Chinese smartphone company Oppo ranks second in mainland China, and fourth worldwide, according to Canalys.
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BEIJING — Chinese smartphone company Oppo is doubling down on artificial intelligence as it holds weekly talks about AI with senior management at Google and Microsoft in the run-up to the launch of its flagship phone overseas.
The collaborations are part of the race to find the next artificial intelligence application. The rise of generative AI — tech that can produce human-like responses when prompted — has companies from Apple to Honeywellrushing to tap its capabilities.
“Google will also come to China to ask us, what needs and pain points do you have with your products? Let’s solve them together,” Billy Zhang, president of Oppo’s overseas market, sales and services, told reporters last week at the company’s office in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. That’s according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks.
“We know consumers’ needs, and we will use AI to satisfy [them],” Zhang said. The company is expanding further in Europe, but does not have immediate plans for the U.S., he said.
Oppo, which owns the OnePlus brand too, said itderives around 60% of its revenue from Southeast Asia, Europe and other overseas markets. The company ranked fourth globally in terms of smartphone shipments in the third quarter, making up 9% of all units shipped, according to Canalys. Samsung and Apple were tied for the first spot, followed by Xiaomi.
While the U.S. leads in terms of AI capabilities, experts suggest Chinese companies will have an edge when it comes to consumer applications of the tech. That’s despite U.S. restrictions on exports of high-end chips to China.
It was not immediately clear to what extent existing Oppo models use AI tools from the two tech companies. Oppo has yet to announce when its flagship phone will be available globally.
In addition to partnerships, Oppo said it has developed its own AI models since 2020 and opened an AI center in February.
“We are very optimistic about AI and have invested with great determination,” Zhang said. “AI is the most important area for tech in the future. All industries can be transformed by AI.”
Counterpoint Research predicts shipments of generative AI smartphones will skyrocket to 732 million in 2028 from 46 million last year, according to a whitepaper published Wednesday. The report did not specify how complex those generative AI features would be.
Apple next week is due to publicly release its first software update with AI tools. A subsequent update will allow removing unwanted elements in photos, and integration with ChatGPT, the iPhone maker said Wednesday.
Chinese smartphone company Honor on Wednesday revealed the next version of its operating system that can use AI to mimic actions on a touchscreen, such as opening an app to order coffee delivery.
Tech for production efficiency
Oppo plans to integrate AI into its factories, which are increasingly automated, Zhang said. “Today, automation improves quality and stability, lowers production costs and increases unit yield.”
At a production line for an entry-level smartphone in Dongguan, near Shenzhen, Oppo has this year replaced about 8% of the workers with machines, and moved those employees to work on more complex, higher-end phones.
Oppo is rolling out its digital management system to its factories in seven other countries, starting with India and Indonesia. The company also produces phones in Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil and Egypt.
“Since our manufacturing process is largely digitalized and standardized, growing and expanding to global markets is much easier,” Danny Du, director of manufacturing management at Oppo told CNBC.
Oppo has cut its manufacturing costs by nearly 40% over three years, Du said, adding that technological integration with factory machines and systems has cut production time to six days, from 16. He said that allows Oppo to respond more quickly to market orders, instead of relying on longer-term forecasts that come with the risk of unsold inventory.
— CNBC’s Kif Leswing and Eric Rosenbaum contributedto this report.
The founder of the first gold-tracking ETF is still bullish on the commodity two decades later.
“Things are looking good for the rest of this year and for next year,” George Milling-Stanley told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week.
The State Street chief gold strategist highlighted demand from both central banks and individual investors in emerging markets, such as India and China, as major tailwinds for the precious metal.
Since the Nov. 5 election, “investors have gone gung-ho on risk-on assets,” Milling-Stanley said. “This is why we’ve seen the stock market go up dramatically, why we’ve seen the cryptocurrencies go up dramatically.”
But the precious metal, and in turn, the GLD ETF, are “starting to claw back some of the lost ground,” Milling-Stanley said.
Since then, investment in gold has shifted away from jewelry and into bullion and ETFs as demand for the precious metal has jumped. Milling-Stanley describes the increased investor demand as a “huge change” to the commodity investment landscape — and to portfolio management as a whole.
Todd Sohn, ETF and technical strategist at Strategas, says GLD brought more investors into gold because of the broader access ETFs can offer.
“No matter what your end game is, GLD allowed you to add something to your portfolio besides an equity and a fixed income instrument, so you can get diversification,” said Sohn.
