Finance

China’s Hisense aims to become the No. 1 TV company in the U.S within 2 years

Published

7 months ago

November 5, 2024

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.

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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.

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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.”