October 13, 2003
Chinese text-messaging craze pushes nation's 3 top Web stocks sky-high
Rising revenues generated by text messaging are one of the reasons that three Web service companies, NetEase, Sohu.com and Sina, have caught fire on U.S. stock markets, rising 20-fold or more in price in the past year, according to Realcities.
"The short-messaging services are wildly popular. This year, about 200 billion text messages will zip to cell phones across China. More than a tenth of the messages originate through Internet portals that allow computer users to send news updates, jokes, horoscopes, unusual ring tones and other data to their own cellular handsets or those of friends and acquaintances.
The Internet portals rely on China's two major mobile-network operators, China Mobile and China Unicom, to do their billing and collect money from users, not only for sending short messages but also for services unrelated to cell phone usage, such as Web-based e-mail".
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