Morning Post | iPhone revenue hits a new high in China, Apple’s revenue is lower than expected/WeChat input method supports cross-device copy and paste/Tingyi responds to price increase

Apple's fourth-quarter revenue fell for four consecutive quarters, with Greater China revenue lower than expected

Apple announced its fourth quarter financial report for fiscal year 2023. Total revenue has declined year-on-year for four consecutive quarters but is in line with market expectations. All hardware revenue except iPhone has declined year-on-year, with iPad and Mac businesses declining sharply. Apple's U.S. stocks fell more than 4% after the bell.

Apple's fourth-quarter revenue was US$89.5 billion, down 1% year-on-year. Analysts expected US$89.35 billion. It was the first time since 2001 that revenue fell year-on-year for four consecutive quarters.

In the fourth fiscal quarter, iPhone revenue increased 2.8% year-on-year to US$43.81 billion, but MAC revenue was US$7.61 billion, lower than analysts' expectations of US$8.76 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 33.8%; iPad revenue was US$6.44 billion, analysts expected US$6.12 billion.

Apple's revenue in Greater China in the fourth fiscal quarter was US$15.08 billion, lower than the expected US$17.01 billion, down 2.5% year-on-year and 4.3% month-on-month.

However, Apple CEO Cook expressed optimism about demand in Asia during the earnings conference call, saying that iPhone revenue in mainland China hit a record high in the third quarter of this year.

He also praised the performance of the latest Mac computers released this week, saying "we now have the strongest product lineup heading into the year-end holiday shopping season," with record-breaking revenue from every major service.

Cook also said that Apple is investing "significantly" in generative AI initiatives.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are fundamental technologies that are integral to every product we launch.

For example, iOS 17 includes features such as personal voice and real-time voicemail, and AI is the core of these features. There are also functions such as fall detection, car accident detection and electrocardiogram on the watch, none of which would be possible without AI.

We're doing a lot of work on generative AI. We are investing quite a bit and over time you will see the product evolve and these technologies are at the core of it.

The world's first AI Security Summit was held, and 28 countries signed the "Bletchley Declaration"

On November 1, the first Global AI Security Summit kicked off at Bletchley Manor in the UK. At the opening ceremony, the "Bletchley Declaration" jointly reached by participating countries, including China, was officially released.

This is the world's first international statement on the rapidly emerging technology of artificial intelligence, which aims to focus on concerns about the existential threat to humanity posed by powerful AI models in the future, as well as concerns about AI's current enhancement of harmful or biased information.

The Bletchley Declaration calls for and advocates a people-centered approach, and hopes that AI research institutions, companies, etc. will design, develop and use AI in a responsible manner.

The Declaration affirms the huge potential of AI to improve human welfare, but also warns of intentional or unintentional harm caused by the development of AI, and hopes to avoid related risks through regulations and other means.

Foxconn: Internet rumors such as "Foxconn is under thorough investigation and needs to pay 180 billion in taxes" are all rumors

Foxconn Technology Group issued a solemn statement: The recent news that "Foxconn has been thoroughly investigated and needs to pay 180 billion in taxes, and the land of about 20,000 football fields will be taken back to state ownership" are all rumors.

"Individual self-media spread rumors and stir up trouble for no reason, fabricated facts arbitrarily, and published untrue content on multiple platforms and channels, which seriously damaged the reputation of our group, caused great negative impact, and was extremely bad in nature."

Foxconn stated that the group's production and operations are currently in a normal and orderly manner and "will reserve the right to hold accountable the publishers and accounts of relevant rumors."

Xiaomi's stock price hits new high since end of March last year

Yesterday morning, Xiaomi Group-W rose 4.5% to HK$14.86 in early trading. The stock price hit a new high since the end of March 2022. As of 11 am, the stock price had exceeded HK$15.

According to the official battle report, Xiaomi 14 series sales increased to 6 times the total first sales volume of the previous generation within 5 minutes of its launch. The first sales took 4 hours, breaking the four major platforms of "Tmall, JD.com, Douyin, and Kuaishou" as the first domestic mobile phone in the past year. Sales volume and sales volume throughout the day" records.

According to JD platform data, Xiaomi Mi 14 surpassed iPhone 15 Pro in first-time sales, breaking the platform’s single product sales record in the past year.

Lei Jun, chairman of Xiaomi, also wrote: "The first sales of the Xiaomi Mi 14 series have indeed set a record, and the production volume in the first month has been greatly increased."

