Blue Lotus China New Economy Research, Blue Lotus Research Institute

Eric Wen

Blue Lotus China New Economy Research

China growth and global non-US Internet equities

Blue Lotus Research Institute

Blue Lotus Research is a Hong Kong Type 4 Licensed investment advisory firm focusing on Chinese growth equities and global non-US Internet equities

Equity Bottom-Up

<ul>
<li>Huawei’s decision to accept investments to its Intelligent Automotive Solution (HI) has no impact on its Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA). It might actually strengthen it, in our view;</li>
<li>We also believe it concludes Huawei’s internal battle of visions.</li>
<li>The newly integrated business has short term impacts on Li, Nio and XPeng and long-term impact on Baidu and Xiaomi.</li>
</ul>


Huawei’s decision to accept investments to its Intelligent Automotive Solution (HI) has no impact on its Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA). It might actually strengthen it, in our view;
We also believe it concludes Huawei’s internal battle of visions.
The newly integrated business has short term impacts on Li, Nio and XPeng and long-term impact on Baidu and Xiaomi.


[Blue Lotus Transportation Sector Update]: Huawei’s R&D & Marketing Alignment Makes It Stronger

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<ul>
<li>TSLA/XPEV/NIO/LI/BIDU: Tesla FSD expected to launch in the Chinese market</li>
<li>1211.HK/600104.CH/601633.CH: Japanese auto makers cut prices in Thailand to fend off Chinese EV</li>
<li>XPEV/NIO/BIDU/BYD: BYD cut vehicle prices again to boost year-end sales</li>
</ul>


TSLA/XPEV/NIO/LI/BIDU: Tesla FSD expected to launch in the Chinese market
1211.HK/600104.CH/601633.CH: Japanese auto makers cut prices in Thailand to fend off Chinese EV
XPEV/NIO/BIDU/BYD: BYD cut vehicle prices again to boost year-end sales


[Blue Lotus Daily]: TSLA/XPEV/NIO/LI/BIDU/1211.HK/600104.CH/601633.CH/ATAT/BEKE

Blue Lotus Non US Internet research, Blue Lotus Research Institute

Ying Pan

Blue Lotus Non US Internet research

<ul>
<li>Baidu reported revenue/non-GAAP operating profit/GAAP net income inline/7.72%/66.1% vs. our estimation.</li>
<li>We believe short term cyclical and medium term AIGC-led upswing in advertising can bridge Baidu’s long-term business, which we do see them difficult to monetize.</li>
<li>We maintain a BUY rating and adjusted TP to US$157, implying a 14.6x PE. It is currently trading at 11.4x PE in 2024.</li>
</ul>


Baidu reported revenue/non-GAAP operating profit/GAAP net income inline/7.72%/66.1% vs. our estimation.
We believe short term cyclical and medium term AIGC-led upswing in advertising can bridge Baidu’s long-term business, which we do see them difficult to monetize.
We maintain a BUY rating and adjusted TP to US$157, implying a 14.6x PE. It is currently trading at 11.4x PE in 2024.


[Baidu, Inc. (BIDU US, BUY, TP US$157) TP Change]: C4Q/2024 Ads Upswing Bridge Gap to the Future

<ul>
<li>LKNCY: Cotti Coffee pans to expand into tea drinks business(+)</li>
<li>BIDU/DIDI/XPEV: MIIT and 4 other departments to carry out intelligent car access network(+)</li>
<li>LI/NIO/XPEV/300274 CH/300750 CH/601012 CH/JKS: China Export Data in October shows PV and wind power decline accelerating(+/+/+/-/-/-/-)</li>
</ul>


LKNCY: Cotti Coffee pans to expand into tea drinks business(+)
BIDU/DIDI/XPEV: MIIT and 4 other departments to carry out intelligent car access network(+)
LI/NIO/XPEV/300274 CH/300750 CH/601012 CH/JKS: China Export Data in October shows PV and wind power decline accelerating(+/+/+/-/-/-/-)


[Blue Lotus Daily]: LKNCY/Cotti Coffe/XPEV/BIDU/NIO/LI/JKS/DIDI/300274 CH/300750 CH/601012 CH

Semiconductor & Technology Specialist, Ingenuity

William Keating

Semiconductor & Technology Specialist

Ingenuity

Our focus is exclusively on in-depth research & consulting in the broader semiconductor industry. We focus on the key players, namely Intel, Micron, Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, NVIDIA, AMD, TSMC & Global Foundries - as well as some of the lesser known, but nonetheless critical, companies such as ASML (for EUV), Mellanox, Cavium, Xilinx etc. We specialise in their products, roadmaps, process technologies, competitive advantages & threats etc. We also help our clients understand the implications of new and emerging technologies, e.g. 3D X-Point, 3D NAND, Carbon Nanotubes, Autonomous Driving, Graphene, Silicon Photonics, Wafer-Level Optics, Artificial Intelligence, FPGA, GPU, ASIC etc. 

