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Gamers visit Sony’s PlayStation booth at the annual China Joy gaming conference in Shanghai on July 30, 2021.
Arjun Kharpal | CNBC

GUANGZHOU, China — For 14 years, gaming consoles from the likes of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo were banned in China.

The ban was finally lifted in 2014.

While these consoles were available on the so-called “grey market” — places that would sell imported devices for a high price — the prohibition led to the surge in popularity of PC and mobile games.

Chinese developers, like giants Tencent and NetEase, poured their efforts into making hit titles for those platforms during the more than a decade-long ban.

Now things are changing. China’s tech giants, alongside a new breed of gaming developers, are looking to tap the growth of videogame consoles in China and target players overseas who have grown up with those devices.

For the global market, the console is huge — roughly like 30% revenue. But in China, it’s only 1% and so there’s a huge potential opportunity for the console game developer inside China.
Daniel Ahmad
senior analyst, Niko Partners

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have all launched their next-generation gaming consoles in China.

“For the global market, the console is huge — roughly like 30% revenue. But in China, it’s only 1% and so there’s a huge potential opportunity for the console game developer inside China,” Frank Mingbo Li, the founder of Studio Surgical Scalpels, a Tencent-backed game studio, told CNBC.

Studio Surgical Scalpels is making an outer-space based “first-person shooter” game called “Boundary” for PC and Sony’s PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.

China’s games console hardware and software market hit $1.84 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $2.46 billion in 2025, according to market intelligence firm Niko Partners. But that’s eclipsed by both mobile and PC game revenue. Mobile game revenue alone stood at $29.2 billion in 2020.

Globally, the console market is expected to rake in revenue of $49.2 billion, accounting for 28% of the worldwide games market, according to market research firm Newzoo.

That’s where the opportunity lies.

“Despite consoles being banned between 2000 and 2014, we are seeing high demand for consoles in China, and there is an even larger market for console outside the country,” Daniel Ahmad, senior analyst at Niko Partners, told CNBC.

Li, who is a gaming industry veteran, said “Boundary” was designed from the “very first day” for the global market, underscoring the Chinese developer’s ambitions.

“Boundary” is just one of several high-profile console games coming out of China. Another upcoming game is “Black Myth: Wu Kong” which is being developed by Chinese studio Game Science.

Gaming giants eye console market

The world’s largest gaming company, Tencent, along with rival Chinese firm NetEase, are also eyeing the console market.

NetEase launched a high-profile game on Thursday called “Naraka: Bladepoint” — a 60-person battle royale style game like popular title “Fortnite.” The Hangzhou, China-based company is also developing the game for consoles but hasn’t revealed a release date yet.

In 2019, NetEase opened a gaming outfit in Montreal, Canada, to help with international expansion and another studio in Japan dedicated to console game production last year.

In an interview with CNBC this month, Hu Zhipeng, vice president at NetEase, called the console market “pretty attractive.”

“Our Sakura Studio in Japan and in Montreal are dedicated to developing games on consoles, as one third of overseas market shares is taken by console games,” Hu said.

Tencent’s growth in gaming over the years has been driven a lot by acquisitions of or investments into game studios. That has been focused heavily on mobile but is now shifting to companies making games for PC and console.

“Nearly half of the 51 investments in 2021 are in companies with experience developing PC and console games. Many of these are domestic,” according to a Niko Partners report published in May.

Until 2020, most of Tencent’s domestic investments went into mobile gaming while PC and console investments were done overseas, the report noted.

And Tencent-owned developer TiMi Studio has opened offices in Montreal and Seattle to focus on PC and console games.

“Chinese studios are looking to match their overseas peers in game development by standardizing tools, creating advanced production processes, and investing in large teams to ensure they can create large scale AAA quality titles that provide a competitive edge, meet evolving player demands, and reach a broad audience both in terms of geographies and platforms,” Ahmad from Niko Partners said.

AAA is an unofficial term to denote high-quality and popular games.

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China’s BYD pushes into emerging markets amid policy uncertainty in the U.S., Europe

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China's BYD pushes into emerging markets amid policy uncertainty in the U.S., Europe

BYD electric cars waiting to be loaded onto a ship are seen stacked at the international container terminal of Taicang Port in Suzhou, in China’s eastern Jiangsu province on February 8, 2024.

STR | AFP | Getty Images

In the race against Tesla for the global electric car market, Chinese automaker BYD is pushing hard overseas despite rising barriers to the U.S. market.

The Shenzhen-based company has already tested the waters in a number of countries with some immediate sales success, often just one year after entering. 

