Bottom line: Tencent's WeGame could stand a 50-50 chance of success in moving abroad, since the company already has a proven track record in games and will face relatively low privacy protection concerns due to the less-sensitive nature of gaming.

Despite their huge success at home, none of China's big Internet companies has ever scored a major victory outside its home market, despite a num...

Bottom line: Live broadcasting specialists Inke and Huya should do well over the next year but could face difficulty after that as popularity of such services fades, while Xiaomi's stock gains over the last two days look like a dead-cat bounce.

Following the unimpressive debut of smartphone maker Xiaomi (HKEx: 1810) earlier this week, live streaming site Inke (HKEx: 3700) is the latest high-tec...

Bottom line: Xiaomi's stock is likely to be volatile over the next year and could move broadly downward as investors wait to see if the company's comeback has legs and it can move into higher-end products.

Smartphone maker Xiaomi (HKEx: 1810) seems to have become the proverbial lead zepplyn sinking further and further into the mire as it finally made its trading debut in Hong Kong. The company ...

Bottom line: A court order barring Micron Technology from China and Donald Trump's attempts to keep China Mobile out of the US reflect blurring lines between business and politics in heightening US-China trade tensions.

Two new headlines are showing how trade tensions between the US and China are spilling over into the high-tech realm, while also reflecting a certain amount of confusion and twi...

Bottom line: A new IPO by e-commerce company Pingduoduo could do reasonably well due to its rapid growth and unusual business model, but could suffer from a "flavor of the day" element over the longer term.

After years of basically having just two choices to invest in China's e-commerce market, investors will soon have another new and interesting option with the upcoming listing of a company ca...

Bottom line: ZTE will experience fallout from its run-in with Washington through much of next year, and could see an even longer-term hit to its global business as international customers start to look for alternate suppliers.

The saga of embattled smartphone and telecoms equipment maker ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 00006) appears to be nearing an end, as trading resumed in the company's stock fol...

Bottom line: New listing plans by used car platform operator Uxin, EV battery maker Amperex and medical device maker Mindray should all do well, driven by strong growth potential and their leading positions in China.

The latest IPO season for Chinese firms is kicking into high gear on both sides of the Pacific, with announcement of several hot new offerings that each has a slightly different st...

Bottom line: China Mobile's first-ever drop in 4G subscribers in April owes to the company's early arrival to the space, and reflects the broader market's maturation that is also adding similar pressures to Unicom and China Telecom.

Much ado is being made about new data from the three big telcos that includes a first-ever drop in 4G subscribers for industry heavyweight China Mobile (HKEx: 941; ...

Bottom line:  The departure of Lu Qi from Baidu could deal a setback to some of the company's less advanced and more ambitious efforts in artificial intelligence.

Just a year after being named as the man who would lead search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) into a future filled with artificial intelligence (AI), Lu Qi has abruptly abandoned his post as the company's COO. Investors were clearly spoo...

Bottom line: A brouhaha involving Lenovo's branding as unpatriotic for not supporting homegrown technology is likely to blow over quickly, and spotlights China's continued reliance on foreign technology.

In a story that looks like a something from the McCarthy era, embattled PC maker Lenovo (HKEx: 992) has landed at the center of a controversy that's seeing it branded by some as a traitor for c...

Bottom line: China's approval of a small US chip merger shows Beijing is actively reviewing such deals again after a brief pause to show its displeasure over US trade tensions, and bodes well for eventual approval of Qualcomm's purchase of NXP.

Trade tensions between Washington and Beijing have thrown a number of major companies into turmoil, as the two sides spar over the former's attempts to ...

Bottom line: Xiaomi is likely to quietly settle a copyright infringement lawsuit against it by Coolpad, which is opportunistically looking for some hush money before Xiaomi's IPO and can't afford a long drawn-out court battle.

In a move that smells of desperation, down-and-out smartphone maker Coolpad (HKEx: 2369) has filed a lawsuit against the up-and-coming Xiaomi. Anyone with half a brain wi...

Bottom line: Lenovo's ejection from the Hang Seng Index caps its long fall from grace over the last four years, and leaves the company in an increasingly deep hole that may be hard to emerge from.

Capping its long fall from grace, PC giant Lenovo (HKEx: 992) has been officially booted from the Hang Seng Index, in a move that looks highly symbolic but also has some very real ramifications for th...

Bottom line: Xiaomi is hoping to attract investors to its IPO through its recent strong revenue growth, but it could still be years before it becomes profitable due to heavy reliance on low-end, low-margin products.

Everyone is fawning over the newly released IPO prospectus from Xiaomi, the smartphone maker that is aiming to make what's likely to be the biggest listing of all time by a company ...

Bottom line: Two biotech firms' abandonment of New York IPOs for Hong Kong is part of a broader trend to make Hong Kong and China more competitive for high-growth startups, and could ultimately boost valuations in all three markets.

We'll take a break from all the trade war talk as we close out the week and instead turn to another major development taking place in Hong Kong, where the local sto...

Bottom line: A US investigation of Huawei into possible illegal sales of US-made equipment to Iran is old news, and may be getting dredged up now to give Washington leverage in its ongoing trade frictions with China.

Some might argue that US sanctions against telecoms equipment maker ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063) are just the prelude to a much bigger story that could now be sharping up, wit...

Bottom line: Washington's new ban on ZTE from buying US-made components is not as political as China is portraying it, and is likely to be resolved within a few weeks after ZTE takes remedial actions related to its violation of an earlier agreement.

An ongoing tiff between Washington and ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063) is in the headlines yet again, with word that the US has banned all Americ...

Bottom line: Foxconn's taking of the smartphone manufacturing crown from Samsung reflects the resurgence of Apple and rises of Huawei and Xiaomi, and could ultimately force other brands to use such third-party producers.

Today we'll take a step back from the usual name-brand smartphone rankings to look at a new report that shows that Taiwan's Foxconn (HKEx: 2038) is emerging as one of those "in...

Bottom line: Skidding sales in China's oversaturated smartphone market are long overdue, and could claim Gionee as a first major victim by year-end.

The inevitable is finally happening, and China is showing signs of smartphone burnout. The latest government data is showing that first-quarter smartphone sales in China plunged 26 percent, which is one of the largest drops I can ever recall. In th...

Bottom line: Alibaba's purchase of Ele.me and Tencent-backed Meituan's purchase of Mobike underscore the growing rivalry between Alibaba and Tencent, as each uses its deep pockets to try and dominate money-losing emerging sectors.

Trade wars are making all the big headlines these days in US-China news, forcing a couple of mega-mergers that would normally be front-page news into the back pages. ...