Semiconductor Analysis & Research

Since its emergence as the technology underpinning Bitcoin over a decade ago, blockchain has captured the imagination of technologists, investors and charlatans in roughly equal measure. Blockchain has been portrayed by its advocates as the solution to some of the most fundamental challenges facing modern-day society including free and fair elections, the protection of identity records and title deeds, supply chain integrity and, of course, enabling all manner of exotic cryptocurrencies. Little wonder then that we experienced a wave of blockchain mania which coincided with a similar level of cryptocurrency mania in late 2017. During that time, companies were adding "Blockchain" to their names and seeing their share prices soar by many multiples within weeks. Just as the crypto bubble burst in early 2018, so too did the blockchain bubble. Share prices of so-called blockchain companies collapsed just as quickly as they had risen. Testifying before a US senate committee in October 2018, professor of economics Nouriel Roubini was scathing in his criticism of blockchain <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Roubini%20Testimony%2010-11-18.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">referring</a> to it as  “The most over-hyped technology ever, no better than a spreadsheet/database”.
 Now, as the dust settles and the mania fades, we witness the emergence of a new class of enterprise-grade blockchain implementations led by the likes Hyperledger, Corda and various customisations of Ethereum. While the blockchain technologies supporting the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum are public in so far as the data they contain is accessible by anybody who wishes to view it, these enterprise blockchain implementations are private, a necessary prerequisite for their potential deployment at major corporations and financial institutions. This distinction, along with a number of other important differences, means that enterprise blockchain represents a significant departure from the original public blockchain concept.
Today, enterprise blockchain is being deployed to tackle challenges across a swathe of verticals thanks to the likes of the Big Four consulting firms striving to position it at the heart of their business process reengineering practices. From Maersk to Walmart, they are convincing some of the world's biggest conglomerates to tackle age-old issues relating to outdated, inefficient, labor intensive business practices, all in the name of  blockchain.
It's not just the Big Four that are cashing in on enterprise blockchain. Professional services firm Accenture is investing heavily in its blockchain consulting practice. Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) solutions are available from enterprise software giants <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/intl-business-machines-corp" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:1064:1" rel="noopener">Intl Business Machines</a>, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/oracle-corp" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:1065:1" rel="noopener">Oracle</a>,  <a href="https://www.sap.com/hk/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SAP</a> and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/microsoft-corp" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:15273:1" rel="noopener">Microsoft </a>and more recently from China’s <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/alibaba-group-holding-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:787:1" rel="noopener">Alibaba </a>and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/baidu-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:179:1" rel="noopener">Baidu</a>. <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/intel-corp" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:16764:1" rel="noopener">Intel </a>wants to ensure that enterprise blockchains runs best on its servers while Microsoft and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/amazon-com-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:409:1" rel="noopener">Amazon </a>want to host them on their clouds. It's little surprise then that enterprise and government spending on blockchain is expected to reach $2.9 billion in 2019, an increase of 89% over the previous year according to <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS44898819" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IDC</a>. Furthermore, they predict that spending on enterprise blockchain will reach $$ja12.4 billion by 2022.
In common with Roubini, our belief has long been that blockchain as a technology offers little that was not already available elsewhere and before. Enterprise blockchains bear little resemblance to the technical ingenuity that gave us Bitcoin, but which is otherwise largely useless. The populist mantra that enterprise blockchain has the ability to transform the business processes of major corporations, key industry verticals and governments is a largely a delusion in our opinion. <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/blockchains-occam-problem" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This</a> recent report from McKinsey further supports our perspective, noting that blockchain has yet to become the game-changer some expected and recommending that it should only be considered when it is the simplest solution available.
Paradoxically, if the allure of blockchain can be leveraged as the motivating factor to undertake the much-needed digital transformation and business process re-engineering required to modernize outdated, legacy practices and procedures, then it may indeed have some inherent, albeit unintended, value. Furthermore, our interviews with the CEOs of two small, privately held startups clearly indicated that they are actually finding important, albeit niche, use cases for blockchain technologies in their solution stacks.  In this context, it makes sense to view blockchain as an emerging technology actively seeking real-world use cases and likely to be strongly promoted by its proponents in the coming years.
Against this backdrop, how should investors think about the investment opportunities for blockchain? For starters, venture capital interest grew significantly in 2018 with some $5.4 billion invested in blockchain related startups, up from $1.5 billion the previous year according to <a href="https://next.autonomous.com/thoughts/crypto-blockchain-lands-at-24b-in-2018-funding-1b-in-stos-coming" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Autonomous Research</a>. Nonetheless, our analysis of multiple categories of companies with blockchain exposure reveals a harsh reality. Neither their blockchain related revenues nor any cost savings directly attributable to the technology are significant enough to have any meaningful impact on their valuations from a fundamentals perspective, a situation we do not expect to change any time soon. The same holds true for the blockchain-related ETFs and hedge funds we examined.
On a more positive note, there are some excellent companies doing exciting things with blockchain and related technologies. Privately held GuardTime and Digital Assets should be on investors watch lists for funding rounds and IPOs. We expect publicly listed <a href="https://www.garage.co.jp/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Digital Garage</a> and <a href="https://www.broadridge.com/intl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Broadridge Financial Solutions</a> to continue to perform well and feel that they should be considered as part of a broader fintech portfolio. By the same token, we are positive on the growth opportunities of blockchain-associated multinationals such as <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-hk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Microsoft</a>, <a href="https://www.ibm.com/hk-en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IBM</a>, <a href="https://www.visa.com.hk/en_HK" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Visa</a>, <a href="https://www.mastercard.us/en-us.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mastercard</a> etc, albeit for reasons that have little to do with blockchain.

