Last week's highlights: Microsoft's "blue screen" failure affects 8.5 million Windows devices. Apple's annual sales in India are nearly $8 billion, an increase of about 33%. Transsion was sued by Qualcomm and Philips for infringement of intellectual property rights. A number of Volkswagen Group's electric vehicle projects have been postponed again. United States PV giant SunPower plunged 75% in a week. The two SK companies will merge to become the largest private energy company in the Asia-Pacific region. WH Group plans to spin off Smithfield. Zong Fuli, the general manager of Wahaha, was revealed to have resigned. Eli Lilly weight loss pills are approved in China. PwC's change of Chinese staff said it was a difficult decision.
1
Microsoft's "blue screen" affects 8.5 million devices
Microsoft reported a service outage for its Microsoft 365 apps and services on July 19, affecting businesses and users around the world. Worldwide, many Microsoft users have reported that company computers with Windows systems have a "blue screen" failure and do not boot properly. The failure turned into a global IT failure: several major airlines, banks and supermarkets in the United States were paralyzed, and flights were grounded. Microsoft says its team has identified possible causes, and the root cause of the IT technical problem has been addressed. Microsoft estimates that CrowdStrike's update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than 1% of all Windows devices. Related: Cybersecurity software firm CrowdStrike warned customers on July 19 that its Falcon Sensor software was causing Microsoft's Windows operating system to crash. It's unclear what triggered these issues, which coincided with the disruption of Microsoft Azure cloud and 365 office software services. The company's CEO, George Kurtz, apologized for the massive technical glitch and vowed to work with all customers to get the business back online. Created by a former executive of antivirus pioneer McAfee, CrowdStrike offers relatively new security software seen as one of the best tools for defending against ransomware and other hacking threats. CrowdStrike shares closed down 11.1% on July 19.
2 Apple's annual sales in India are nearly $8 billion
In the year to March, Apple's sales in India hit a record of nearly $8 billion, up about 33 percent from $6 billion in the previous fiscal year. This highlights the rapid growth of the India market. Apple currently assembles more phones in India and operates two flagship stores. iPhones account for more than half of Apple's total sales in India. Apple does not separate its revenue in India in its earnings report, but it is required to report its annual sales in India to the local government.
Related: Kuo said that although there are news of Apple's increase in iPhone 16 orders in the market from time to time, judging from the latest statements of suppliers, this matter is in doubt. At the same time, he also questioned the underlying logic of "Apple Intelligence" to push up the demand for replacement phones in the second half of the year. Recently, TSMC said that "we have not seen a sudden increase in shipment growth", while optical and optoelectronic equipment manufacturer Da Liguang bluntly said that "orders for high-end models are similar to last year". Kuo said that iPhone 16 orders in the second half of the year remained unchanged at about 87 million units, down from 91 million orders for the iPhone 15 series in the same period last year.
3. Transsion was sued for infringement by Qualcomm and Philips
Transsion has been sued by Qualcomm and Philips for alleged intellectual property infringement. Transsion, the world's fourth-largest smartphone maker, accounts for 48% of the continent's smartphone market and is rapidly expanding in the Global South, is facing increasing legal and commercial pressure from large technology companies in United States and Europe. Transsion said that the impact is mainly in the India market, the company has signed a 5G standard patent license agreement with Qualcomm and is fulfilling the agreement, 3G, 4G and other patents have not been agreed now, and will continue to negotiate patents with Qualcomm. Related: OPPO announced the signing of a global strategic cooperation agreement with Ericsson, which includes global patent cross-licensing, technical cooperation and marketing cooperation. Among them, the global patent cross-licensing covers the essential patents of both parties for cellular communication standards, including the 5G standard.
4 major electric vehicle projects have been postponed again
The Volkswagen Group's electric vehicle projects have been postponed again, including the highly anticipated ID.4 replacement and Porsche's new electric SUV. The former will be delayed by 15 months and will not be available until 2029 at the earliest. The latter will not be available until 2031, a full three years later than originally planned. The main reason for the repeated delays of Volkswagen's electric vehicles is its long-standing software problems. The problematic E3 2.0 software is based on SSP's software platform for next-generation electric vehicles, developed by Volkswagen subsidiary Cariad. Now it seems that this software has been difficult to give birth to without a specific timeline. Related: General Motors ·CEO Mary Barra lowered her forecast for the company's electric vehicle plans, saying the company won't sell 1 million plug-in cars by 2025. This cannot be achieved because the market is not yet mature. Birla said customer demand will determine how quickly GM achieves its goal of selling one million EVs a year, and GM's EV deliveries are currently slowing. The slowdown could be a big blow to GM. The company has only recently overcome problems with EV battery production and has already delayed the opening of an electric pickup truck factory in the suburbs of Detroit.
