India China Ties Warm Boosting Chinese Firms
India and China are witnessing their most significant thaw in relations since 2020, with border trade, flights and visas reopening. Yet India’s dependence on Chinese imports, especially in pharmaceuticals and electronics, leaves its deficit at record highs. The revived engagement appears to offer greater benefits to Chinese companies for now, with names like Xiaomi, Alibaba, BYD and Tencent best positioned, while Indian groups such as Cipla, Dixon and Adani seek to leverage selective partnerships.
Edition: 219
- 05 September, 2025
China EV: The shakeout
Consumer Discretionary
Recent price cuts from BYD are accelerating a price war against a backdrop of weak domestic demand, meaning that the inevitable consolidation of Chinese car companies is coming sooner rather than later. With over 100 carmakers in China, which have ~200 vehicle brands (vs. 10-15 major companies with 26 brands for the RoW), oversupply is rampant - dealer stock has surged to 3.5m units, the highest in years. Richard Windsor sees more industry pain ahead, including overseas dumping of excess capacity and heightened pressure on global markets. While BYD is likely to emerge as a long-term winner, he thinks it is too early to re-enter the stock despite the recent sell-off.
Edition: 212
- 30 May, 2025
The China dividend story
David Scott explores Chinese investors’ growing appetite for dividends. Unlike Japan, where it took a generation for companies to deliver meaningful payouts, China’s path looks very different. The companies are younger and are often still run by the founder who owns a controlling interest. Domestic institutional shareholders are active, rights-conscious, and increasingly reliant on dividends amid falling interest rates and an ageing population. Dividend growth is also seen as a strategic signal - proof that tariffs are not going to derail the business model. Finally, both private and state-linked firms are raising dividends at a surprising pace. David's China dividend plays include Midea Group, BYD, Tencent and CATL.
Edition: 209
- 18 April, 2025
Xi's Champions: A closer look at fund positioning
Following President Xi’s recent meeting with select private sector leaders, Steven Holden breaks down the percentage of funds invested in each stock, segmented by fund type, from broad-based Global and GEM funds to specialist China strategies (MSCI and A-Shares). As expected, ownership increases as we move from global strategies to China-focused funds. Beyond Tencent, Alibaba, BYD, CATL, Meituan and Xiaomi, representation in non-China funds is limited. Some names, such as Shiyuan and Qi An, are almost entirely absent from all fund groups. Will Semiconductor and Muyuan Foods stand out as the biggest discrepancies - despite decent representation in specialist China funds, they barely register in Global, GEM, or Asia Ex-Japan allocations.
Edition: 207
- 21 March, 2025
China’s recent high-profile meeting with private entrepreneurs signalled Beijing’s strategic priorities, highlighting firms advancing state goals while sidelining others. Key invitees included Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei, while Baidu, ByteDance and JD.com were absent. This distinction suggests Beijing’s support for companies driving innovation in AI, advanced manufacturing and strategic industries like EVs and semiconductors. Xi Jinping reinforced the Party’s control, urging businesses to serve national interests and promote "Common Prosperity". Firms like DeepSeek, Alibaba and BYD align with these objectives. Conversely, Baidu and other omitted firms may face tolerance but lack government backing.
Edition: 206
- 07 March, 2025
The narrowing divide between China and India’s weight in the MSCI Indices
The spread between India and China weights in active Asia Ex-Japan funds has narrowed to the lowest levels in Copley’s 13-year history and now stands at 16.17% vs. a peak of 45.3% in Aug 20. China’s decline over this period has been dominated by Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services and Financials. 3 companies standout as key drivers of the move lower: Alibaba, Tencent and Ping An Insurance. Increases in fund weight have been minimal with PDD, BYD and Trip.com seeing moderate upticks. India’s rise has been driven by the Financials sector. Specifically, 3 banks: ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank.
Edition: 180
- 23 February, 2024
Consumer Discretionary
Amid the world’s transition to clean energy vehicles, BYD’s middle-of-the-road positioning, strong engineering background in both ICE and battery technology, and long brand track record will allow it to assume the role of Volkswagen or Toyota in the EV era. The US-led protectionism and the rise of Huawei-affiliated EV brands will uniquely help BYD to compete at home with the best and transfer the learnings outwards as a trusted bridge to the world. Both BYD and BYD Electronic International trade near their historical lows in terms of PE band. Blue Lotus initiates coverage with a Buy rating and a TP of HK$350 (65% upside).