Since its emergence as the technology underpinning Bitcoin over a decade ago, blockchain has captured the imagination of technologists, investors and charlatans in roughly equal measure. Blockchain has been portrayed by its advocates as the solution to some of the most fundamental challenges facing modern-day society including free and fair elections, the protection of identity records and title deeds, supply chain integrity and, of course, enabling all manner of exotic cryptocurrencies. Little wonder then that we experienced a wave of blockchain mania which coincided with a similar level of cryptocurrency mania in late 2017. During that time, companies were adding "Blockchain" to their names and seeing their share prices soar by many multiples within weeks. Just as the crypto bubble burst in early 2018, so too did the blockchain bubble. Share prices of so-called blockchain companies collapsed just as quickly as they had risen. Testifying before a US senate committee in October 2018, professor of economics Nouriel Roubini was scathing in his criticism of blockchain referring to it as  “The most over-hyped technology ever, no better than a spreadsheet/database”.
 Now, as the dust settles and the mania fades, we witness the emergence of a new class of enterprise-grade blockchain implementations led by the likes Hyperledger, Corda and various customisations of Ethereum. While the blockchain technologies supporting the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum are public in so far as the data they contain is accessible by anybody who wishes to view it, these enterprise blockchain implementations are private, a necessary prerequisite for their potential deployment at major corporations and financial institutions. This distinction, along with a number of other important differences, means that enterprise blockchain represents a significant departure from the original public blockchain concept.
Today, enterprise blockchain is being deployed to tackle challenges across a swathe of verticals thanks to the likes of the Big Four consulting firms striving to position it at the heart of their business process reengineering practices. From Maersk to Walmart, they are convincing some of the world's biggest conglomerates to tackle age-old issues relating to outdated, inefficient, labor intensive business practices, all in the name of  blockchain.
It's not just the Big Four that are cashing in on enterprise blockchain. Professional services firm Accenture is investing heavily in its blockchain consulting practice. Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) solutions are available from enterprise software giants Intl Business Machines, Oracle,  SAP and Microsoft and more recently from China’s Alibaba and Baidu. Intel wants to ensure that enterprise blockchains runs best on its servers while Microsoft and Amazon want to host them on their clouds. It's little surprise then that enterprise and government spending on blockchain is expected to reach $2.9 billion in 2019, an increase of 89% over the previous year according to IDC. Furthermore, they predict that spending on enterprise blockchain will reach $$ja12.4 billion by 2022.
In common with Roubini, our belief has long been that blockchain as a technology offers little that was not already available elsewhere and before. Enterprise blockchains bear little resemblance to the technical ingenuity that gave us Bitcoin, but which is otherwise largely useless. The populist mantra that enterprise blockchain has the ability to transform the business processes of major corporations, key industry verticals and governments is a largely a delusion in our opinion. This recent report from McKinsey further supports our perspective, noting that blockchain has yet to become the game-changer some expected and recommending that it should only be considered when it is the simplest solution available.
Paradoxically, if the allure of blockchain can be leveraged as the motivating factor to undertake the much-needed digital transformation and business process re-engineering required to modernize outdated, legacy practices and procedures, then it may indeed have some inherent, albeit unintended, value. Furthermore, our interviews with the CEOs of two small, privately held startups clearly indicated that they are actually finding important, albeit niche, use cases for blockchain technologies in their solution stacks.  In this context, it makes sense to view blockchain as an emerging technology actively seeking real-world use cases and likely to be strongly promoted by its proponents in the coming years.
Against this backdrop, how should investors think about the investment opportunities for blockchain? For starters, venture capital interest grew significantly in 2018 with some $5.4 billion invested in blockchain related startups, up from $1.5 billion the previous year according to Autonomous Research. Nonetheless, our analysis of multiple categories of companies with blockchain exposure reveals a harsh reality. Neither their blockchain related revenues nor any cost savings directly attributable to the technology are significant enough to have any meaningful impact on their valuations from a fundamentals perspective, a situation we do not expect to change any time soon. The same holds true for the blockchain-related ETFs and hedge funds we examined.
On a more positive note, there are some excellent companies doing exciting things with blockchain and related technologies. Privately held GuardTime and Digital Assets should be on investors watch lists for funding rounds and IPOs. We expect publicly listed Digital Garage and Broadridge Financial Solutions to continue to perform well and feel that they should be considered as part of a broader fintech portfolio. By the same token, we are positive on the growth opportunities of blockchain-associated multinationals such as Microsoft, IBM, Visa, Mastercard etc, albeit for reasons that have little to do with blockchain.
  