Volkswagen delays Eastern Europe factory plans amid sluggish demand for electric cars

According to Reuters, Volkswagen Group Chairman Oliver Blume said on November 1 that Volkswagen will not make a decision on the location of its fourth battery plant at this time due to lower than expected demand for electric vehicles in Europe.

Volkswagen has been looking at possible sites for its electric car battery gigafactory in Eastern Europe, having delayed a decision a year ago when the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland or Slovakia were considered sites.

Czech officials say they cannot wait any longer and plan to make the proposed site for a Volkswagen battery plant available to other investors.

Currently, the Volkswagen Group is building three battery factories, which are said to have a total annual production potential of up to 200GWh.

1688 Hexianyu was upgraded to the first-level business of Taotian Group

According to LatePost, Alibaba’s domestic wholesale e-commerce platform 1688 and second-hand e-commerce platform Xianyu have recently been upgraded to first-tier businesses of Taotian Group.

After the business adjustment, 1688 President Yu Yong and Xianyu General Manager Ding Jian will report directly to Taotian Group CEO Dai Shan.

More young users are beginning to flock to 1688 and Xianyu, which may be one of the reasons why the importance of these two businesses has increased. According to reports, 1688, Xianyu, DingTalk, and Hema are internally regarded as Alibaba’s four most promising products.

According to QuestMobile data, Xianyu’s monthly average daily active users reached 36.68 million in September 2023, a year-on-year increase of 18.6%; 1688 employees revealed that its monthly active user growth rate was also in double digits.

Huang Renxun: Within two years, Nvidia and the entire industry will experience unprecedented changes

Recently, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said in an interview show that in the next two years, NVIDIA and the entire computing industry will undergo unprecedented changes.

In his view, this is the first time in 60 years that two technological transformations, general computing and artificial intelligence, have occurred at the same time.

Huang Renxun said that general computing has been developing for 60 years and is now gradually transforming into accelerated computing. Through parallel computing, the computing power of the GPU era has been greatly improved compared to that of the CPU.

Now, based on accelerated computing, the emergence of artificial intelligence and generative AI has further promoted technological progress.

He believes that the combination of the two will allow computing power to increase a million times every 10 years.

Apple M3 Max chip benchmarks revealed, running as fast as M2 Ultra

Apple recently officially released the M3, M3 Pro, and M3Max chips, which are built using advanced 3nm technology. The new generation GPU architecture is more powerful and supports ray tracing. The professional rendering speed of the app is 2.5 times higher than that of the M1 family.

The first benchmark results for Apple's M3 Max chip have appeared in the Geekbench 6 database, and based on the "Mac15,9" device identifier shown, it appears to be for the new 16-inch MacBook Pro.

As of now, the highest multi-core score is 21084. By comparison, the Mac Studio's average multi-core score was 21,316, and the M3 Max was about as fast as the M2 Ultra chip.

According to data from the Geekbench platform, the M3 Max in the new 16-inch MacBook Pro is about 45% faster than the previous generation M2 Max chip.

In addition, the new iMac equipped with M3 chip has also appeared on Geekbench.

This iMac is equipped with a 4.05 GHz basic M3 chip, equipped with 16GB of memory, runs macOS 14.1, and has a maximum single-core score of 3076 points and a multi-core score of 11863 points.

WeChat input method Windows/Mac 1.0.0 official version released: supports cross-device copy and paste

Recently, the WeChat input method for Windows and macOS has received the official version 1.0.0 update.

After the update, it supports copying and pasting text across devices, synchronizing thesaurus and common phrases, while optimizing the experience and fixing problems.

Officials stated that to use the cross-device pasting and synchronization functions, users also need to upgrade the WeChat input method on iOS/Android to version 1.2.0.

In addition, WeChat input method macOS version 1.0.0 also supports calculators, full-width input mode and more combinations of emoticons.

Leapmotor’s new model C16 real car unveiled

Recently, the actual car picture of Leapmotor's new model C16 was exposed. From the perspective of the picture, this time it shows the full view of the rear of the new car and part of the side profile of the body. It is reported that the trial production vehicle has already rolled off the production line.

The rear profile of the new car is very wide. In terms of details, the new car uses a through-type taillight set, and the "C16" car name can be vaguely seen in the tail mark in the lower right corner.

The Leapmoon C16 is expected to be released in June next year and will be positioned as a medium to large or large SUV. Its future competitors after its launch are expected to be models such as the Wenjie M9 and Lili L9.

