Netease (NTES) on the Chinese Internet industry (quotes from the conf call)

Netease (ticker: NTES) reported Q4 results yesterday. On its conference call, the company discussed eBay's (ticker: EBAY) China strategy, competitors' games, and the implications of Shanda's (ticker: SNDA) equity stake in Sina.com (ticker: SINA):

On eBay's (ticker: EBAY) increased ad spending:

….we
are expecting to be benefit from the increased spending of the 2 online
auction companies. Actually, we have already signed up an arrangement
with eBay China for the year 2005, with an extension to the year 2006.
So we are not allowed to take any advertising business from Taobao (ph)
or Alibaba because of the exclusive arrangement with eBay China.

But obviously eBay China has to pay us a premium for such an
arrangement. I can add the spending from eBay China in year 2005 will
be much higher than they're spending on us in year 2004.

On skepticism of The9's (ticker: NCTY) World of Warcraft:

….
we have also seen a lot of risk related to World of Warcraft. Firstly,
the game being very high -- we believe that the game has a very high
cost of operating cost -- operating cost. And we believe that the game
would have problem in charging a very competitive price to the other
games in the market right now.

On Shanda (ticker: SNDA), Sina (ticker: SINA) and potential consolidation:

But
I can tell you we are expecting to see more mergers and acquisition
activity in the Chinese Internet sector involving both international
companies and domestic players as well.

(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)