5PV giant SunPower plummeted 75% in a week
Shares of United States solar maker SunPower closed down 55% on July 19 and fell 75% for a week, with a record low of $0.64 per share and meeting the warning threshold of the "one-dollar delisting regime." The solar giant's share price has been moving lower since 2021 and has accelerated in 2023, with the share price falling 73.21% last year. SunPower told dealers on July 17 that the solar company no longer supports new lease and PPA sales, nor does it support the installation of new projects and stops shipping. Analysts generally believe that the company is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Related: Sunpower is one of the largest photovoltaic companies in the United States, with more than 5,000 employees. In 2020, SunPower spun off its cell and module manufacturing business to Singapore company Maxeon. As part of the transaction, TCL Zhonghuan invested $298 million to acquire a 29% stake in Maxeon. In 2022, SunPower divested its C&I PV division to TotalEnergies in a $250 million deal.
6SK创新和SK E&S将合并
SK Innovation, an intermediate holding company in the energy division of Korea's SK Group, and SK E&S, a renewable energy company, each held a board meeting on July 17 and voted to approve the merger of the two companies. If the merger goes ahead, the largest private energy company in the Asia-Pacific region, with annual sales of 90 trillion won (about 65 billion U.S. dollars), will emerge. The merger is part of SK Group's restructuring efforts to strengthen its energy business and provide financial support to SK Innovation's battery subsidiary, SK On. Related: Founded in 1962, SK Innovation has expanded its business from essential oils to include petrochemical, lubricant and petroleum development projects, as well as markets such as power batteries, small modular reactors, ammonia and immersion liquid cooling. SK E&S was spun off from SK Innovation in 1999.
7
WH Group plans to spin off Smithfield
WH Group, the Chinese parent company of Smithfield Foods, said it plans to bring the pork giant back to the United States for listing. WH Group plans to list Smithfield's operations in the United States and Mexico on the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ. WH Group is the world's largest pork producer by sales, and Smithfield Foods is the largest pork producer in the United States.
Related: WH Group, formerly known as Shuanghui International, is a professional investment platform set up in Hong Kong by Wan Long, the founder of Shuanghui. In 2013, it spent US$7.1 billion to acquire United States Smithfield, and after the transaction was completed, Smithfield was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, after which WH Group went public in Hong Kong and became the world's largest pork food company.
8
Zong Fuli, the general manager of Wahaha, was revealed to have resigned
In response to the online rumor that Zong Fuli, vice chairman and general manager of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd., proposed to resign, a person close to Wahaha Group said that the situation was true, but the incident happened suddenly, and the company's executives did not know about it before, and the company's shareholders and management are currently negotiating to deal with it. According to the resignation letter circulated on the Internet, Zong Fuli said that recently, the Shangcheng District Government and some shareholders of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd. questioned the reasonableness of their operation and management of Wahaha Group after the death of Chairman Zong Qinghou, so that they could not continue to perform their management responsibilities for the group and its holding companies, and decided to resign as vice chairman and general manager of Wahaha Group from July 15.
Related: According to a clarification statement issued on the official website of the Hong Kong Consumer Council, after meeting with representatives of Nongfu Spring, it was understood that the product in question was neither 'natural mineral water' nor 'purified water', but 'natural water for drinking', and the standard adopted by the company was its place of production, i.e. the "National Food Safety Standard for Packaged Drinking Water" (GB19298-2014) in the Mainland. In this connection, the sample was reclassified as a separate category of 'Drinking Natural Water' and re-scored. After the re-scoring, the overall performance of the sample was adjusted from 4.5 stars to 5 stars. Nongfu Spring said it would continue to provide safe and high-quality products and services to the Hong Kong market.
9
Eli Lilly weight loss pills are approved in China
Eli Lilly's Mu Fengda (tirpatide injection) long-term weight management indication was approved by the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) of China on July 19. Mufengda is the first and only approved glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (GIP)/glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist, and the first innovative drug approved by Eli Lilly in the field of obesity treatment in China. Mufengda binds to and activates GIP receptors and GLP-1 receptors to reduce food intake, reduce body weight, and reduce fat mass by regulating appetite.
Related: The Netherlands is reluctant to include Novo Nordisk's weight-loss drug Wegovy in its basic health insurance plan due to high costs and uncertainties about long-term use. The government agency informed the Minister of Healthcare, Fleur Agema, that Wegovy's reimbursement could reach 130 million euros per year, and it was uncertain whether the expensive drug would need to be used for life. Novo Nordisk said the agency's recommendation was disappointing and wanted to provide Wegovy reimbursement to only a small group of people within its control, as required by treatment guidelines. Currently, there are about 4 million people in the Netherlands who are eligible to use Wegovy.
10. PwC adjusted its Chinese staff
There are media reports that PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is considering cutting its financial services audit staff in China by as much as half. In addition, PwC is considering laying off about 20% of its other audit and non-audit lines. In this regard, PwC's PR team said: "Due to the changes in the external objective situation, we have optimized the organizational structure accordingly according to the market demand. We have always valued our people and have invested heavily in them for many years, and this change was a difficult decision. We are gradually communicating with our employees and ensuring that the adjustment plan complies with the relevant provisions of Chinese labor law. "Related: PwC China's accounting income from Chinese mainland listed clients fell by about two-thirds this year. PwC Zhong Tian, a Chinese mainland member firm commonly known as PwC China, has lost at least 561 million yuan ($77 million) Chinese mainland audit income of listed companies in the past six months, compared with 869 million yuan in 2023, according to Wind Info. The "Big Four" accounting firm is preparing to lay off staff and cut costs.