Author: Yi Shan
Interpretation of TO news
A well-known institution suddenly exploded, pitting countless parents!
Within a week, three Gymboree stores in Hangzhou closed one after another.
Following the closure of the Gymboree Linping Intime City Center store, on the morning of the 16th, the Gymboree Xintiandi Center also "ceased operation", and at 9 o'clock in the morning on the 18th, the Gymboree store in Xixi Impression City also posted relevant notices, and parents called the police.
Interpretation: A few years ago, there was a saying: children's money is the best to earn, early education institutions and mother and child stores and other businesses that make baby money can make money with their eyes closed.
However, in recent years, the days of the early education industry have long been much worse than before, and they have exploded one after another.
Within a week, three Gymboree stores in Hangzhou closed one after another. Not long ago, all stores of Nanjing Gymboree announced the closure of stores at the same time, which caught many parents off guard.
Gymboree is a foreign brand, which was once well received by parents and has a good social reputation and popularity. However, in recent years, the business has not been good, and many stores have been closed.
According to public statistics, at least 17 stores will be closed in 2022 and 43 stores will be closed in 2023. There has even been a phenomenon of opening stores and closing stores at the same time, and some newly opened stores have even closed down in just a few months, making people feel that they are deliberately cheating money.
When Gymboree closed, parents were furious and demanded that Gymboree return their hard-earned money.
In fact, there is more than one early education institution in China. A few years ago, the early education industry was still a red sea, and many early education institutions blindly expanded and opened stores everywhere, but now with the downgrading of education consumption and the disappearance of the demographic dividend, the mines that were once planted have exploded. Because early education institutions mostly take the form of prepayment, once the institution goes bankrupt, consumers are faced with difficulties in protecting their rights and refunds.
From the perspective of industry insiders, it may not be a bad thing that there are many education and training institutions that have closed down, which shows that the industry is in a stage of major reshuffle. Early education, and even education, needs to be done calmly, and there must be real strength and products.
Perhaps after this wave of thunderstorms, the early education industry will usher in a complete reshuffle, some old ideas will be eliminated, and outdated brands will be forgotten.
After that, there will still be an influx of practitioners to the industry, injecting fresh blood and strength into the entire industry. After all, no matter how the fertility rate changes, China's 0~6-year-old children are still a very large market, which is an industry that must be done well after all.
We just hope that the runway related to children can be less routine and more sincere.
Apple heavy! The price will be reduced from May 20
According to the official flagship store of Tmall Apple Store, from May 20th, after superimposing the two promotional offers of official instant reduction and Tmall coupons, iPhone15 is discounted by 1400 yuan, and the price starts at 4599 yuan; iPhone15Plus discount 1400 yuan, the price starts at 5599 yuan; iPhone15Pro discount 1900 yuan, the price starts at 6099 yuan; iPhone15Pro Max is discounted by 2050 yuan, and the price starts at 7949 yuan.
Interpretation: According to media analysis indexes, the popularity of the latest iPhone 15 series in the Chinese market is not as good as before, and sales have been lagging behind previous generations, partly because of the tightening of the global economic environment and Huawei's fierce competition from manufacturers such as Huawei, OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi. "According to IDC's preliminary data for January, the pressure is mainly on other Android vendors, as we see Apple's sales down about 10% year-over-year in the month, while Huawei has seen triple-digit growth over the same period."
In order to reverse the decline, Apple and its Chinese distributors have started significant profit promotions since the beginning of 2024. It is understood that iPhone shipments in China in March increased by about 12% year-on-year, stimulated by promotional activities in Greater China, which is in stark contrast to the 37% year-on-year plunge in iPhone sales in the first two months of 2024.
Today, apples that have tasted the sweetness continue to trade price for quantity.
The Lunar New Year downward adjustment and this downward adjustment, two major price reductions in just three months, show that with the collective efforts of domestic mobile phones again, Apple has to "exchange price for volume" to stabilize its market share.
Secondly, the overall sales of smartphones are currently sluggish. Sales mainly rely on replacement, and the global economy is tightening, and now the consumer side is generally not willing to renew.
Again, the smartphone itself hits the ceiling, and the boost is weak. In this case, no manufacturer can win skyrocketing sales by releasing eye-catching products, so the genius method of price reduction can work wonders at any time.
