1. Italian antitrust authorities investigate Apple
On the 11th of this month, local time, the Italian antitrust authority, the Italian Competition and Market Authority, issued an announcement deciding to investigate Apple for suspected abuse of its dominant market position. The authority stated that since April 2021, Apple has adopted stricter privacy policies for third-party application developers than for itself. In addition, the data quality provided by Apple to third-party developers and advertisers is relatively poor. Apple's practices may discourage the development of innovative applications and hinder Apple users from using competing application systems.
2. SoftBank's long-term cooperation with Alibaba is coming to an end
SoftBank Group Corp.'s long-term cooperation with Alibaba is nearing its end. SoftBank's chief financial officer, Yoshimitsu Goto, said the company has essentially sold or monetized all remaining shares of its once-massive stake in the Chinese e-commerce company. SoftBank said that in 23 years, its 7.4 billion yen investment in Alibaba has grown to 9.7 trillion yen; in today's exchange rate, a $54 million investment has become $72 billion. The average annual return is 57%, a staggering internal rate of return.
3. Foxconn's quarterly net profit plunges, marking the biggest drop in three years
Foxconn released its first-quarter 2023 financial report, showing a 56% plunge in net profit, the largest quarterly drop in three years. First-quarter net profit was NT$12.8 billion, far below NT$29.45 billion in the same period last year. The sharp drop in profit was largely due to a massive write-down caused by its holdings in Sharp. Foxconn holds a 34% stake in Sharp, resulting in a NT$17.3 billion write-down in the first quarter. Foxconn's first-quarter revenue was NT$1.46 trillion, up 4% year-on-year. Net operating profit was NT$40.5 billion, up 11% year-on-year. Foxconn Chairman Liu Yangwei said that under the shadow of global economic uncertainty, the "visibility" of Foxconn's full-year performance is very limited. Foxconn expects its consumer electronics business revenue to decline year-on-year in the second quarter. Although Foxconn's inventory levels are higher than the industry average, the company is "actively adjusting".
4. Undergraduates are becoming the most awkward presence in the job market
According to the "2023 University Student Employability Survey Report," the degree of difficulty varies slightly among graduates with different educational backgrounds. The situation for undergraduates is the most awkward: for positions with high educational requirements, undergraduates are often less competitive than master's and doctoral students; for positions with high practical operation requirements, undergraduates do not have the same skills as junior college students. Therefore, undergraduates, caught in the middle, have a lower offer rate than both master's/doctoral and junior college graduates. The difficulty undergraduates face in finding jobs also reflects the mismatch between supply and demand in the talent market: the supply of white-collar jobs exceeds demand, leading to educational involution; while the demand for blue-collar jobs is strong, but the supply is insufficient. This has resulted in the current situation where undergraduates are not favored by either side.
5. China's online performance industry market revenue reached nearly 200 billion yuan in 2022
The "2023 China Online Performance (Live Streaming and Short Video) Industry Annual Conference" held in Beijing on May 11 released the "China Online Performance (Live Streaming and Short Video) Industry Development Report (2022-2023)". The report disclosed the latest data on China's online performance (live streaming and short video) industry: over 150 million online live streaming accounts, over 1 billion content creator accounts, and nearly 200 billion yuan in market revenue. (China News Network)
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/u2m6xxi3Rx0jP76xV9XhPw