Given policy uncertainty around Chinese EV exports to major markets like the U.S. and Europe, BYD is seeking to bolster overseas sales by moving production to regions perceived as more friendly. Already, the company has factories in Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, Hungary and Uzbekistan in the works. 

“They are targeting countries without very strong domestic auto industries, where they are likely to face less political pushback or headwinds from a policy perspective,” said CLSA research analyst Xiao Feng, noting that recent developments in the U.S. underscored the need for such an approach. 

The Biden administration last month said it’s begun investigating whether Chinese-made cars pose national security risks, and raised the possibility of restricting the vehicles. The U.S. has tried to support adoption of electric cars domestically, but sales penetration is well below that of China.

Most China EV makers, including BYD, have 'very limited U.S. volume exposure,' analyst says

BYD is moving quickly, beginning with Thailand, where the company expects its first factory outside China to be in operation by the end of this year. The automaker surpassed Toyota to grab the top spot for passenger car sales in Thailand in January, despite having no sales there just one year prior, according to data from Marklines.

Once operating, the Thailand factory will likely serve the rest of Southeast Asia. EY predicts the electric car market in the region will grow exponentially to at least $80 billion a year in sales in the next decade. 

BYD has established itself in Southeast Asia as the top-selling EV brand, grabbing more than one-third of the market last year after barely selling cars there previously, according to data from Counterpoint Research. 

Edge against Tesla

BYD sold 70,000 electric cars in Southeast Asia last year with a 35% market share, putting it ahead of rivals Vinfast and Tesla, according to data from Counterpoint Research.

One of BYD’s advantages over Tesla is a number of offerings in the mass market, as well as a mix of hybrid and battery-powered cars. Tesla exclusively makes more premium-priced, battery-only cars. Having hybrid options is beneficial for emerging markets where battery-charging infrastructure remains limited.

Southeast Asia will likely remain BYD’s strongest overseas market in the short term as the company pursues its goal of doubling its car exports from last year to 500,000 in 2024, according to Canalys automotive analyst Alvin Liu.

“The Southeast Asian EVs market is still in its early stages, and consumer habits need to be cultivated,” said Liu. “Cost-effectiveness” is particularly important, he added, with BYD’s Atto 3 and Dolphin models sold in the region at very competitive prices.

Why China is beating the U.S. in electric vehicles

The company is also investing $1.3 billion to build an electric car factory in Indonesia in 2024, local media reported in January. This year, BYD also reportedly plans to significantly increase the number of its stores in Singapore and the Philippines. 

The company did not respond to a request for comment about the reported plans. 

While BYD does not break out capital expenditure by country, it disclosed 81.52 billion yuan ($11.33 billion) in autos-related capex in the first six months of 2023, nearly double the 45.94 billion yuan reported for all of 2022.

In another contrast with Tesla’s direct-dealership model, BYD often relies on local distributors and partners for sales in countries outside China. For example, in late 2022, BYD signed a distribution agreement with Sime Darby Motors in Malaysia. 

Plan for the Americas 

While U.S. scrutiny on China’s electric vehicle dominance is only growing, BYD is expanding in Brazil and has its sights on Mexico, on the U.S. border.

The company’s Americas CEO Stella Li told Reuters BYD is considering plans for a factory in Mexico, where it has started selling more electric cars.

If BYD does build a factory in the country, that could make it a “beachhead for the Americas,” Bill Russo, founder and CEO of investment advisory firm Automobility, recently told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”

“Mexico is part of the USMCA so there is an opportunity to export perhaps from Mexico to North America,” he said, referring to the free trade agreement that the United States, Mexico and Canada enacted in 2020. 

It's a 'war of attrition' for Nio and other Chinese EV makers, says advisory firm

BYD does not plan to sell passenger cars to the U.S., Li reportedly said at the end of February.

The automaker did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

China remains by far BYD’s largest market. Out of more than 3 million new energy passenger vehicles the company produced last year, just over 242,000 went overseas.

The rapid growth of BYD and other Chinese electric car companies has other automakers worried.

In February, the Alliance for American Manufacturing released a report warning that low-cost Chinese imports could be an “extinction-level event for the U.S. auto sector” and called on Washington to prematurely block imports from Mexico.

That was just weeks after company releases confirmed that BYD was well ahead of Tesla in terms of vehicle production.

Europe and other markets

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Nvidia and Johnson & Johnson to develop new AI applications for surgery

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Nvidia and Johnson & Johnson to develop new AI applications for surgery

The New York Stock Exchange welcomes Johnson & Johnson.

NYSE

Johnson & Johnson on Monday announced it is working with Nvidia to develop and scale new artificial intelligence applications for surgery. 

