Chinese internet companies save 2 trillion yuan in cash; EU considers capping gas price hikes

Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1302

Chinese internet companies save 2 trillion yuan in cash

About an hour ago, “LatePost” published a long article reviewing how domestic Internet companies have been saving money for more than a year. But like we wrote:

They are reducing costs and increasing efficiency, and some companies are really short of money. Since the end of last year, Kuaishou has included cost reduction and efficiency improvement into the quarterly assessment indicators for executives, and its importance is equal to its performance. In the first quarter of this year, Kuaishou saved 100 million yuan by cutting employee benefits, and spent 600 million yuan less on R&D and administrative expenses, mainly composed of employee salaries, a loss of 2 billion yuan less than the same quarter last year. In the second quarter, they made persistent efforts to save 2.3 billion yuan.

Other companies are not really out of money. In the first half of this year, Tencent’s operating profit was about 45 billion yuan and Ali’s 41.6 billion yuan, which is indeed a little less than the same period last year, but it is still amazing. These companies reduce costs and increase efficiency due to the sense of urgency. Reducing benefits is only part of it. In the second quarter, Ali’s sales expenses were reduced by 1.5 billion yuan, Tencent’s marketing expenses were saved by 2.08 billion yuan, and Meituan’s marketing expenses were saved by 2.246 billion yuan.

Public data can also be “confusing” at times. For example, Tencent’s operating profit in the second quarter of this year decreased by 42.72% year-on-year. After deducting the investment profits and losses that fluctuated every quarter, the operating profit rate of its main business has rebounded for three consecutive quarters, and it can still make a net profit of 25.6 billion yuan in a quarter before tax.

According to our calculations, by the end of the first half of this year, the top ten Internet and technology listed companies in China will have at least 2,254.4 billion yuan in cash or equivalent assets (such as time deposits, demand deposits, large-denomination certificates of deposit, bonds or stocks) lying on their balance sheets. investment, etc.), 238 billion yuan more than the end of the first quarter.

In descending order of cash and equivalent assets, these companies are:

• Alibaba, 681.2 billion yuan
• Tencent, 610.7 billion yuan
• Note: PetroChina, 559.4 billion yuan
• JD.com, 256.9 billion yuan
• Baidu, 178.2 billion yuan
• Note: Kweichow Moutai, 148.6 billion yuan
• Meituan, 122.8 billion yuan
• Pinduoduo, 119.3 billion yuan
• NetEase, 111.5 billion yuan
• Xiaomi, 91 billion yuan
• Weilai, 49.4 billion yuan
• Kuaishou, 32.9 billion yuan

The huge cash reserves come from daily operations, listing or debt financing. For example, Meituan will refinance $10 billion in 2021, and Pinduoduo has also raised $12 billion since its listing in 2018. Alibaba, JD.com, Baidu, and NetEase in the list have returned to Hong Kong for listing and financing in the past two years. There is also Kuaishou, which contributed to the largest IPO of Hong Kong stocks last year.

• Note: We have aggregated cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments, held-for-trading financial assets, and equity investment assets of major companies. Data source: Wind.
• Further reading: “The 92.9 billion cash in the Pinduoduo account has nowhere to be used”

If it weren’t for continuous buybacks or big dividends, big companies would have more cash on hand — or another way .

• If you only look at the scale of cash and cash equivalents (narrow caliber), Tencent and Ali have surpassed Maotai (148.6 billion yuan).
• According to the wide-caliber statistics in the list, Tencent and Ali surpassed the CNPC listing system (559.4 billion yuan).
• Apple, Alphabet, and Microsoft, which are truly global businesses, have a combined cash reserve of about 488.5 billion yuan more than China’s top ten Internet technology companies.
• Apple, 1201.2 billion yuan
• Alphabet, 838.8 billion yuan
• Microsoft, 702.9 billion yuan (Gong Fangyi)

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EU considers capping gas price hikes to prevent energy crisis from turning into catastrophe

After Russia announced that it would completely stop the gas supply of Nord Stream 1, the European energy crisis showed signs of escalating again. EU countries will discuss interventions on September 9 to avert an energy disaster that could turn into an economic, social and even financial crisis.

• The EU intends to use measures such as setting a price cap on natural gas imported from Russia, a price cap on gas used for power generation, or temporarily removing gas-fired power plants from the current EU electricity price system, according to a draft document.

Energy-intensive metal smelting companies will be affected by electricity and reduce production, thereby dampening the supply of industries that have just recovered from the “cutoff” of transportation. Chemical companies are also facing production cuts.

