles Himmelberg--cnbc.com.
• Trump & China: Don't "be lulled by Trump's public praise of President Xi. Behind the scenes, [Trade Rep] Lighthizer's arguments are winning the day"--Axios.com.
• Bitcoin: “Can you live without bitcoins? Yes. Could you live without tulips in the Netherlands? Yes,” said Sankaran Naren, CIO of ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company, at the Reuters Summit in Mumbai--Bubbly bitcoin not worth the wager: investors | Reuters.com.
• Short $TSLA? "Put it this way," short seller Jim Chanos said, "if you wouldn't be short a multi-billion-dollar loss-making enterprise in a cyclical business, with a leveraged balance sheet, questionable accounting, every executive leaving, run by a CEO with a questionable relationship with the truth, what would you be short? It sort of ticks all the boxes" --cnbc.com. See also: Bloomberg.com--Tesla’s Burning Through Nearly Half a Million Dollars Every Hour--"By this calculation, Tesla would exhaust cash on Aug. 6, [2018]."
• $INTC--SeekingAlpha.com: Chromebooks--One Good Reason To Like Intel. 
• 'The fear is gone,' boom-time complacency tops investors' worry list--Reuters.com.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Amazon's Last Mile | gizmodo.com: "... plainclothes contractors with few labor protections, driving their own cars, competing for shifts on the company’s own Uber-like platform ... In terms of size, efficiency, and ruthlessness, Amazon has few equals ... "

• Is Google's AI almost as stupid as Siri? Google Has Picked an Answer for You—Too Bad It’s Often Wrong | WSJ.com: "Going beyond search, the internet giant is promoting a single result over all others, and many are contentious, improbable or laughably incorrect."

• Apple offices raided ahead of launch of iPhone X in South Korea | metro.co.uk: "Apple products are wildly popular in South Korea, which is home to several giant tech firms including Samsung and LG."

• Qualcomm to Win EU Approval for NXP Deal by End of Year--Bloomberg.com.

• A Windows 10 alternative: Microsoft should embrace, extend Linux on the desktop | ZDNet.com: "I get it ... you don't want Windows 10. Let me suggest another solution." See also: "​Linux totally dominates supercomputers"--ZDNet.com.

• Another Cryptocurrency Gets Hacked, Money Disappears. Here are the 30 Biggest Crypto Hacks | WolfStreet.com: "Bitfinex, which doesn’t even disclose where it is located (it’s incorporated in the British Virgin Islands at a mailbox address and files some paperwork in Hong Kong), was hacked again, after its May 2015 hack."

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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