2 China Techs Stocks We Like

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Holly Black: Welcome to Morningstar. I'm Holly Black. With me is Chelsey Tam. She is an equity analyst at Morningstar in Hong Kong.

Hello.

Chelsey Tam: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Black: So, Chelsey, you cover the technology sector, and this has undoubtedly been one of the top-performing winning sectors of this year. How are technology stocks performing in China?

Tam: Well, they are doing quite well actually. If we look at the KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF, on a year-to-date basis, the performance is over 40%, and generally speaking, online just performs better than the offline businesses amid COVID.

Black: And within that incredible sector performance, have there been some standout top performers for you?

Tam: Yeah. So, for the companies that I cover, I think JD really delivered strong performance with 100% year-to-date share price improvements. So, I think their self-owned logistics and their first party business really provide very reliable services amid COVID-19. We see that the revenue in the first quarter was 21% growth, and then, in the second quarter, it still was able to deliver mid-30% growth. And the other one is NetEase. I think the year-to-date performance is 57%. They have about 90% of gross profit coming from gaming. So, gaming is obviously a beneficiary amid COVID as well.

Black: And have there been any weaker areas in the sector?

Tam: Weibo was actually down 27% year-to-date. I think that if you have a lot of brand advertising on your platform, you tend to get more affected where performance-based advertising are probably better during, sort of, economic downturn. And also, we also see structural wallet share loss to short-form videos for Weibo. The other one is Trip.com. They have more than 30% coming from international travel, and they also are more positioned in the higher end. So, I guess, they are more affected as well. So, their year-to-date performance is negative 16%.

Black: Amidst this backdrop where, in the sector as a whole, there have been these strong gains, do you still see investment opportunities or has anyone that's not already involved misses the boat now?

Tam:  I think there are still opportunities in the sector. So, in my coverage, I think I'm more comfortable with Trip.com in the long run because international travel will basically resume anyway but maybe probably just not this year or may be not early next year. And then, the structural story for Chinese going outbound to travel, to experience, has not changed.

Black: Chelsey, thank you so much for your time. For Morningstar, I'm Holly Black. 

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