Xiaomi Corp (小米) posted its fastest revenue growth in more than two years after the Chinese smartphone giant grabbed market share from Huawei Technologies Co (華為) when US sanctions increased.
China’s No. 2 smartphone name reported a stronger-than-anticipated 34.5 percent rise in sales to 72.2 billion yuan (US$11 billion) in the September quarter.
More than half of that originated beyond its home country for the first time as Xiaomi took advantage of Huawei’s retreat to delve deeper into markets from Western Europe to India, where it widened its lead.
The firm’s unit shipments surged 42 percent in the third quarter globally, researcher International Data Corp estimated, by far the best performance among brands from Samsung Electronics Co to Apple Inc.
Huawei’s own volumes plummeted 22 percent over that period and it now has to defend its No. 2 position against the likes of Vivo Communication Technology Co (維沃).
Xiaomi is on track to keep expanding its market share thanks to strong demand for budget phones during the COVID-19 pandemic and Huawei’s supply disruptions, China Merchants Securities Co (招商證券) said ahead of the earnings release.
It said in a memo that “Xiaomi’s price-competitive products are attractive amid the economic uncertainties.”
Xiaomi, whose shares have more than doubled this year, reported a rise in adjusted net income to 4.1 billion yuan from a year earlier, beating projections.
It is one of the few major Chinese tech companies to enjoy strong growth abroad — and in developed markets, to boot — at a time when governments from the US to India are erecting barriers to the country’s businesses.
In India, it has managed to cling to the top spot, despite a deep, nationwide COVID-19 lockdown.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day