Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1294
NetEase buys French boutique game studio
At the second quarter results meeting this year, Ding Lei, chairman of NetEase, said that the company has not received a new game version number for a year, and “must make a strategic choice to transfer some of our R&D resources to the global market.”
New progress is coming. On August 31, NetEase announced the acquisition of Quantic Dream, a French game developer and publisher. This is the first game studio acquired by NetEase.
Previously, they set up game studios in North America and Japan, and recruited Jerry Hook , one of the main planners of Halo , Emile Liang, producer of the FarCry series, and Hiroyuki Kobayashi, producer of Resident Evil .
NetEase did not disclose the details of the acquisition and follow-up cooperation, but Zhu Yuan, their general manager of game strategic investment, told gamesindustry, a vertical organization in the game industry, “We have many common values and visions in our cooperation for many years. No matter how Quantic takes risks, we will They were there to support them. When the studio decided to join NetEase, we were very excited to take our relationship to the next level.”
According to Quantic Dream, NetEase invested a small amount of shares in 2019 to support the development of the studio. The two parties began to work together on large and small projects. Now, in order to further expand, Quantic Dream has chosen to join NetEase and become a wholly-owned subsidiary of NetEase. Will maintain independence in screenwriting, project art direction and studio management.
“In recent months, we have received several offers that matched our expectations, and we decided to enter into exclusive negotiations with NetEase and quickly agreed on key terms,” said Guillaume de Fondaumière, co-CEO of Quantic Dream. Founder David Cage said the company was financially healthy and there was no pressure to sell.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Quantic Dream. There was some transition pressure, and there was blame for bad corporate culture. It was founded in May 1997 by Cage and a group of friends.
One of his stated motivations for starting his own business was to play an action-adventure game set in a futuristic parallel universe. No studio wanted to develop with him, so he started a business with some friends and found publishers willing to fund it. Rock musician David Bowie also played two roles and wrote original music in Quantic Dream’s The Nomad Soul game.
From this game to Omikron, Fahrenheit, Heavy, Detroit: Become Human , they want to bring the diversity and complexity of life into the game world. The fate of the protagonist is no longer determined from the beginning, and the different choices of players deduce different endings of the protagonist.
At the TED conference in 2018, Cage took Detroit to talk about his above-mentioned game design concepts, and tried the game scene with the audience on the spot. “I think it’s really important to create characters that the audience can relate to. As long as you have characters that you like, when you feel like they’re part of yourself, you’re interested in what’s going on with them, and then it’s going to be with you. Resonance. That’s the most important thing,” Cage said. (Gong Fangyi)
Haidilao lost more than 40,000 employees in half a year
From March to May this year, Haidilao suspended dine-in in more than 200 stores on average every day, and reduced to less than 90 in June, which reduced their revenue in the first half of the year by 16.6% to 16.76 billion yuan, a profit of 95 million from the same period last year. Yuan turned into a loss of 266 million yuan now.
Looking at the chain, it seems that Haidilao has come out of the worst time – a loss of more than 4 billion yuan in the second half of last year.
Chain restaurants generally have high operating leverage, regardless of the level of turnover, store wages, rents, water and electricity rigidly occur. In the second half of last year, Haidilao announced the “Woodpecker” plan, gradually closing down stores with poor operating efficiency, shrinking and focusing, which also brought about a loss reduction in the first half of this year.
In the first half of the year, the labor cost of Haidilao decreased by 17.6% year-on-year, the number of employees per store decreased by about 20%, the operating cash flow was positive, and the cash reserve increased by 560 million yuan. The bank balance and cash as of the end of June totaled 6.37 billion yuan.
- In the first half of the year, there were 1,310 stores and 19 net stores in China.
- At the end of the first half of the year, there were 93,047 employees in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, 44,885 less than at the end of 2021.
- First-tier, second-tier, third-tier and below closed 10, 1, and 8 stores respectively, and opened 238, 521, and 551 stores.
- The same-store turnover rate was 3.0 times. (Gong Fangyi)
Yunnan Baiyao has been investing in stocks for a year and a half, with an average monthly loss of 127 million yuan
Yunnan Baiyao’s net profit in the first half of the year fell 16.72% to 1.5 billion yuan, mainly due to the loss of stocks.