J&J’s MedTech unit and Nvidia plan to integrate AI within devices and platforms from pre-op to post-op to help ensure that surgeons have access to all the information they need, Nvidia’s vice president of health care Kimberly Powell said. For instance, the companies are using AI to analyze surgical video and automate the time-consuming documentation required after a procedure. 

“There’s an ability to use all the sources of data inside an operating room, whether it’s your voice, or whether it’s the video coming from a camera inside the body, or elsewhere, to take advantage of the generative AI moment that we’re in,” Powell told CNBC in an interview. 

The MedTech unit at J&J creates tools and solutions for conditions such as heart failure, kidney disease and stroke, and its technology is used in more than 75 million procedures each year, the company told CNBC. Powell said Nvidia has worked in medical devices and imaging for more than a decade. 

Shan Jegatheeswaran, vice president and global head of digital at J&J MedTech, said just one minute of surgical video is equivalent to roughly 25 CT scans, so having the compute power and infrastructure to annotate and share those videos widely will be powerful for surgeons.

In the short term, he said de-identifying and enhancing the video can help educate and train surgeons. In the long term, analytics can be layered on top of video to provide real-time decision support. More accessible surgical video means residents will not have to solely depend on the insight and availability of the more experienced physicians at their institutions. 

“Think about athletes. They look at game tape, and they get better over time as they look at themselves,” Jegatheeswaran told CNBC in an interview. “That’s sort of the starting point. That’s the holy grail in the short term.”

Powell said the collaboration is in the “early innings,” and many applications will take time to fine-tune and implement safely. However, she said nondiagnostic use cases such as automating paperwork will help save surgeons time and make a difference “right out of the gate.”

“I think all of us as patients should get really excited about the fact that this kind of technology is going to be able to enter in and be within reach of all the clinicians and all the hardworking nurses and all the health-care staff,” Powell said. “They’re going to have the very best tools and information at their disposal.”

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UnitedHealth Group has paid more than $2 billion to providers following cyberattack

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UnitedHealth Group has paid more than  billion to providers following cyberattack

UnitedHealth Group Inc. headquarters stands in Minnetonka, Minnesota, U.S.

Mike Bradley | Bloomberg | Getty Images

UnitedHealth Group said Monday that it’s paid out more than $2 billion to help health-care providers who have been affected by the cyberattack on subsidiary Change Healthcare.

“We continue to make significant progress in restoring the services impacted by this cyberattack,” UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty said in a press release. “We know this has been an enormous challenge for health care providers and we encourage any in need to contact us.”

UnitedHealth disclosed nearly a month ago that a cyber threat actor breached part Change Healthcare’s information technology network. The fallout has wreaked havoc across the U.S. health-care system. Change Healthcare offers e-prescription software and tools for payment management, so the interruptions left many providers temporarily unable to fill medications or get reimbursed for their services by insurers.

UnitedHealth said on Monday that it began releasing medical claims preparation software, which will be available to thousands of customers in the next several days. The company called it “an important step in the resumption of services.”

On Friday, UnitedHealth said it restored Change Healthcare’s electronic payments platform, after rebooting 99% of its pharmacy network services earlier this month. It also introduced a temporary funding assistance program to help health-care providers experiencing cash flow trouble because of the attack.

UnitedHealth said the advances will not need to be repaid until claims flows return to normal. Federal agencies like the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have introduced additional options to ensure that states and other stakeholders can make interim payments to providers, according to a release.

A survey published by the American Hospital Association on Friday found that 94% of hospitals have experienced financial disruptions from the Change Healthcare attack. More than 60% of the 1,000 hospitals surveyed said the impact to their revenue has been around $1 million per day. Responses were collected between March 9 and March 12.

“We continue to call on Congress and the Administration to take additional actions now to support providers as they deal with significant fallout from this historic attack,” AHA CEO Rick Pollack said in the release.

The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it has launched an investigation into the company due to the “unprecedented magnitude of the cyberattack.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights is carrying out the inquiry. The OCR enforces the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s security, privacy and breach notification rules, which most health plans, providers and clearinghouses are required to follow to protect health information.

UnitedHealth hasn’t disclosed what kind of data was compromised in the attack, or whether it cooperated with the cyber threat actor in order to restore systems. The company said it’s been working closely with law enforcement and third parties like Palo Alto Networks and Google Cloud’s Mandiant to assess the breach.

WATCH: Dr. Scott Gottlieb on UnitedHealth hack

Dr. Scott Gottlieb on UnitedHealth hack: Very pervasive across the entire health care system

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