Musk's postponement of the visit raises questions about Tesla's plans to build cars in India. European BEV sales fell 11% year-on-year in March. UBS Group AG will start five rounds of layoffs in June. Saudi Aramco intends to acquire 10% plus one stake in Hengli Petrochemical. China Mobile, Transsion Holdings, BlueFocus, Verizon, and Albertsons announced their results. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has postponed his much-anticipated trip to India, where he was scheduled to meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and unveil Tesla's plans to enter the country. Musk posted on X that the change in plans to visit India was due to "Tesla's very heavy workload" and said he was looking forward to visiting India later this year. Musk's postponement of his visit to India has raised questions about Tesla's plans to build cars in India. Tesla recently announced plans to lay off employees and is scheduled to hold an earnings call this week.
The decline in sales comes as Tesla slashed prices on several models in the U.S., China and Europe over the weekend. The electric car maker slashed the prices of Model Y, Model X and Model S models by $2,000 each in the U.S., and Tesla cut the price of Full Self-Driving by about a third in the U.S., from $12,000 to $8,000.
Li Auto announced a price cut on the 22nd, and the 2024 Li L7, Li L8, Li L9 and Li MEGA will adopt a new price system, of which the Li MEGA will be reduced by 30,000 yuan. Owners who have picked up their cars will be offered cashback.
According to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA), new car registrations in Europe in March were 1.38 million, down 2.8% from a year earlier, and its second year-on-year decline in four months. As European automakers as a whole faced weak demand, the mainstream markets except the United Kingdom, which grew by 10.4%, Germany, Spain, Italy and France all showed varying degrees of decline, with the largest decline of 6.2%. The EV market is still facing a slowdown in demand, with European EV sales falling 11% year-on-year in March, including a 34% decline in Italy and a 29% decline in Germany.
Dutch lithography giant ASML announced on April 22 that it has signed a letter of intent with the Dutch city of Eindhoven to explore expansion plans near the city's northern airport, which could accommodate 20,000 new employees. If the new facility is fully staffed, it will nearly double the number of employees at ASML in the Netherlands. Dutch Economy Minister Adriansens said ASML's latest decision "demonstrates the company's confidence in our business environment and the Dutch cabinet's commitment to supporting the chip industry." ”
TSMC plans to charge higher fees to customers who produce chips outside of Taiwan due to the impact of global capacity expansion, power costs, and increasingly sophisticated cutting-edge technologies on its profitability. The world's largest chipmaker said customers should share the "incremental costs" of setting up factories overseas.
The question of the return on AI looms over the earnings reports of big tech companies. With some tech giants reporting their latest quarterly earnings, this issue will be a concern in the tech industry. The enormous potential offered by the technology behind ChatGPT has spurred massive investment in the infrastructure needed to generate text, images, or videos. However, the current data may not yet adequately show whether the end users of this technology – whether it's the companies applying it to their business operations, or the people who use it in their daily lives – are ready to pay for it.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has restructured the company's top and structure in order to accelerate the development and launch of its AI products. Previously, Google was criticized for lagging behind competitors such as Microsoft. All teams responsible for AI models, including the flagship chatbot Gemini, will be unified into the DeepMind division, led by Demis Hassabis. This will include research, models, computing power, and those responsible for overseeing its accuracy and credibility.
French AI startup Mistral is in talks to raise a €500 million funding that could double its valuation to at least €5 billion, following several investors who have offered to invest in the company, which is only a year old. Mistral's three founders, led by CEO Arthur Mensch, are considering their next move. Just four months ago, they closed a funding round that raised around 400 million euros, valuing the startup at 2 billion euros. The one-year-old French start-up was approached by multiple investors, who saw it as Europe's OpenAI.
Negotiations between Salesforce and data management software company Informatica fell through when the two parties could not agree on terms. Earlier this month, Salesforce was discussing a deal to acquire Redwood City, Calif.-based Informatica, which could be valued at around $10 billion. If it had gone through, the deal would have been one of the largest acquisitions in Salesforce history.
Swiss banking giant UBS will start a new wave of layoffs in June, divided into five rounds. The downsizing plan was announced after last year's acquisition of Credit Suisse. As part of the integration of Credit Suisse, UBS announced in August last year that it planned to cut about a twelfth of jobs and more than $10 billion in costs in Switzerland, and in February this year, UBS again announced that it planned to cut costs by $13 billion over the next two years, most of which came from employees, with the completion of the acquisition of Credit Suisse. According to analysts' estimates, UBS could cut 30,000 to 35,000 jobs globally.
Hong Kong's audit regulator said it would launch a new investigation into PwC on the basis of an apparent whistleblower letter accusing PwC of failing to audit property developer Evergrande, adding to the pressure on the "Big Four" accounting firm. The open letter, signed "a portion of PwC partners", has been circulating earlier. Hong Kong's Accounting and Financial Reporting Council (AFRC) issued a statement saying that "the whistleblower letter expresses serious concerns about PwC's quality management system and potential deficiencies in the quality of audits conducted by China Evergrande Group".