• On August 25, Honda Motor announced that due to the shortage of semiconductors and other components, the spread of the new crown epidemic and the impact of logistics stagnation, Honda Motor once again faced production cuts.
• European fertilizer giant Yara International ASA said it plans to reduce its ammonia capacity utilization rate in Europe to about 35% due to rising natural gas prices; Poland’s Grupa Azoty also announced a suspension of ammonia production.
• A reduction in the availability of fertilizers could in turn affect agriculture, thereby further driving up food costs.

According to data released by Eurostat, energy and food prices in the euro zone continued to soar, and the inflation rate in August reached a record high of 9.1% on an annual basis.

• In the cold winter of the energy crisis, the heating of private swimming pools in Germany will be limited in winter; all light-box billboards in France must be turned off, except for airports and train stations; Spain’s firewood fireplaces have increased sales, seeking alternative heating.
• The UK announced that from October, UK household energy spending will rise by 80%, averaging £3,549 (about 28,000 yuan) per year. Germany and France announced wholesale electricity prices of 850 euros and more than 1,000 euros per megawatt hour next year, with wholesale electricity prices soaring 10 to 12 times.
• At the same time, affected by high inflation, retail sales have slowed down sharply. Clothing brands such as Gap and Abercrombie have a backlog of inventory, and Nordstrom and Macy’s have lowered their annual performance expectations.
• 75% of South Africa’s air force is grounded due to a lack of spare parts and fuel, and some military vehicles cannot be replaced due to a lack of budget.

Some companies with upstream resources have temporarily benefited from this round of crisis, mainly oil, natural gas, and mining giants.

• British energy company Shell’s net profit in the first half of this year reached $20.6 billion, the second consecutive quarter of record profits;
• French energy giant Total posted a second-quarter profit of $5.7 billion, up 158 percent year-on-year.
• Saudi Aramco’s net profit in the first half of the year was US$87.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of nearly 90%.
• Chevron’s second-quarter net profit was $11.6 billion, more than three times that of the same period last year.
• Ore trading giant BHP Billiton posted a record 65% profit margin in the first half of the year. (Intern Zeng Xing)

Know later丨The “Durian King” with an annual income of 10 billion yuan is listed today, with a market value of 18.7 billion Hong Kong dollars

There are not many new shares listed this week, with one A-share and one Hong Kong-listed each, including Hong Jiuguo, which was listed today (September 5). Also scheduled to list in Hong Kong this week is artist management company Lehua Entertainment, which has delayed its IPO.

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Hong Jiu Fruit was established in 2002 and its current market value is HK$18.7 billion. Most people can often eat the fruits it sells. According to its sales revenue last year, Hongjiu Fruit is the largest durian distributor in China, with an income of 3.5 billion yuan from selling durians alone. At the same time, it is also a Chinese dragon fruit, mangosteen and longan. top five distributors.

In order to sell high-quality fruits to consumers, Hongjiu Fruit directly purchases fruits from more than 100 origins, and has 16 fruit processing factories in core origins such as Thailand and Vietnam; on the sales side, Hongjiu Fruit has set up 19 fruit processing plants in China. A sales branch, created 18 fruit brands, and sold these fruits to more than 300 cities.

As a middleman, Hongjiuguo earns the price difference by integrating complex distribution links. From 2019 to 2021, Hongjiu Guopin’s revenue was 2.1 billion yuan, 5.8 billion yuan and 10.3 billion yuan respectively. According to the adjusted profit, it has earned about 2 billion yuan in the past three years. The company’s operating income in the past three years and adjusted profit compound annual growth rate more than doubled.

Alibaba, CMC Capital, Tianyi Capital, Sunshine Insurance, Shenzhen Venture Capital, etc. are shareholders of Hongjiuguo.

• Highpower Technology was listed on the A-share market this week. Its main business is R&D, production and sales of lithium-ion batteries and nickel-metal hydride batteries. The listing raised 1.044 billion yuan. In 2008, the company was listed on the Nasdaq in the United States. Completed privatization and delisting in October 2019.
• Although the IPO is relatively flat, there are two press conferences this week that deserve attention, namely, the Huawei Mate 50 series conference on September 6 and Apple’s autumn conference in the early morning of September 8, Beijing time. Apple will release a new generation of iPhone. (intern Xue Yujie)

OTHER NEWS

The People’s Bank of China lowered the foreign exchange deposit reserve ratio by 2 percentage points.