Edition: 177
- 12 January, 2024
Fino Payments Bank (FINOPB IN), Voltamp Transformers (VAMP IN), BYD (1211 HK)
With Bharat Connect Flash, Iii’s objective is to bring their readers on-ground insights based on interactions across key channels located in tier 2 & 3 locations, which they refer to as 'Bharat'. They anticipate Bharat to be India's next growth engine and, hence, the focus of their checks. Iii recently visited FINOPB’s Customer Service Centre to understand the bank’s offering and competitive moat. They visited a BYD showroom in Ahmedabad, with the objective of understanding the preference for EVs in India and judging how Chinese brands are now being perceived by the customers. Finally, channel interactions with a transformer industry executive suggests a strong tailwind for VAMP.
Edition: 175
- 08 December, 2023
Consumer Discretionary
The pre-sale price of the Leopard 5 has dropped to below 400,000 yuan and BYD's FangChengBao brand General Manager Xiong Tianbo mentioned that they plan to introduce 1 to 2 new car models every year in the future: During the 2023 Chengdu Auto Show, BYD's FangchengBao brand and its first mass-produced model, Leopard 5, were showcased. Fangcheng Leopard focuses on the 600,000 to 800,000 yuan specialised personalised market, a key layout for BYD's comprehensive coverage from household to luxury segments. Leopard 5's pre-sale price range of 300,000 to 400,000 yuan differs from the earlier disclosed 400,000 to 600,000 yuan due to various factors.
Edition: 168
- 01 September, 2023
Samsung Electronics (005930 KS)
Technology
Return of the king - after a brief flirt with underweight in late 2022, active Asia Ex-Japan managers have rotated back into Samsung, pushing allocations towards record highs. It captured the largest increase in average holding weight and the largest increase in net overweight over the last 6 months. It also saw the joint 4th largest increase in the percentage of funds with outright ownership (was eclipsed by Meituan, Trip.com and BYD). Samsung has cemented itself as one of the highest conviction holdings in the Asia Ex-Japan region right now.
Edition: 164
- 07 July, 2023
Consumer Discretionary
Ownership has soared to record levels - a consistent unloved stock among Asia Ex-Japan investors between 2010 and 2020, the percentage of funds invested has risen from zero at the end of 2020 to just over 22% today. Over the last 6 months, the percentage of funds invested has risen by 5.8% and a further 9.3% of funds switched to overweight. This wasn’t part of an industry-wide move, with outflows seen in many of its competitors such as Nio, Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai Motor Co. Clearly, investors are growing in confidence that BYD can maintain its leading position in the EV market and further capitalise on the growing global trend towards sustainable transportation.
Edition: 161
- 26 May, 2023
StarPower Semiconductor (603290 CH)
Technology
The Street continues to underestimate the negative impact of IGBT capacity oversupply and BYD's vertical integration - StarPower faces a deteriorating competitive landscape and ASP / margin contraction. AceCamp expects Industrial IGBT gross margin to fall from ~40% in 2022 to less than 20% in 2025, while Automotive IGBT gross margins will drop from 50% to under 30% over the same period. Their net income forecast is 20-30% below consensus of Rmb1.3-1.5bn in 2023, and AceCamp thinks the stock could fall to 30-40x 2023/24 PE which implies c.40% downside over the next 18 months.
Edition: 153
- 03 February, 2023
China: The SRR Auto Discount Sequential Change Index rose by +22 bps m/m in June
Consumer Discretionary
This marked the seventh consecutive month of sequentially higher discounts and the second highest in 13 months. Domestic brand discounts increased for the first time in nine months, likely due to increased dealer efforts to boost sales for 1H22 as Covid restrictions eased. This is also consistent with SRR’s latest dealer checks that indicated OEMs were offering discounts alongside the auto purchase tax cuts announced in May. WM Motor, BMW and Nissan discounts rose most; Chery, Great Wall and BYD discounts moderated most.
Edition: 139
- 08 July, 2022
Consumer Discretionary
Chinese clean energy space looks attractive after the recent selloff - BYD is one of Sean Maher’s long-time preferred electrification plays and he is increasingly confident that by mid-late decade it will be worth significantly more than Tesla. BYD set another record month for sales in May and its all-new Seal model offers another revolutionary innovation - a CTB (cell-to-body) structural battery system. The share price is up 80% since Sean added BYD back into his Energy Transition basket (+240% since initiation); constituents added in the last 6 months include Air Liquide, Linde, LG Chem and SK Innovation.
Edition: 137
- 10 June, 2022