Indonesia's sovereign wealth fund aims to invest up to $1 billion this year, making green energy one of its priorities, as the Southeast Asian nation looks to become the epicenter of the energy transition with its huge nickel reserves. The Indonesian Investment Agency (INA) is negotiating potential investments in the EV ecosystem and geothermal energy sectors, and is financing the early retirement of coal-fired power plants.
Hengli Petrochemical disclosed on the evening of April 22 that the company's controlling shareholder, Hengli Group, has signed a "Memorandum of Understanding" with Saudi Aramco. The two sides are discussing: Hengli Group will promote strategic cooperation between Saudi Aramco and Hengli Petrochemical in crude oil supply, raw material supply, product offtake, technology licensing and other aspects. At the same time, Saudi Aramco (or a related party controlled by it) intends to acquire from Hengli Group its shares representing 10% plus one share of the issued share capital of Hengli Petrochemical. According to the current stock price estimate of Hengli Petrochemical, Saudi Aramco's equity investment is close to 11 billion yuan. This is also the second time that Saudi Aramco has invested heavily in an A-share petrochemical company after taking a stake in Rongsheng Petrochemical in March last year.
Nike Inc. said it would lay off about 740 employees at its global headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. The sneaker company said in February that it planned to lay off about 1,600 jobs.
Kroger and Albertsons announced Monday that they have amended their definitive agreement with C&S Wholesale Grocery to sell some of the assets associated with the proposed merger. The revised divestiture plan responds to concerns raised by U.S. federal and state antitrust regulators regarding the original agreement. The enhanced divestiture package includes a modified and expanded store set and additional non-store assets to further position C&S competitive in the retail market following the completion of the proposed merger. Specifically, the updated divestiture plan will increase the total number of stores by 166, including 579 stores, which will be sold to the new owner, C&S, and continue to operate as they do today.
Cruise giant Viking Holdings and its existing shareholders are looking to raise up to $1.1 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York stock market. The international cruise operator is looking to get to market quickly as the global travel industry recovers from the pandemic-era downturn. Founded in 1997, Viking is a destination-centric international travel services company that operates large cruise ships around the world with a fleet of 92 vessels, and is known for its Viking Cruises cruise lines in the global travel industry. It employs more than 10,000 people in more than 90 countries. Total revenue for 2023 is approximately $4.7 billion.
A South African FlySafair Boeing 737-800 took off from Johannesburg when one of its wheels on the left main landing gear fell off. The plane returned home about two and a half hours after takeoff. After the scheduled flight to Cape Town took off at 11:32 p.m. that day, airport ground crews found a damaged landing gear wheel on the ground. The airport informed the crew. The airliner was guided back and flew low over the airport for technicians to visually assess the condition of the landing gear, only to find that one wheel of the left main landing gear had fallen off. The plane landed at 2:06 p.m. with no passengers or crew reportedly injured. The cause of the accident is under investigation.
The shipping market has obvious off-peak season characteristics, and the growth of freight rates is generally accompanied by the peak season of shipping. Recently, the industry has set off a "price rise tide" in the off-season. Maersk, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd and other leading shipping companies have issued price increase letters, some routes have increased by nearly 70%, and a 40-foot container has risen by up to $2,000. It is reported that the scope of this round of price adjustment is mainly concentrated in the United States, South America, the Red Sea and other directions.
Financial Reporting Information
China Mobile disclosed its first quarter report for 2024. In the first quarter, the company's main business income was 219.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.5%, and other business income was 44.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.6%. net profit in the first quarter was 29.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.5%; EBITDA was RMB78 billion, down 2.3% year-on-year. As of March 31, 2024, the company had a total of 996 million mobile customers, including 799 million 5G package customers and 488 million 5G network customers. The total number of wired broadband customers reached 305 million, with a net increase of 6.83 million in the quarter. Among them, the number of home broadband customers reached 269 million, with a net increase of 5.28 million in the quarter.
Transsion Holdings disclosed its 2023 annual report, with operating income of 62.295 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 33.69%, and net profit of 5.537 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 122.93%.
BlueFocus releases its 2023 annual report. In 2023, the operating income will be 52.616 billion yuan, an increase of 43.44% over the same period of the previous year, the net profit attributable to the parent company will be 117 million yuan, turning losses into profits, and the net profit after deducting non-profits will be 150 million yuan. In 2023, the overseas advertising business will achieve revenue of 37.363 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 41.69%. The revenue of the whole case promotion service increased by 73.05% year-on-year to 11.282 billion yuan. The revenue of the advertising agency business increased by 7.55% to 3.971 billion yuan.
U.S. telecom operator Verizon Communications announced its first-quarter 2024 results. Total revenue for the quarter was $32,981 million, compared to $32,912 million in the year-ago quarter. Net income for the quarter was $4,602 million, compared to $4,909 million in the year-ago quarter.
Albertsons Companies, a leader in U.S. grocery stores, reported fourth-quarter results. Revenue was flat at $18.34 billion a year ago, but the company's same-store sales rose only 1.0%. Adjusted EBITDA was approximately $915.8 million, compared to $1.05 billion in the year-ago quarter.
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