The rumour starts again (this is not new news people!). . . let’s remember the same rumor took place in March . . . Tom.com Eats World. At the time the rumour was that Tom.com might buy both Sina & EachNet.

If you can read chinese, here it the Sina report that mentioned the old rumor and today’s re-emergence . . .

　昨日，有关“TOM集团将在数日之内宣布全面收购eBay易趣”的消息，使得已经沉寂了半年之久的传闻再度成为最热的互联网新闻。然而，面对记者的提问，TOM集团表现得非常低调和谨慎，犹如当初对待“TOM集团收购新浪”的传闻一样。 (Sina)

I”ll maintain the same position as I had before. Tom.com is one of the most “western” of the Chinese companies (its actually more “Hong Kongnese” than Chinese). eBay has done well in its partnership with Tom.com on Skype. The acquisition is more likely to be a partnership with equity in Tom.com’s favor. I would bet on this transaction to happen eventually but not in the next 6 month. And that eBay will NEVER exit China completely.

Ofcourse, the denial happened quite quickly later in the day. TOM否认收购eBay易趣

“我们也肯定不会撤离中国市场。”刘薇在电话里告诉记者，并认为中国市场潜力巨大，eBay易趣不会放弃国内业务，而是在发展国内业务的同时会加强跨国贸易。她称，eBay易趣及贝宝中国首席执行官廖光宇最近刚刚上任，希望加强eBay易趣及贝宝两家独立运营公司的协同能力，提升海外贸易。

On a side note, the combination of Paypal and EachNet make A LOT of sense. PayPal and EachNet needs make a big bet on cross border trade (海外贸易). The only way to do that is to integrate the customer experience from search, settlement, to logistics. The ideal strategy is to attack Taobao through attacking its cash cow - Alibaba.com, a glorified but very profitable directory . . . the same way Alibaba outflanked EachNet initially. Cross border e-commerce is a nut that has yet to be cracked. There is a reason lots of trading firms still thrives. Back in the B2B days, a whole slew of companies was funded to the tunes of $50M plus to duke it out in this market . . . nothing worked . . . but the opportunity is still there. . .

What a difference a year makes. Early in 2005 Virgin Mobile USA passed the million subscriber milestone. Their success began inspiring numerous copycats with its example of how a more focused MVNO can do a better job targeting and serving specific subscriber segments than could a large carrier. During a conference I attended at that time, a noted research firm predicted the channel would experience such significant growth that in a few short years more new wireless subscribers would be added by MVNOs than by the direct channels of wireless carriers. By midyear a steady string of press releases ensued, announcing one new MVNO after another. MVNOs were hot; if you had a recognized brand or an established distribution channel you too could cash in on the wireless bandwagon. One began to wonder if the ‘O’ in MVNO stood for ‘Over-saturation.’

David Grigg for Prepaid Press

What people didnt realize at the time was that the first gen MVNO’s that suceeded (Tracfone, Virgin, Boost) all had one common characteristic . . . and it wasnt that they are all MVNO’s . . . it was that they were targeting a segment of the market that was completely untargeted by the “post-paid” billing model of mobile carriers (cingular, nextel, verizon etc) -> the underbanked.

The MVNO craze that followed extrapolated their predcessors’ success to mean that targeted niche marketing of ANY segment will be sucecssfull. They failed to realize that the reason the first gen MVNO was successfull was because of their prepaid business model was able to attract an audience that was completely UNSERVED by traditional carriers. As an ESPN addict, I already have a phone provided by Cingular. As a result the ESPN MVNO is now competing “@ the margin” for small slice of incremental switchers. Targeting an unserved versus already served market is a hugely different marketing challenge.

If ESPN Mobile is the poster child for diminished optimism on the MVNO model, industry analysts and other MVNO insiders knew for some time that things weren’t as rosy in the MVNO world as the press releases would lead you to believe. The industry was never without its detractors and naysaysers. Public speculation that the bloom had fallen from the rose for new MVNOs actually began at CTIA in April of this year when Sprint- Nextel’s chief operating officer at the time, Len Lauer, announced they turn down a lot of MVNO applicants and will wait three to four quarters before judging the performance of those recently launched. Implying they were tightening the spigot on new MVNOs was significant because Sprint-Nextel is the MVNO channel leader, having launched the most of any U.S. carrier. (Lauer has subsequently left Sprint.)