TV screens show global hit video game “Black Myth: Wukong” at Hisense booth during the IFA Berlin 2024 on September 6, 2024 in Berlin, Germany.
China News Service | China News Service | Getty Images
BEIJING — Chinese home appliance company Hisense aims to become the No. 1 seller of television sets in the U.S. in about two years, Catherine Fang, president of Hisense International, told CNBC in an exclusive interview Monday.
In its bid to boost its brand in the U.S., the company last week became the first official partner of the FIFA Club World Cup that’ll kick off in Miami in June 2025. FIFA President Gianni Infantino, FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafström, and Hisense Group Chairman Jia Shaoqian attended an event in Shanghai on Oct. 30 to mark the partnership.
“We hope through this sponsorship we can increase our market share,” Fang said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC. Sports events can burnish Hisense’s image as a premium brand, she added.
The company’s newest TVs use an in-house artificial intelligence chip to improve image rendering, Fang said, noting plans to increase the use of AI for improving audio quality, or providing athlete stats via voice command. The company was not immediately able to share to what extent those features were available on TV sets in the U.S.
Hisense’s 55-inch U8 TV series starts at around $700 in the U.S., while the 100-inch version costs around $3,000 or more.
In the second quarter, the company shipped the second highest number of TV sets in North America, behind Samsung, according to research firm Counterpoint.
“Hisense and TCL, which have been focusing on normal LCD TVs, are trying to increase their market share by strengthening their advanced TV portfolios such as QD-LCD and Mini LED LCD,” Counterpoint said.
Hisense also sells home appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines, often called white goods.
Fang said the company aims to become the top Chinese brand of such white goods in North America, also in roughly the next two years.
While China-based companies have been eyeing overseas markets relatively recently as growth at home slows, Hisense has built up its global business over several decades.
Hisense generates half of its revenue outside China, with North America accounting for about 30% of its overseas sales, Fang said.
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.
Yuki Iwamura | Bloomberg | Getty Images
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.