According to its semi-annual report data, Yunnan Baiyao has invested in Jacobson Scientific Research Pharmaceutical, Jianbei Miaomiao, China Antibody, Xiaomi Group, Fuguo Dingli Pure Debt, etc. These investments have a total loss of 417 million yuan. In the past 18 months, Yunnan Baiyao has lost a total of 2.3 billion yuan, with an average monthly loss of 127 million yuan.
Yunnan Baiyao has been investing in stocks since the first half of 2019, and in 2020, the investment earned 2.2 billion yuan. Since then, investment returns have plummeted, seriously dragging down its performance. Last year, Xiaomi Group, which has nothing to do with the company’s business, lost 1.4 billion yuan, and its entire portfolio lost 1.9 billion yuan, causing the company’s net profit to drop by half last year.
- From 2017 to 2021, Yunnan Baiyao’s R&D expenses accounted for less than 1% of the current operating income.
At the end of July this year, Yunnan Baiyao mentioned in the “Investor Research Meeting Minutes” that in 2022, it will strictly control the scale of investment in the secondary market, gradually reduce its positions within the limit approved by the board of directors, and will not continue to increase its holdings.
It is not only Yunnan Baiyao that has dragged down its performance due to investment. Fu Anna, who sold bed sheets, bought 120 million yuan of fixed-income wealth management products that were overdue in March last year. Five months later, they only received the product principal of 13.5 million yuan. The total amount of unexpired funds is as high as 1.2 billion yuan. Losses due to investment in wealth management products accounted for 4% of Fuana’s net profit in the first half of the year. (intern Xue Yujie)
Vanke earned 12.2 billion in the first half of the year, outperforming the market is still difficult to match the industry trend
In the first half of the year, Vanke’s revenue was 206.92 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.8%; its net profit was 12.22 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.6%. In terms of real estate development and sales, the sales area and amount both fell in the first half of the year, the scale of new construction dropped, and the scale of completed construction continued to grow.
- The sales area was 12.907 million square meters, and the sales were 215.29 billion yuan, down 41.1% and 39.3% year-on-year respectively;
- The newly started planned capacity area was approximately 10.688 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 38.9%; the completed planned capacity area was approximately 14.437 million square meters, a year-on-year increase of 17.8%.
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According to data released by the third-party agency Kerui, the cumulative equity sales of the top 100 real estate companies in the first half of this year fell by 51% year-on-year. Although Vanke outperformed the average level of the top 100 real estate companies, its decline in sales performance is also a microcosm of the real estate industry.
- According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the real estate development investment in the first half of the year was 6.83 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.4%; the national commercial housing sales amounted to 6.61 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 28.9%; the commercial housing sales area was 689 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 22.2%.
- Among the 20 listed real estate companies that have disclosed their performance in the first half of the year, more than half of them experienced negative growth in revenue, and nearly 80% of their net profits declined. Only Vanke Real Estate, Country Garden, Poly Real Estate and China Overseas Real Estate are the only ones with a revenue of over 100 billion. (Intern Zeng Xing)
Wufangzhai went public, with gross profit margin higher than the industry average
Wufangzhai, which can be seen in almost every Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai expressway service area, was listed on A-shares today (August 31), closing up 44% (the upper limit of the first-day increase for new shares), with a total market value of nearly 5 billion yuan.
The zongzi, moon cakes, and pastries sold by Wufangzhai are the commodities that Chinese people buy during the New Year and festivals. Zongzi accounts for the highest proportion of the main business, reaching 70%. In the past three years, Wufangzhai has made 500 million yuan. Affected by the epidemic, Wufangzhai, whose main market is in East China, both saw a decline in revenue and net profit in the first half of the year, and net profit fell by 20% to 242 million yuan.
In the past three years, the gross profit margin of Wufangzhai has decreased from 45% to 43%, but it is still higher than the industry average.
- Nearly 80% of the cost of Wufangzhai’s zongzi comes from raw materials, including glutinous rice, pork, zongzi leaves, packaging materials, etc. The fluctuation of raw material prices will directly affect the profitability of the company.