Wall Street News also previously mentioned that in order to focus on the mobile phone business and seize the AI mobile phone market, Apple gave up its 10-year plan to build a car, and according to people familiar with the matter, Apple's next iPhone and iPad software update will include a series of new AI features, and the next version of macOS (codenamed Glow) may also introduce AI features.
According to a report by market research firm Counterpoint, 2024 will be a pivotal year for generative AI smartphones, with shipments exceeding 100 million units.
In the next step, AI smartphones may be a must for major mobile phone manufacturers.
The police reported on the investigation of the fat cat incident: the woman did not constitute a crime of fraud, and the relevant rumor-mongers were administratively punished
According to Ping An Nan'an, on May 19, the Chongqing police issued a report on the situation related to Liu (male, 21 years old, online name "fat cat") jumping to his death at the Yangtze River Bridge in Chongqing.
The key information in the police report is worth paying attention to:
1. Emotionally, "Fat Cat" and Tan have been dating for more than two years with their real identities and seeing each other's relatives and friends.
2. In terms of money, "Fat Cat" transferred a total of more than 799,000 yuan to Tan 317 times, and Tan transferred 179 times to "Fat Cat" and his relatives for a total of more than 463,000 yuan. Before jumping into the river, Tan made it clear that he refused the transfer of the "fat cat".
3. In terms of public opinion, Liu, the sister of the "fat cat", manipulated public opinion: the tuba misses her younger brother, and the trumpet exposes Tan's personal information; Find someone to write copywriting to win the sympathy of netizens; selectively intercepted chat records, showing that Tan was "a fishing girl + liar"; Buying traffic boosts the popularity of the event.
TO Characters/Perspectives
Didi Chengwei: Liu Qing was promoted to permanent partner, and the company no longer has the position of president
On the afternoon of May 19, Didi Chengwei and Liu Qing issued an internal letter to all employees. The letter mentioned that Cheng Wei decided to promote Liu Qing to be a permanent partner of the company, Liu Qing will no longer be a director and president of the company, and the company will no longer have the position of president in the future. Liu Qing will continue to serve as the company's chief talent officer, focusing on the company's talent, organizational construction and social responsibility, and will continue to report to Chairman and CEO Cheng Wei.
Lei Jun responded to the participating singers: Don't be joking, I'll concentrate on making the car well
On May 18, Lei Jun live-streamed the test drive of Xiaomi SU7 Pro, and answered questions from netizens, and responded to netizens' votes for Lei Jun to participate in "Singer 2024".
Lei Jun said: "Don't be joking, I still concentrate on making the car well, thank you for your support." ”
Previously, Lei Jun's preview will be broadcast live on the morning of May 18, and many netizens in his comment area left messages, ridiculing Lei Jun to participate in "Singer 2024", a "Singer 2024" netizen shake list shows that many netizens voted for Lei Jun, allowing him to beat singer Han Hong and others, and the fault line became the first place on the list. "Netizens voted for Lei Jun to be a singer" and other related topics also appeared on the hot list.
Previously, Lei Jun's sentence in his speech at the Xiaomi Mi 4i press conference in India "Are you OK" was re-edited into the song "Are you OK" by the UP master of Station B and went viral on the Internet, and the video has exceeded 40 million views, becoming Lei Jun's own song "masterpiece", and it is often ridiculed by netizens.
Musk's arrival in Indonesia will unveil the Starlink service
On May 19, local time, Musk arrived in Bali, Indonesia. Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut, said the two sides will discuss a number of important cooperation, including the launch of the Starlink service in Indonesia.
Can "purchase instead of build" go to inventory? Expert interpretation
On May 19, it was reported that recently, many cities or regions have introduced relevant policies of "purchase instead of construction" to encourage the acquisition of stock housing for affordable housing. Judging from the current policies in various places, there are two main goals of "purchasing instead of building": one is to speed up the de-inventory of existing commercial housing, and the other is to help the establishment of a "white list" of the coordination mechanism for ensuring the delivery of buildings and real estate financing, so as to alleviate the financial dilemma of real estate enterprises. Experts said that by purchasing the stock of housing and changing it to affordable housing, it seems that the effect of killing multiple birds with one stone can be achieved at present.
Experts said that the recent implementation of the policy of "purchasing instead of building" will undoubtedly bring a certain positive effect to the market in the next step, especially in the context of the property market regulation policy to "destocking", these measures can alleviate the financial pressure of some real estate companies and bring short-term stability to the property market. In the process of specific implementation in various places, the sustainability of the source of funds, as well as the operation and management ability of these commercial houses, are the key to testing the future effect of the policy.