According to the official website of the People’s Bank of China, starting from September 15, 2022, the foreign exchange deposit reserve ratio of financial institutions (that is, the foreign exchange deposit reserve ratio) will be lowered from the current 8% to 6%.

China’s Computer Virus Emergency Response Center said domestic universities had been attacked by U.S. cyberattacks.

On September 5, the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center and 360 Company respectively released investigation reports on the overseas cyber attack on Northwestern Polytechnical University. The investigation found that the source of the cyber attack was the “Special Intrusion Operations Office” of the National Security Agency. On June 22, Northwestern Polytechnical University issued a statement saying that it was attacked by an overseas network.

Temu application is listed on Google and Apple App Store.

Pinduoduo’s cross-border e-commerce platform Temu app has been launched on Google and Apple’s app stores, with the introduction of “Team Up, Price Down”, and the mode of buying in groups with lower prices is similar to that of Pinduoduo.

Shanghai is the city with the largest number of cafes in the world.

According to media reports, Shanghai now has nearly 8,000 cafes, making it the city with the largest number of cafes in the world. Starbucks has more than 900 stores in Shanghai, the city with the largest number of Starbucks stores in the world. Luckin also has more than 600 stores in Shanghai.

A total of 132 cases have been infected in this round of epidemic in Guiyang.

• On September 4, there were 303 new confirmed cases in the local area, including 105 in Sichuan, 64 in Tibet, and 63 in Guangdong; 1,249 new local asymptomatic infections, including 452 in Tibet and 162 in Heilongjiang.
• Tibet added “64+452”; Shigatse City, where the first cases were found, still had more than 100 new infections.
• Sichuan added “105+80”; from the 5th to the 7th, Chengdu continued to carry out nucleic acid testing for all employees.
• A total of 132 cases have been infected in this round of epidemic in Guiyang, and the infected people are mainly concentrated in Huaxi District and the Huaguoyuan area of ​​Nanming District.
• The strain of this outbreak is the Omicron BA.2.76 variant, which is the same as the current strain in Tibet, Chengdu and other places;
• The source of infection and the chain of transmission have not yet been identified. At present, most of the infected people are associated with the logistics park and Huaguoyuan in Shiban Town, Huaxi District, and the risk of spillover is high.
• Shenzhen Metro must enter the station with a 48-hour nucleic acid negative certificate or a nucleic acid test certificate within 24 hours.

Bank of Nanjing denies any involvement in the “relevant village and town bank case”.

The Bank of Nanjing issued an announcement on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, stating that the settlement business for village banks is only used as a fund settlement channel and does not bear capital risks, and has nothing to do with the relevant village bank cases. Previously, it was reported on the Internet that the Hangzhou Branch of Bank of Nanjing “exploded” and “could not withdraw money”. In July, Bank of Nanjing released the “Commercial Banks Acting Rural Bank Fund Settlement Business Instructions” on its official website, explaining that the agency settlement of village banks is a routine agency business.

The Caixin China Services PMI fell to 55% in August, still the second highest since June last year.

In August, Caixin China’s service industry PMI sentiment dropped slightly, down 0.5 percentage points from the previous month, but continued the strong recovery trend since June. In terms of sub-item data, the new orders index for the service industry fell slightly in the expansion range in August, the employment index continued to be below the line of prosperity and decline, and the contraction rate narrowed slightly, and the input price index for the service industry rose slightly above the line of prosperity and decline.

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In the first seven months of this year, Yiwu sold 1.75 billion yuan of Christmas supplies overseas.

Every year, more than 100 countries and regions around the world buy more than 20,000 Christmas items from Yiwu. In the first seven months of this year, Yiwu’s Christmas exports increased by more than 80% year-on-year. According to CCTV news reports, 178 warehouse companies in Yiwu Port have also fully resumed work. Previously, due to the epidemic, the production of some factories in Yiwu was affected.

Primary school students can only play Tencent games for 4 hours during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday this year.

Tencent Games issued a “Notice on the Restriction of Games for Minors before and after the Mid-Autumn Festival Holiday”, saying that from September 9 to September 12 (Friday and the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday) between 20:00 and 21:00 every day, there will be no games. Adults can log in to the game, and other times are banned from playing, which is the same as last year’s Mid-Autumn Festival.

Media reports said that SHEIN’s GMV increased to US$16 billion in the first half of the year.

