Finance

Huawei’s trifold proving popular among Apple iPhone fans in Beijing

Published

9 months ago

September 20, 2024

Business Finance News

Pictured here is an Apple flagship store in Beijing, China, on the day of the iPhone 16 launch on Sept. 20, 2024.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

BEIJING — Many of Apple‘s affluent iPhone users in China are just as interested in Huawei’s pricier trifold phone, CNBC found during spot checks at stores Friday, the day the iPhone 16 and Mate XT launched in the country.

Out of 10 people CNBC talked to on Friday, eight said they are interested in both the new Huawei and Apple phones. CNBC talked to five individuals at each company’s store during a workday morning.

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has sought to rebuild its smartphone business after U.S. sanctions in 2019. Huawei ranked fourth by China smartphone market share in the second quarter, according to Canalys.

U.S.-based Apple dropped out of the top five, giving domestic players the top five spots for the first time, the data showed.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at $1,199, and the iPhone 16 at $799. Huawei’s trifold Mate XT starts at the equivalent of more than $2,800.

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The price gap was even more apparent on online platforms selling secondhand goods.

The Huawei Mate XT was selling for 50,000 yuan to 60,000 yuan ($7,100 to $8,520) on second-hand shopping platform Xianyu as of 1 p.m. Friday afternoon. The Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max was selling for 10,500 yuan to 16,300 yuan, the site showed.

Earlier in the day, the listed resale Mate XT price was 19,000 yuan, while the Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max was selling for 9,999 yuan, the site showed.

No lines outside Huawei stores

People in Beijing lined up as early as 5:30 a.m. to get the new iPhone when doors opened at 8 a.m.

But there were no lines outside Huawei stores in Beijing and Hefei, a smaller city west of Shanghai. The Chinese company started delivering the new phones at 10:08 a.m. to people who had reserved the trifold device.

During the 1 hour and 20 minutes that CNBC was at the Huawei store, a couple dozen people went to the second floor to an area reserved for Mate XT buyers.

It was not clear if all of them purchased the device. Many were people buying for resale purposes.

Huawei’s website on Friday showed it had halted sales, and planned to resume them at 10:08 a.m. on Saturday. The page said the company planned to complete deliveries by Sept. 30.

The first person CNBC talked to at the Huawei store arrived at 10 a.m. just to try out the trifold phone. The individual, surnamed Yang, declined to share his first name due to concerns about speaking with foreign media.

He said if he buys the trifold Mate XT, he plans to try it out for a few days before deciding whether to keep it, give it to a friend, or sell it. Yang expected the device could sell for 2,000 yuan more than the list price.

Yang also said he uses an iPhone, and was interested in trying Huawei’s new trifold features because Apple wasn’t offering much that he felt was new.

Even the first person in line at the Apple store, Wang, said he also wanted to get the Huawei trifold phone, but hadn’t gotten a text message yet saying his device was ready to pick up.

He said he bought the iPhone 16 because he heard its battery lasted longer, but was willing to wait for the iPhone 17 for any artificial intelligence features.

— CNBC’s Sonia Heng contributed to this report.

Finance

Stocks making the biggest moves midday: WOOF, TSLA, CRCL, LULU

Published

2 days ago

June 6, 2025

Business Finance News

Finance

Swiss government proposes tough new capital rules in major blow to UBS

Published

2 days ago

June 6, 2025

Business Finance News

A sign in German that reads “part of the UBS group” in Basel on May 5, 2025.

Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty Images

The Swiss government on Friday proposed strict new capital rules that would require banking giant UBS to hold an additional $26 billion in core capital, following its 2023 takeover of stricken rival Credit Suisse.

The measures would also mean that UBS will need to fully capitalize its foreign units and carry out fewer share buybacks.

“The rise in the going-concern requirement needs to be met with up to USD 26 billion of CET1 capital, to allow the AT1 bond holdings to be reduced by around USD 8 billion,” the government said in a Friday statement, referring to UBS’ holding of Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bonds.

The Swiss National Bank said it supported the measures from the government as they will “significantly strengthen” UBS’ resilience.

“As well as reducing the likelihood of a large systemically important bank such as UBS getting into financial distress, this measure also increases a bank’s room for manoeuvre to stabilise itself in a crisis through its own efforts. This makes it less likely that UBS has to be bailed out by the government in the event of a crisis,” SNB said in a Friday statement.

‘Too big to fail’

UBS has been battling the specter of tighter capital rules since acquiring the country’s second-largest bank at a cut-price following years of strategic errors, mismanagement and scandals at Credit Suisse.

The shock demise of the banking giant also brought Swiss financial regulator FINMA under fire for its perceived scarce supervision of the bank and the ultimate timing of its intervention.

Swiss regulators argue that UBS must have stronger capital requirements to safeguard the national economy and financial system, given the bank’s balance topped $1.7 trillion in 2023, roughly double the projected Swiss economic output of last year. UBS insists it is not “too big to fail” and that the additional capital requirements — set to drain its cash liquidity — will impact the bank’s competitiveness.

At the heart of the standoff are pressing concerns over UBS’ ability to buffer any prospective losses at its foreign units, where it has, until now, had the duty to back 60% of capital with capital at the parent bank.

Higher capital requirements can whittle down a bank’s balance sheet and credit supply by bolstering a lender’s funding costs and choking off their willingness to lend — as well as waning their appetite for risk. For shareholders, of note will be the potential impact on discretionary funds available for distribution, including dividends, share buybacks and bonus payments.

“While winding down Credit Suisse’s legacy businesses should free up capital and reduce costs for UBS, much of these gains could be absorbed by stricter regulatory demands,” Johann Scholtz, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said in a note preceding the FINMA announcement.

“Such measures may place UBS’s capital requirements well above those faced by rivals in the United States, putting pressure on returns and reducing prospects for narrowing its long-term valuation gap. Even its long-standing premium rating relative to the European banking sector has recently evaporated.”