KLCII: The domestic head model has reached the world-class level, but the development of capabilities is uneven
At the press conference of the large model evaluation of Beijing KLCII, KLCII released and announced the results of more than 140 domestic and foreign open/closed source languages and multi-modal large model capability evaluations. The evaluation results show that in the Chinese context, the comprehensive performance of domestic head language models is close to the international first-class level, but there is an uneven development of capabilities. In the multimodal comprehension of the image-text question and answer task, the open and closed source models are equally divided, and the domestic models are outstanding. In terms of Wensheng graph ability in the context of Chinese, the gap between the domestic multimodal model and the international first-class level is small.
TO data speaks
The average salary for 2023 is out
According to data recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the average wage of employed persons in urban units across the country will maintain growth in 2023. In 2023, the average annual wage of employees in urban non-private units will be 120698 yuan, an increase of 6,669 yuan over the previous year, a nominal increase of 5.8 percent, and a real increase of 5.5 percent after deducting price factors. The average annual wage of employees in urban private units was 68,340 yuan, an increase of 3,103 yuan over the previous year, a nominal increase of 4.8 percent, and a real increase of 4.5 percent after deducting price factors.
The price of domestic brand gold jewelry has reached around 740 yuan/gram
The global market ushered in a wave of "all-metal frenzy". On May 17, gold and silver soared again, with silver prices climbing to an 11-year high and gold prices also rebounding to their all-time highs in April. After the epic short market in New York, copper prices on the New York and Shanghai stock exchanges hit new highs. At present, the price of gold jewelry of various domestic brands has reached around 740 yuan/gram, and the price of many gold stores has refreshed the previous record.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development talks about the reduction of the interest rate of provident fund loans
A few days ago, the interest rate on personal housing loans of the housing provident fund was lowered by 0.25 percentage points. The relevant responsible comrades of the Housing Provident Fund Supervision Department of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said in an interview that the most direct benefit of the reduction of loan interest rates is the housing provident fund lenders.
Taking the first housing provident fund personal housing loan with an amount of 1 million yuan and a term of 30 years as an example, if you choose the equal principal and interest repayment method, the monthly payment will be reduced from 4270.16 yuan to 4135.57 yuan, a decrease of about 135 yuan, and the total interest expense will be reduced by 48,500 yuan. The scope of the loan interest rate adjustment includes both the newly issued housing provident fund personal housing loans and the existing housing provident fund personal housing loans. For personal housing provident fund loans that have been disbursed before May 18, 2024, the new interest rate will be implemented from January 1, 2025. New personal housing provident fund loans issued after May 18, 2024 (inclusive) will be directly executed according to the adjusted new interest rate.
The first batch of car trade-in subsidies in the country have been issued, with a maximum subsidy of 10,000 yuan
In April this year, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Finance and other 7 departments issued the "Implementation Rules for Automobile Trade-in Subsidy", from the date of issuance of the detailed rules to December 31, 2024, for individual consumers to scrap China III and below emission standard fuel passenger cars or new energy passenger vehicles registered before April 30, 2018 (including the day, the same below), and purchase included in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's "Catalogue of New Energy Vehicle Models Reduced or Reduced Vehicle Purchase Tax" New energy passenger cars or fuel passenger cars with displacement of 2.0 liters and below will be given a one-time fixed subsidy. Among them, for scrapping the above two types of old cars and purchasing new energy passenger vehicles, a subsidy of 10,000 yuan; For scrapping fuel passenger cars with emission standards of China III and below and purchasing fuel passenger cars with a displacement of 2.0 liters and below, a subsidy of 7,000 yuan will be provided. At present, car trade-in activities are being carried out throughout the country, and the first batch of car trade-in subsidies in the country have been issued.
Haidilao's fourth IPO dual listing
On Friday, May 17, Eastern time, Haidilao's subsidiary, Tehai International, was listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol HDL, with an opening price of $27, 38% higher than the IPO issue price of $19.56. HDL's stock price once rushed to $30, and its intraday gains soared to 53.4%; However, it then retreated to $19.8 in early trading, narrowing its gains to less than 1.3%. However, it then expanded again to more than 10% and finally closed at $22.29 with a gain of about 14%.