The Blockchain Delusion. A (Mostly) Bearish Investment Thesis.

China

Baidu, Inc. operates an Internet search engine. The Company offers algorithmic search, enterprise search, news, MP3, and image searches, voice assistance, online storage, and navigation services. Baidu serves clients globally.

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Baidu (BIDU US)

[Blue Lotus Transportation Sector Update]: Huawei’s R&D & Marketing Alignment Makes It Stronger

Huawei's acceptance of investments for its Intelligent Automotive Solution (HI) does not affect its Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA),...

Blue Lotus Research Institute

[Blue Lotus Daily]: TSLA/XPEV/NIO/LI/BIDU/1211.HK/600104.CH/601633.CH/ATAT/BEKE

Tesla is set to launch Full Self-Driving (FSD) in China, Japanese auto makers reduce prices in Thailand to compete with Chinese EVs, and BYD...

Blue Lotus Research Institute

[Baidu, Inc. (BIDU US, BUY, TP US$157) TP Change]: C4Q/2024 Ads Upswing Bridge Gap to the Future

Baidu's financial results meet expectations, with potential for advertising growth to support long-term business. BUY rating maintained with...

Blue Lotus Research Institute

[Blue Lotus Daily]: LKNCY/Cotti Coffe/XPEV/BIDU/NIO/LI/JKS/DIDI/300274 CH/300750 CH/601012 CH

Cotti Coffee plans tea expansion, MIIT to launch intelligent car access network, China's PV and wind power decline worsens in October.

Blue Lotus Research Institute

The Blockchain Delusion. A (Mostly) Bearish Investment Thesis.

Back when I wrote this, Blockchain was all the rage, but I struggled to see the true value proposition, felt there was a huge amount of hype...

William Keating

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52-week Range

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Dividend (Yield)

[Blue Lotus Transportation Sector Update]: Huawei’s R&D & Marketing Alignment Makes It Stronger

​Huawei's acceptance of investments for its Intelligent Automotive Solution (HI) does not affect its Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA),...

Blue Lotus Research Institute

[Blue Lotus Daily]: TSLA/XPEV/NIO/LI/BIDU/1211.HK/600104.CH/601633.CH/ATAT/BEKE

​Tesla is set to launch Full Self-Driving (FSD) in China, Japanese auto makers reduce prices in Thailand to compete with Chinese EVs, and BYD...

Blue Lotus Research Institute

[Baidu, Inc. (BIDU US, BUY, TP US$157) TP Change]: C4Q/2024 Ads Upswing Bridge Gap to the Future

​Baidu's financial results meet expectations, with potential for advertising growth to support long-term business. BUY rating maintained with...

Blue Lotus Research Institute

[Blue Lotus Daily]: LKNCY/Cotti Coffe/XPEV/BIDU/NIO/LI/JKS/DIDI/300274 CH/300750 CH/601012 CH

​Cotti Coffee plans tea expansion, MIIT to launch intelligent car access network, China's PV and wind power decline worsens in October.

Blue Lotus Research Institute

The Blockchain Delusion. A (Mostly) Bearish Investment Thesis.

Back when I wrote this, Blockchain was all the rage, but I struggled to see the true value proposition, felt there was a huge amount of hype...

William Keating

Huawei's acceptance of investments for its Intelligent Automotive Solution (HI) does not affect its Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA),...

Tesla is set to launch Full Self-Driving (FSD) in China, Japanese auto makers reduce prices in Thailand to compete with Chinese EVs, and BYD...

Baidu's financial results meet expectations, with potential for advertising growth to support long-term business. BUY rating maintained with...

Cotti Coffee plans tea expansion, MIIT to launch intelligent car access network, China's PV and wind power decline worsens in October.