Since its inception, GLD is up 451%. It is up 29% in 2024.
Ken Griffin, chief executive officer and founder of Citadel Advisors LLC, speaks during an Economic Club of New York event in New York, US, on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024.
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Citadel CEO Ken Griffin issued a warning against the steep tariffs President-elect Donald Trump vowed to implement, saying crony capitalism could be a consequence.
“I am gravely concerned that the rise of tariffs puts us on a slippery slope towards crony capitalism,” the billionaire investor said Thursday at the Economic Club of New York.
The Citadel founder thinks domestic companies could enjoy a short-term benefit of having their competitors taken away. Longer term, however, it does more harm to corporate America and the economy as companies lose competitiveness and productivity.
Crony capitalism is an economic system marked by close, mutually advantageous relationships between business leaders and government officials.
“Those same companies that enjoy that momentary sugar rush of having their competitors removed from the battlefield, soon become complacent, soon take for granted their newfound economic superiority, and frankly, they become less competitive on both the world stage and less competitive at meeting the needs of the American consumer,” Griffin said at the event.
Trump made universal tariffs a core tenet of his economic campaign pitch, floating a 20% levy on all imports from all countries with a specifically harsh 60% rate for Chinese goods.
The protectionist trade policy could make production of goods more expensive and raise consumer prices, just as the world recovers from pandemic-era inflation spikes.
“Now you’re going to find the halls of Washington really filled with the special interest groups and the lobbyists as people look for continued higher and higher tariffs to keep away foreign competition, and to protect inefficient American businesses have failed to meet the needs of the American consumer,” Griffin said.
At the same event, Griffin also said that he’s not focused on taking Citadel Securities public in the foreseeable future. Citadel is a market maker founded by Griffin in 2002.
“We’re focused on building the business, on investing in our future. And we do believe that there are benefits to being private during this period of very, very rapid growth,” he said.
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. Nvidia — Shares of the chipmaker dipped about 1% in midday trading, after gyrating earlier in the session. Nvidia beat on top and bottom lines for the third quarter, posting adjusted earnings of 81 cents per share on revenue of $35.08 billion. Analysts polled by LSEG had called for earnings of 75 cents per share on $33.16 billion in revenue. Nvidia also gave a better-than-expected forecast for the current quarter. Baidu — U.S. shares of the Chinese search engine fell about 5% after Baidu’s third-quarter revenue declined by 3% compared to the year-ago period . Still, the company posted a 12% increase in its non-online marketing revenue, fueled mostly by growth in its artificial intelligence cloud business. Alphabet — Shares declined 5% on news that the Department of Justice is pushing a federal judge to force Google divest its Chrome internet browser in order to create a more level playing field for competitors in the search industry. That follows a ruling in August that Google has a monopoly in the search market. Snowflake — The data analytics software maker saw shares skyrocket more than 34%, after the company’s better-than-expected third-quarter results . The stock is heading for its best day ever. Snowflake also called for $3.43 billion in fiscal 2025 product revenue, implying 29% growth. CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy said Snowflake is focusing more on saving money. Merus — Shares of the cancer therapeutics company gained nearly 4%. Goldman Sachs initiated coverage of Merus with a buy rating, saying it sees big gains ahead driven by the company’s cancer treatment. Netflix — Shares rose nearly 2% on the heels of Bank of America reiterating its buy rating on the stock and upping its price target to $1,000. The bank cited live events, as well as Netflix’s in-house ad tech platform, as catalysts for growth. Crypto-related stocks — Stocks tied to cryptocurrencies earlier rose after the price of bitcoin crossed $98,000 for the first time , but they fluctuated after Galaxy Digital CEO Michael Novogratz warned that a pullback in bitcoin will come eventually. MicroStrategy was down 1%, reversing its earlier gains, while Coinbase dipped 3%. Miner Mara Holdings gained nearly 10%, while trading platform Robinhood dipped about 1%. BJ’s Wholesale Club — Shares moved 9% higher after the warehouse club’s third-quarter adjusted earnings beat the Street’s estimates. BJ’s also boosted its full-year guidance. The company said it will increase its membership fee and announced plans to repurchase $1 billion shares. PDD Holdings — Shares of the e-commerce giant, which owns Temu, fell 9.7%. PDD missed profit and revenue estimates. — CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Yun Li and Michelle Fox contributed reporting.