- TCEHY/1797.HK - Interesting to see Tencent sold most of its pre-IPO investment in Koolearn (1797.HK) on June 15 and June 16 for ~ HK$9.7. Tencent was a keystone investor in Koolearn and their shareholder ownership decreased from 9% to 1.58% post the sale. Koolearn had been ripping higher on optimism on a potential new, bilingual livestreaming opportunity with KOLs named Michael Dong and Yoyo.
- MOMO - two top livestreaming anchors (Xu Guohao, Sun Zixuan) from Momo (陌陌) were fined millions of dollars by the State Administration of Taxation for major tax evasion in the past two weeks. The bad news continue to pile up for this struggling livestreaming platform.
- FUTU - Bloomberg interviewed CFO Arthur Chen who said Futu has been actively communicating with Chinese authorities since October to keep regulators informed of how they service the nation’s clients. “We’re waiting for more policy clarity on this front, and in the meantime trying to maintain a strategy that ensures relatively stable growth for us by shifting the focus to overseas markets,” he said. Meanwhile, Chen diverted the interview towards international opportunities (Hong Kong, California, Singapore and Australia). While international growth is important, Mainland China has to be accessible for FUTU, a pivotal part of my Long Thesis. Chen also said Futu will keep options open in case of delisting. Futu adding 20% more staff will increase R&D costs in 2022 - it's already in my model (36% growth for R&D costs)
- PDD - While PDD didn't disclose a 618 GMV figure, it looks like they're making some progress with household appliance brands and beauty products. Sales tripled vs last year's 618 festival.
- NTES - a follow-up from my note last night. Rumors flew that the Diablo Immortal's official Weibo account was suspended because of a Winnie the Pooh reference to President Xi. In other news, one of NTES's top legacy games Onmyoji (阴阳师) was under fire over the weekend on content controversy. When netizens complain, the government is on alert.
- 2400.HK - This year, XD expects at least four of its 13 upcoming projects – platform fighting game Flash Party, shooting game T3 Arena, action role-playing game Torchlight: Infinite and strategy role-playing game Sword of Convallaria – to be officially launched on TapTap for global players. While three of these games are still awaiting approval from Beijing, the US and Japan are the primary market to test the games, XD SVP Zhang said. XD aims to turn a profit in 2023 on the back of its self-developed games, most of which will become exclusive on TapTap, which it hopes will play a key part in attracting new users.
- Flooding - Floodwaters engulfed homes, fields and roads in southern China as authorities evacuated nearly 150,000 residents after weeks of record rain. A task force from Beijing was sent to Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Guangdong province to lead rescue and evacuation efforts on Monday.
