Asian Tech Stock Weekly Review (May 17 – 23, 2010)

JapanTelecommunications• Forval Telecom, a company focused on providing VoIP, Audio and Documentation services to the corporate sector, announced revenues of 13.9 billion yen (US$155 million) and net profit of 194 million yen (US$2.1 million) for the full year ended March 31st, 2010. The figures reflect a fall of 7.2% and increase of 46.1% respectively over the last year. The company’s operating margin fell by 11.4% to 347 million yen (US$3.8 million). For the current year, the company expects revenues of 14 billion yen (US$155.5 million) and net income of 200 million yen (US$2.2 million).Internet• Hikari Tsushin (HKTGF.PK), a diversified conglomerate with interests in the internet, telecommunications services and equipment industries, announced full year net income of 755 million yen (US$8.3 million) and revenues of 349.1 billion yen (US$3.8 billion). The figures compare with net loss of 1.0 billion yen (US$11 million) and revenues of 333.7 billion yen (US$3.7 billion) last year. Hikari focused on expanding its nationwide sales network and customer service capabilities during the year even as the difficult economic environment affected the purchasing capabilities of its customers. The group forecast a 6% increase in revenues and 77.5% increase in net income for the current year, based on a recovery in its main businesses.• Softbank (SFTBF.PK), the internet and telecom giant, announced plans to set up an Asian joint venture with Ustream, a provider of live video services with over 100 million monthly viewers, mainly in the US The joint venture will be called Ustream Asia and will be 60% owned by Softbank subsidiary TV Bank, 32% by Ustream and 8% by U.S. venture capital firm DCM.The joint venture will offer a service that will allow users to redistribute live video captured on mobile handsets, on the internet. Ustream will first launch the service in Japan, followed by Korea, China and possibly India. Softbank had previously invested US$20 million in Ustream in January and is all set to invest another US$10 million in June. In related company news, Softbank unveiled new mobile handsets with built-in applications to access Twitter, the micro-blogging service. The move is aimed at making it easier for people to ‘tweet’ or post comments of the application through their mobile phones. Japan is a rapidly growing market for Twitter, although mobile access to the platform is currently limited mainly to iPhone (AAPL) users. Incidentally, this news announcement was streamed live through UStream, its new video service.• Leading online mall operator Rakuten (RKUNF.PK) announced the acquisition of Buy.com Inc. in a deal worth US$250 million. The announcement is part of the company’s initiative to establish itself internationally and represents its first foray into the US market. Buy.com had revenues of US$62.5 million in 2009 and a client base of 14 million for its e-commerce operations. Rakuten had recently announced a partnership with Baidu (BIDU) to launch a virtual shopping market in China and is also actively scouting for opportunities in Europe and other markets. Rakuten posted net income of 56.6 billion yen (US$617.6 million) on revenues of 298 billion yen (US$3.2 billion) in 2009.Media, Entertainment and Gaming• Leading game operator Square Enix Holdings (SQNXF.PK), announced operating profit of 9.5 billion yen (US$102.4 million) on revenues of 192.3 billion yen (US$2.1 billion) for 12 months ending March 31st, 2010. Growth was primarily driven by the games and merchandising divisions, which grew by 254% and 124% respectively over the previous year.The Amusement, Publication and Mobile Phone Content divisions changed by -11.8%, +16.4% and +8.1% over last year.For the current fiscal year, the company forecast revenues of 160 billion yen (US$1.7 billion) and operating income of 20 billion yen (US$218.2 million). KoreaComplete Story »