Lex专栏：优酷凭什么那么贵Youku

Chinese internet stocks are classic lazy buys. The logic is as follows: the country has a low national internet penetration rate of 34 per cent, well short of Japan (78) or South Korea (81). Bandwidth is getting cheaper. Ergo, any internet company with a decent market share now is bound to get bigger and more profitable.

中国网络股是典型的人们不作过多考虑便就会购买的东西。个中逻辑如下：中国的互联网渗透率才34%，远低于日本（78%）和韩国（81%）。而带宽成本越来越低。因此，任何有着可观市场份额的中国互联网公司都肯定会越来越壮大，盈利能力越来越强。

That reasoning supports the valuation of Youku, China’s leading video site, with a 37 per cent share of browsing time and 14 per cent of ad revenues. Since its New York initial public offering at $12.80 a share in December, the stock has more than tripled. Investors seem not to care that Youku makes no money or that management will not say when it will. The assumption is that growth in internet penetration, viewing hours and revenue-per-minute will, over time, outpace the growth in costs for bandwidth, server depreciation and content amortisation. (Never mind that Youku’s net loss actually widened last year.) Analysts expect the company to make 24 cents of net income per share in 2013, putting Youku on a multiple of 173 times that year’s earnings as at the close on Monday.

就是这种逻辑支持了优酷(Youku)的估值。优酷是中国排名第一的视频网站，按浏览时长衡量拥有37%的市场份额，按广告收入衡量拥有14%的份额。自从去年12月以每股12.80美元的发行价登陆纽约以来，其股价已累计上涨两倍以上。优酷并不赚钱，管理层也不肯说明何时能够实现盈利，但投资者似乎不在乎。他们认为，假以时日，互联网渗透率、浏览时长和每分钟收入的增长，必将超过带宽、服务器折旧和视频内容摊销等项成本的增长。（也别去理会优酷去年净亏损实际上有所扩大。）分析师预计，2013年优酷将实现每股24美分的净收益——以本周一收盘价计算，该公司2013年的预期市盈率为173倍。

Even that modest earnings target could be a stretch. Founded in June 2006, some 16 months after YouTube of the US, Youku has since shifted from sourcing content from its users to making it itself or buying it from big media groups. Content costs were a fifth of net revenues last year, up from about a 10th in 2009.

但就算是如此微薄的盈利目标恐怕也很难达到。优酷创建于2006年6月，比美国的YouTube晚约16个月。自那以来，优酷的经营模式已从由用户提供内容，转向自己制作内容或从大型媒体集团购买。去年，内容成本相当于净收入的五分之一，而2009年这一比例为十分之一左右。

Meanwhile, more Chinese webcasters such as Sohu and Baidu’s Qiyi are shifting to Hulu-type, video-on-demand models; mega-portals Sina and Tencent may soon join them. It is possible that Youku will vanquish all before it. But one that already has – YouTube’s owner, Google – is available on a multiple of 13 times 2013 earnings. Youku is 13 times more expensive.

与此同时，更多的中国视频网站——包括搜狐(Sohu)和百度(Baidu)的奇艺(Qiyi)——正纷纷转向Hulu的“视频点播”模式；大型门户网站新浪(Sina)和腾讯(Tencent)可能很快会加入这一行列。有朝一日，优酷也许会称霸江湖。但眼下就有一只这样的股票，而且它的2013年预期市盈率才13倍，那就是YouTube的母公司谷歌(Google)——优酷要比它贵出13倍。