Finance

Chinese smartphones tout AI ahead of Apple Intelligence launch

Published

7 months ago

October 23, 2024

Chinese smartphone company Honor on Wednesday revealed new AI features. Pictured here is CEO George Zhao speaking in Shanghai on June 26, 2024.

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Meta's revenue has room to run despite all their AI spending, says Jefferies' Brent Thill

Honor, a spinoff from Huawei that focuses on higher-end devices, revealed Wednesday the latest version of its Android-based Magic operating system would focus on AI as an assistant.

A company demo showed how even with a vague voice command — such as “I’m tired, order something” — the phone was able to automatically order coffee without requiring the user to touch the device. It used AI to mimic actions on a touchscreen. Human intervention was only needed to complete the payment.

The AI assistant could also identify documents and send them to contacts, or make calls via social media app WeChat, all without requiring the user to touch the phone.

For devices in China, Honor works with Baidu and other Chinese companies for some AI functions, while developing others on its own. Honor works with Google for devices sold overseas.

The new AI features are slated for release on Honor’s forthcoming Magic 7 smartphone, due for launch on Oct. 30. Honor plans to roll out AI capabilities to all its devices by the first few months of next year.

The Magic 7 will use Qualcomm‘s newly announced Snapdragon Elite 8 chip for phones. Honor on Monday had teased its new AI features at the chipmaker’s annual event.

Chinese home appliance and smartphone company Xiaomi will also launch a new phone this month that uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Elite 8 chip. Xiaomi has been less vocal about its AI features for smartphones.

The AI features have climbed to a new level, Toby Zhu, senior analyst, Canalys, said in a phone interview Wednesday after Honor’s event. He said the new features have greater potential to convince consumers to switch to another device.

“Apple faces challenges in China but from our data it won’t face a significant decline,” he said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.

Apple’s falling China sales

Honor, Xiaomi and Huawei have all launched foldables, a category Apple has yet to enter.

About 17% of Apple’s revenue came from Greater China in the quarter ended June 29. That’s down from 19% in the year-ago period. Apple is scheduled to release quarterly results on Oct. 31 local time.

Apple CEO Tim Cook met with China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong on Wednesday to discuss data security and cloud services, according to the ministry. Apple did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

Since launching on Sept. 20, Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max has dropped slightly in value on second-hand shopping platform Xianyu. The device was selling between 8,000 Chinese yuan ($1,122) and 10,000 yuan Wednesday, compared with 10,500 yuan to 16,300 yuan last month.

Huawei had launched its trifold Mate XT on the same day. As of Wednesday, second-hand prices for the device had dropped to the mid-20,000 yuan range, nearly half the price it was selling for on Sept. 20.

— CNBC’s Dylan Butts and Sonia Heng contributed to this report.

Finance

Insiders at UnitedHealth are scooping up tarnished shares

Published

2 days ago

May 16, 2025

Business Finance News

Key Points

UnitedHealth Group saw some of its insiders step in and purchase declining shares this week.
Kristen Gil, a director at the firm, bought 3,700 shares worth roughly $1 million on Thursday.
Shares of UnitedHealth plunged nearly 11% to $274.35 on Thursday following a report in The Wall Street Journal that the Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation into possible Medicare fraud.

Finance

Federal Reserve will reduce staff by 10% in coming years, Powell memo says

Published

2 days ago

May 16, 2025

Business Finance News

U.S. Federal Reserve in Washington, DC, on January 30, 2024.

Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images

The Federal Reserve will look to reduce its headcount by 10% over the next couple of years, including offering deferred resignation to some older employees, central bank chair Jerome Powell said in a memo.

“Experience here and elsewhere shows that it is healthy for any organization to periodically take a fresh look at its staffing and resources. The Fed has done that from time to time as our work, priorities, or external environment have changed,” Powell said in a memo obtained by CNBC.

The central bank chief added that he has instructed leaders throughout the Fed “to find incremental ways to consolidate functions where appropriate, modernize some business practices, and ensure that we are right-sized and able to meet our statutory mission.” One method for shrinking the staff will be to offer a voluntary deferred resignation program to employees of the Federal Reserve Board who would be fully eligible to retire at the end of 2027.

The central bank said in its 2023 annual report that it had just under 24,000 employees. A 10% reduction would bring that number below 22,000.

The memo comes as the Trump administration has pushed for cost cuts across civil service agencies, spearheaded by Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Musk has previously called the Fed “absurdly overstaffed.” Powell’s memo did not mention Musk or DOGE as a factor in the decision to shrink headcount.

The planned staff cuts were first reported by Bloomberg News.

— CNBC’s Matt Cuddy contributed reporting.