- Due to the drop in pork prices in the first half of the year, the gross profit margin of Wufangzhai Zongzi increased by 3.6 percentage points year-on-year to 49.77%.
Wufangzhai mainly sells products through e-commerce, direct retail stores, dealers and supermarkets. Its revenue mainly comes from distribution channels, accounting for more than one-third of the total revenue. Wufangzhai mentioned in the prospectus , some dealers only carry out short-term cooperation in the peak season, which will bring certain risks to their sales revenue.
In the past three years, the proportion of Wufangzhai’s e-commerce channels in the main revenue has continued to rise, reaching one-third. Affected by the epidemic and the number of stores opened, the proportion of directly-operated retail stores in revenue has continued to decline, reaching less than 20%. (intern Xue Yujie)
The PMI of small and medium-sized enterprises in August was below the boom line
The Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) in August was 49.4%, up 0.4 percentage points from July and still in the contraction range.
- Among them, the PMI of large enterprises was 50.5%, rising to the expansion range;
- The PMI of medium-sized enterprises was 48.9%, up 0.4 percentage points from July;
- Small business sentiment continued to decline, with the PMI falling to 47.6%. (intern Xue Yujie)
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OTHER NEWS
Data export security assessment declaration will be implemented from tomorrow.
According to the “Guidelines for the Declaration of Data Exit Security Assessment (First Edition)” released tonight by the Cyberspace Administration of China, if the personal information of more than 1 million people is transferred abroad at one time, it is necessary to declare to the Cyberspace Administration of the People’s Republic of China through the provincial-level Cyberspace Administration of China. assess safety. If the data of less than one million people is provided at one time, but “the personal information of 100,000 people or the sensitive personal information of 10,000 people has been provided to overseas countries since January 1 of the previous year”, it is also necessary to declare.
The last leader of the Soviet Union died.
On August 31, 2022, Gorbachev, the first and last president of the Soviet Union, died in Russia. “Mr. Gorbachev has made positive contributions to the normalization of Sino-Soviet relations,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said at a regular briefing. “We express our condolences to his passing and our condolences to his family.”
China added 28.05 million short video users in half a year, with a total of more than 960 million.
According to the latest “Statistical Report on Internet Development in China”, as of June 2022, the number of Chinese netizens was 1.051 billion, of which short video users had the fastest growth, reaching 962 million, 28.05 million more than at the end of last year, accounting for to 90% of the overall scale of netizens.
Yili received 945 million yuan in government subsidies in the first half of the year.
Although affected by the epidemic in the first half of the year, terminal passenger flow was reduced and transportation was hindered, Yili’s revenue and net profit both hit new highs. Among them, net profit increased by approximately 15% year-on-year to RMB 6.133 billion. The growth of the main business of liquid milk has slowed down, and the revenue has only increased by 1.14% year-on-year, while the revenue of milk powder and dairy products has increased significantly by 58% year-on-year. In addition, in the first half of the year, Yili received various government subsidies of about 945 million yuan, which also had a positive impact on the company’s performance.
Nai Xue’s tea slowed down the opening of the store and failed to stop the loss from expanding.
Nai Xue’s tea revenue in the first half of the year fell 3.8% year-on-year to 2.045 billion yuan, of which 80% came from online orders, and the number of members was nearly 50 million. The epidemic has led to the temporary closure of some stores, the reduction of consumers’ willingness to spend, and the launch of products below 20 yuan, resulting in a drop in the average unit price. The net loss in the first half of the year was 249 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 417%. In addition, the speed of Naixuetuo stores has slowed down, with 87 new stores opened, and there are currently 904 self-operated stores nationwide.
Suning.com almost halved its operating expenses in the first half of the year and refocused on the home appliance business.
Suning.com’s revenue in the first half of the year was 37.209 billion yuan, down 60.25% year-on-year. Net loss was 2.741 billion yuan, down 20.60% year-on-year. In the first half of the year, by adjusting the product structure, increasing the proportion of offline sales, and promoting the sales and promotion of mid-to-high-end products, the comprehensive gross profit margin recovered to 20.31%. At the same time, operating expenses decreased by 47.82% year-on-year. In the first half of the year, Suning adjusted its business strategy and refocused on the home appliance business.