TO Corporation's movements
Gaohe Automobile established a corporate restructuring working group
It is reported that Human Horizons, the parent company of Gaohe Automobile, issued an internal announcement on the working group during the company's reorganization, and decided to set up a restructuring working group and a joint operation working group. The restructuring team will be responsible for the restructuring of all operations-related activities, from equity to all operations, and will consist of four groups: shareholder affairs, government, suppliers and employees. The joint operation working group is responsible for the company's daily decision-making and operation, and consists of seven teams: product planning, project design engineering, production and supply chain, marketing, finance, legal affairs, human resources and comprehensive functions.
On the same day, it was reported that Human Horizons and iAuto Group Inc. officially signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement on May 16, local time in the United States. iAuto plans to invest more than US$1 billion in the first round of special funds to support the restructuring of Human Horizons Gaohe Automobile.
Tesla offers a voluntary resignation plan for employees in South Korea, and has disbanded the supercharging team in South Korea
On May 20, it was reported that relevant reports quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that Tesla Korea provided a voluntary resignation plan for salaried employees in South Korea, in line with the global layoff plan announced last month. It is reported that Tesla recently sent an email to all employees in South Korea, proposing two special severance packages, in addition to the basic severance pay, providing up to two months' salary.
According to reports, Tesla has disbanded its Supercharger team in South Korea. According to the Financial Supervisory Service of South Korea, Tesla currently has about 480 employees in South Korea.
BMW recalled 3,256 vehicles in the United States due to a faulty seat belt system
On May 19, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) disclosed that BMW North America, LLC will recall some 2024 XM, 2025 BMW X5 sDrive40i, X5 xDrive40i, X5 M60i, X5 M, X5 xDrive50e, X6 xDrive40i, X6 M60i, X6 M, X7 xDrive40i, X7 M60i and Alpina XB7 models. A total of 3,256 vehicles.
The reason for the recall is that the seatbelt system may not accurately detect if a passenger is wearing a seatbelt, resulting in the seatbelt warning light not illuminating and may cause the secondary restraint system to not deploy as expected during a collision. The dealer will inspect and replace the seat belts in the lower part of the front seat free of charge as needed.
GAC Aion entered the Myanmar market with the opening of its first flagship store
On May 18, Aion's first and largest flagship store in Myanmar officially opened in Yangon. At the opening ceremony, Kyaw Thet Paing, head of sales of 99 Myanmar, an authorized dealer of GAC Aion, said that three channels will be opened in core cities such as Naypyidaw and Mandalay in Myanmar this year.
TO cutting-edge technology
Successfully sending 6 passengers into space, Blue Origin's first manned mission in nearly two years was a success
On May 19, it was reported that Bezos' Blue Origin resumed manned flights on Sunday, sending six passengers into space more than 60 miles from Earth for a short flight and returning safely. This is the first time in nearly two years that the company has resumed manned flights. Passengers included former Air Force Captain Ed Dwight, who was selected as the first black astronaut candidate in 1961 but never flew into space with NASA. Blue Origin suspended its launch in August 2022 after the NS-22 mission encountered an anomaly.
Meta's first "chameleon" challenges GPT-4o, with 34B parameters leading the multimodal revolution
The Meta team released a 34B-parameter multimodal model called "Chameleon" to challenge OpenAI's GPT-4o. It can process text and images seamlessly, adopts a unified Transformer architecture, and realizes modal information mixing through early fusion technology. It refreshes the record on the visual Q&A and image annotation benchmarks, and its performance is close to GPT-4V, but it currently mainly supports image text generation and lacks speech capabilities.
iPhone 17 rear camera or move to the top center
Technology media The Information recently released a blog post, revealing that Apple will release a new iPhone 17 model next year, and the biggest change is that the rear camera may be moved to the "top center" position of the device. Since Apple released the original iPhone in 2007, the rear camera has been placed in the top left corner of the device, and if the model does move to the "top center" next year, it will be one of the most obvious changes in the 18 years of the iPhone series.
It's unclear what kind of changes will be made to the camera layout after moving to the "top center", but there are quite a few mature solutions in the Android camp, such as the long bar shape of the Pixel 8 Pro and the Oreo circle of the Huawei Mate 60 series. According to sources, the iPhone 17 is positioned similarly to the iPhone X, which will bring a "major redesign", and the price positioning is higher than the existing Pro Max top-of-the-line, perhaps the iPhone Ultra that has been speculated in recent years.
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