According to 36 Krypton’s news, the sales of cross-border clothing e-commerce SHEIN in the first half of the year exceeded 16 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of more than 50%, and it is expected to complete the annual sales target of 30 billion US dollars one year ahead of schedule. In the first half of the year, the average customer unit price of SHEIN in the global market was US$75.

The Apple launch is imminent, and 34 million iPhone 14 / Pro series have been stocked.

Apple will hold a new autumn product launch in the early morning of this Thursday (8th). Overseas market sources said that more than 34 million new iPhone 14 and Pro series machines have been produced, and the production target for the year is 90 million. Previously, Tianfeng International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that the average selling price of the iPhone 14 series would rise by 15%, with a higher shipment target.

BYD denied raising prices for related models of the two major car lines.

Previously, it was reported that, affected by the rise in raw material prices and the decline of subsidies for new energy car purchases, BYD will be related to Dynasty Net (including Qin, Yuan, Song, Han and other series) and Ocean Net (including dolphins, seals, destroyers and other series). The price increase of new energy models ranges from 6,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan. BYD said this is false information. BYD has carried out two rounds of price increases this year. In February, BYD raised the prices of new energy models related to Dynasty.com and Haiyang.com by 1,000 yuan to 7,000 yuan, and in March, it raised prices for 10 models.

The Medical Insurance Bureau said that innovative medical devices do not implement volume procurement.

On September 3, the National Medical Insurance Bureau issued the “National Medical Insurance Bureau’s Reply to Recommendation No. 4955 of the Fifth Session of the Thirteenth National People’s Congress”, which pointed out that because the clinical use of innovative medical devices is not yet mature and the amount of use is temporarily difficult to predict, it is still It is difficult to implement the volume-based method, and the state will set aside a certain market for innovative products in addition to centralized volume-based procurement. As of the end of August, a total of 176 innovative medical devices have been approved in China, and the number of approvals this year has exceeded that of last year.

The provident fund paid in Sichuan can now be used to buy a house with a loan in Chongqing.

On September 2, the Chongqing Provident Fund House Purchase New Policy announced that Sichuan housing provident fund employees who apply for a housing provident fund personal housing loan in Chongqing can enjoy the same-city treatment. Even if the household registration and provident fund deposits are in Sichuan, the handling conditions, procedures and materials are the same as those of the employees who make deposits in Chongqing.

The family of Porsche’s founders intends to take advantage of the IPO to once again take direct control of the company.

According to media reports, the Volkswagen Group will hold a meeting to discuss whether Porsche should go public in late September or early October and whether to approve the sale of a 25% stake in Porsche plus a preferred share to Porsche SE, an investment fund controlled by the family of the brand’s founders. The move would strengthen the Piëch family’s control over Porsche.

Because young people do not drink, Japan’s Suntory is targeting overseas markets.

Faced with an aging domestic market and young people not drinking alcohol, Japanese beverage companies are accelerating their overseas expansion. A beer that Suntory launched in Australia last year topped the local canned cocktail market, and Suntory is now trying to replicate that success in North America.

From September 5th, the North American price of Tesla’s fully automatic driving system will increase by 25%.

Last month, Musk announced the price increase on Twitter. After the price increase, the price of the fully automatic driving system (FDS) will reach 15,000 US dollars. This is the second time this year that Tesla has raised the price of the system. In 2018, the price of FSD was only $5,000 when it first went on the market, and the price has been climbing in recent years. According to Tesla’s financial report last year, its services and other businesses, including self-driving software, achieved revenue of $3.8 billion, a year-on-year increase of more than 60%.

Snap’s web3 story can’t go on.

Recently, Jake Sheinman, co-founder of Snap’s Web3 team, said that the entire team was laid off because Web3 did not contribute to the company’s goals. Snap previously announced that it would lay off 20% of its workforce, which will also affect projects such as Snap Originals skits, in-program games, and camera drone Pixy.

The Lord of the Rings TV series that Amazon has spent heavily on is not as good as the movie version.

On September 2, the “Lord of the Rings” TV series “Rings of Power” was launched on Amazon, with more than 25 million viewers, setting a record for Amazon’s streaming platform. Some media estimates put the production cost of the first season at $465 million, with an average of more than $50 million per episode. However, the big money failed to make a good reputation, and the audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic were lower than the movie version. The rating of “Ring of Power” on Douban is also lower than that of “Dragon Family”, which was launched at the same time.

Text | Gong Fangyi, intern Zeng Xing, and intern Xue Yujie

Editor | Gong Fangyi

Title picture丨The movie “Cat and Mouse Game”

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