Simba’s Douyin account has been blocked, or it may lead to war due to suspicion of trolling

Recently, Simba’s TikTok account, which has 4.15 million followers, was banned. As for the reason for being blocked, a person familiar with the matter said that Simba had repeatedly published false information on Douyin, insulted and abused him, and provoked fights.

Previously, in a video circulated on the Internet, Simba rebuked Douyin for its double standards, guiding social values, controlling public opinion, hyping up Li Jiaqi's price control, and now hyping up Simba's bed for being cheap.

Recently, the unsatisfactory cooperation between Mousse Co., Ltd. and Simba has attracted widespread attention. Simba said in a live broadcast that its sales volume has reached 1 billion yuan, but the manufacturer does not want to fulfill the contract.

According to Blue Whale Finance, Mousse Co., Ltd. responded that this is the first time that Mousse has tried to have a head anchor bring goods online. It is still cooperating with the Simba team and will reasonably arrange consultation and production scheduling based on existing orders. and shipping.

In addition, Mousse revealed that there will be no new cooperation with leading anchors in the short term.

Starbucks China market revenue continues to grow, and new stores added in the fourth quarter hit a record

Starbucks releases fourth quarter financial results. The financial report showed that the company's global net revenue in the quarter was US$9.4 billion, and same-store sales increased by 8%.

Among them, the Chinese market's omni-channel business continued its strong momentum in the fourth quarter, achieving revenue of US$840.6 million, a year-on-year increase of 15% after excluding the impact of exchange rate changes.

Starbucks store expansion continues to accelerate. In the fourth quarter, a net new store of 326 was added in the Chinese market, setting another historical record. By the end of the fiscal year, the number of stores increased by 13% to 6,806.

As of the end of the fourth fiscal quarter, the number of active Starbucks Rewards members in the Chinese market (those who have made purchases in the past 90 days) hit a record of more than 21 million, a year-on-year increase of 22%.

Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan said, "The number of coffee drinking people in the Chinese market continues to grow. We will steadily maintain our leading position in the high-end market, continue to develop store types, and enter more new cities."

Master Kong drinks announced price increase of 0.5-1 yuan

Yesterday, it was reported online that the terminal recommended retail price of Master Kong’s tea/juice series products will be adjusted starting from November 1, 2023.

Specifically, the recommended retail price of medium-packaged tea/juice series is adjusted from 3 yuan/bottle to no less than 3.5 yuan/bottle, and the recommended retail price of 1L tea/juice series is adjusted from 4 yuan/bottle to no less than 5 yuan/bottle. bottle.

In response, Master Kong’s customer service responded that there was indeed a price increase notice. Due to rising raw material and labor costs and other reasons, retail prices across the country will be adjusted uniformly, and it may take some time to implement price adjustments offline.

Marvel considers resurrecting Iron Man and Black Widow

According to "Variety", Marvel is considering bringing back the original Avengers in future "Avengers" movies, including "resurrecting" the dead Iron Man and Black Widow in the plot.

The report pointed out: The death of a character is not a hindrance. In comics, beloved characters are often killed off and then resurrected. There are methods such as the multiverse.

But the report also emphasized that Marvel has not yet decided to adopt this idea – if actors like Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson can be recalled, their pay will not be cheap. Sources said: Downey Jr.'s advance salary for "Iron Man 3" is about $25 million.

"Stranger Things" won't use AI to reduce the age of its actors

"Stranger Things" producer and director Sean Levy denies that AI will be used to "age down" the cast in season five.

Because there were several years between the filming of the fourth and fifth seasons of the show, and the young actors continued to grow up, some people had previously speculated that some measures might be taken to reduce the signs of growth of the actors in the fifth season.

In a recent interview with Deadline, when Levy was asked if he had ever thought about using AI technology to de-age these characters, he said "no."

"I know what we're going to do with this show, our cast is great, and the characters created by the Duffy brothers are so vivid. I'm not worried about everyone stepping in again to bring these characters to life."

The fifth season of "Stranger Things" is in the script writing stage. It encountered a Hollywood writers' strike before and has resumed script writing after the end. However, the actors are still on strike.

Movie "Snow Leopard" wins best film at Tokyo Film Festival

The awards for the main competition unit of the 36th Tokyo Film Festival were announced. "Snow Leopard", the posthumous work of Pama Tseden, won the Best Film Award, and "Old Gun" directed by Gao Peng won the Best Artistic Contribution Award.

"Snow Leopard" tells the story of how humans and animals finally get along, starring Kimba, Xiong Ziqi and Tsai Ding Tashi.​​​

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