The United States will check the audit quality of the annual reports of Chinese stocks as soon as next month, and the first batch of companies will include Ali.
According to media reports, U.S. regulators are expected to start auditing and inspecting Chinese companies listed in the U.S. in September, and Alibaba will be one of the first batch of Chinese stocks to be inspected.
- Note: PCAOB examines accounting firms and their audit reports for listed companies, not the listed companies themselves.
Chengdu High-tech Zone temporarily closed all office buildings for three days.
- On August 30, 349 new cases were confirmed locally, including 164 in Sichuan, 45 in Tibet, 36 in Hainan, 25 in Guangdong, and 1,326 new asymptomatic infections, including 674 in Tibet, 107 in Sichuan, and 84 in Qinghai. example.
- Sichuan added “164+107”, of which Chengdu added “121+69”, and Chengdu High-tech Zone temporarily closed all office buildings for three days.
- There were 17 new positive cases in Shenzhen, and the Asia Pet Show originally scheduled to be held in Shenzhen on August 31 was postponed.
- Tianjin added “18+39”, and Tianjin primary and secondary schools will temporarily teach online from September 1.
- One new local case was confirmed in Beijing, and the new case went to restaurants and swimming pools.
- Shanghai yesterday added 1 local confirmed case and 1 local asymptomatic infection. Shanghai further strictly manages gathering activities and insists on “non-essential not holding”.
BYD said there is no need to over-interpret shareholder Buffett’s decision to sell.
In 2008, Buffett purchased 225 million shares of BYD, which is the first time in 14 years that he has reduced his holdings in BYD. After reducing his holdings of BYD, Buffett’s shareholding ratio is 19.92%, holding a total of 219 million shares. BYD responded that there is no need to over-interpret it, and the company’s operations are all normal. On August 31, Hong Kong stock BYD fell more than 11% intraday.
In the first six months of the broadcast, Oriental Selection achieved a revenue of 24.6 million yuan.
New Oriental Online announced its results for the fiscal year ended May 31, 2022, with losses narrowing sharply and revenue falling by a third. Since its launch in December 2021, Oriental Selection has achieved revenue of 24.6 million yuan. The financial report did not reflect the performance of Dongfang Selection after the recent explosion. Yin Qiang, CFO of New Oriental Online, said at the financial report meeting that the GMV of Dongfang Selection in the past three months was around 2 billion yuan. On August 31, Oriental Selection announced to cooperate with SF Logistics and JD Logistics to establish 20 self-operated product warehouses.
Meitu could have made money from advertising, but it couldn’t make up for the 300 million yuan loss in currency speculation.
Meitu’s impairment loss on its cryptocurrency investments in the first half of the year reached 305 million yuan, doubling its losses. In the first half of the year, Meitu’s operating income increased by 20% to 970 million yuan. Among them, the revenue from VIP subscription business increased by 60%, which offset the decrease in online advertising business and surpassed online advertising business for the first time to become Meitu’s largest revenue source. SaaS and related businesses Revenue increased 15 times year-on-year to 230 million yuan.
Musk has applied to delay the Twitter acquisition court hearing until November.
Musk said the court date was postponed because a whistleblower provided new evidence about Twitter and needed to amend the indictment. The court date was previously set for October 17. On Tuesday (August 30) local time, Musk sent Twitter a letter to formally terminate the acquisition, accusing Twitter of false accounts and data security issues.
Low base “helped” SF Express’s net profit in the first half of the year increased by 2.3 times.
In the first half of the year, SF Holding achieved an operating income of 130.064 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of nearly half. Among them, the income of the express delivery business in the same city increased by three times. Due to the consolidation of Kerry Logistics, the supply chain and international business increased by four times, which boosted the overall income. In the first half of the year, the large increase in SF Holding’s profit was partly related to the poor profit in the same period last year. In the first half of last year, SF Express invested a lot in operating costs, resulting in the first negative growth in net profit.
Text | Gong Fangyi Intern Xue Yujie Intern Zeng Xing
Editor | Gong Fangyi
Title image: “Detroit: Become Human”
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