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Standard Chartered Plc bank branch in Hong Kong

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Zodia Custody, the crypto security firm owned by British banking giant Standard Chartered, is launching its services in Hong Kong, the company told CNBC exclusively.

It marks the latest push for the U.K.-headquartered firm into the Asia-Pacific region. Founded in 2020, Zodia Custody helps financial institutions store their crypto securely.

Julian Sawyer, CEO of Zodia, said that Hong Kong was a market where demand for crypto is driven by institutions, rather than retail customers, adding this is the ideal clientele for Zodia.

“The Hong Kong government and the regulators see digital assets as the future and also want Hong Kong to be a hub,” Sawyer said. 

Zodia has been expanding aggressively in Asia. Indeed, the company opened its services in Japan, Singapore and Australia in recent months. It is part-owned by Standard Chartered, as well as Northern Trust and Japan’s SBI Holdings.

Hong Kong is the last stop on Zodia’s tour around the Asia-Pacific region, Sawyer said.

“What we’re seeing is there are absolutely clients in all of those four markets who want to do things,” he added.

“We also see a lot of other clients and prospects outside those four jurisdictions that want to come in on the institutional side.”

Hong Kong has been increasingly warming to crypto assets despite a broader anti-crypto push from China, which banned bitcoin trading and mining in 2021.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) launched a regulatory regime for digital assets earlier this year, giving companies the ability to apply for registration and offer their services in a regulated way.

So far, only two firms, OSL Digital and Hash Blockchain, have been handed licenses by the SFC.

Zodia is embarking on its Hong Kong expansion in a phased approach. At first, it will seek to provide services for Hong Kong clients in a limit set of crypto assets.

Zodia is also in discussions with both the SFC and Hong Kong Monetary Authority about becoming regulated in the financial district.

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Huawei reclaims No. 1 smartphone spot in China — and Apple returns to growth

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Huawei reclaims No. 1 smartphone spot in China — and Apple returns to growth

The Huawei flagship store and the Apple flagship store at Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street in Shanghai, China, Sept. 2, 2024.

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Huawei reclaimed the top spot in China’s smartphone market in the second quarter of the year, while Apple returned to growth in the country — one of its most critical markets — data released by technology market analyst firm Canalys showed on Monday.

Huawei shipped 12.2 million smartphones in China in the three months ended June, a rise of 15% year on year — equating to 18% market share. It’s the first time Huawei has been the biggest player by market share in China since the first quarter of 2024, according to Canalys.

Apple, meanwhile, shipped 10.1 million smartphones in the quarter in China, up 4% year on year and ranking fifth. It is the first time Apple has recorded growth in China since the fourth quarter of 2023, Canalys said.

Shipments represent the number of devices sent to retailers. They do no equate directly to sales but are a gauge of demand.

The numbers come ahead of Apple’s quarterly earnings release this week, with investors watching the company’s performance in China, a market where the Cupertino giant has faced significant challenges, including intense competition from Huawei and other local players such as Xiaomi.

Huawei, which made a comeback at the end of 2023 after its smartphone business was crippled by U.S. sanctions, has eaten away at Apple’s share.

Apple’s return to growth in China will be a welcome sign for investors. The U.S. tech giant “strategically adjusted its pricing” for the iPhone 16 series in China, which helped it grow, Canalys said. Chinese e-commerce firms discounted Apple’s iPhone 16 models during the quarter. And Apple itself also increased trade-in prices for some iPhone models.

Canalys’ numbers back up figures released by Counterpoint Research earlier this month showing Apple’s return to growth in China.

Shares of Apple have fallen around 14.5% this year, partly on concerns over China and geopolitical headwinds.

Key questions for Apple ahead of earnings

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened Apple with tariffs and urged CEO Tim Cook to manufacture iPhones in America, a move experts have said would be near impossible.

Meanwhile, competition in China has intensified. Huawei has aggressively launched various smartphones in the past year and has started to roll out HarmonyOS 5, its self-developed operating system, across various devices. It is a rival to Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.

“This move is expected to accelerate the expansion of its independent ecosystem’s user base, while also placing greater demands on system compatibility and user experience,” Lucas Zhong, analyst at Canalys, said in a press release.

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Alibaba to launch AI-powered glasses creating a Chinese rival to Meta

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Alibaba to launch AI-powered glasses creating a Chinese rival to Meta

Alibaba announced plans to release a pair of smart glasses powered by its AI models. The Quark AI Glasses are Alibaba’s first foray into the smart glasses product category.

Alibaba

Alibaba on Monday unveiled a pair of smart glasses powered by its artificial intelligence models, marking the Chinese firm’s first foray into the product category.

The e-commerce giant said the Quark AI Glasses will be launched in China by the end of 2025 with hardware powered by the firm’s Qwen large language model and its advanced AI assistant called Quark.

The Hangzhou, headquartered company is one of the leaders in China’s AI space, aggressively launching new models with capabilities that compete with Western counterparts like OpenAI.

Many tech companies see wearables, specifically glasses, as the next frontier in computing alongside the smartphone. Quark, which was updated this year, is currently available as an app in China. Alibaba is stepping into the hardware game as a way to distribute the app more widely.

The Quark AI Glasses are Alibaba’s answer to Meta’s smart glasses that were designed in collaboration with Ray-Ban. The Chinese tech giant will also now compete with Chinese consumer electronics player Xiaomi who this year released its own AI glasses.

Why Meta and Snap think AR glasses will be the future of computing

Alibaba said its glasses will support hands-free calling, music streaming, real-time language translation, and meeting transcription. The glasses also feature a built-in camera.

Alibaba owns a range of different services in China from mapping to an online travel agent. Its affiliate company Ant Group also runs the widely-used Alipay mobile service. Alibaba said users will be able to use a navigation service via the glasses, pay with Alipay and compare prices on Taobao, its China e-commerce platform.

The firm has yet to release other details such as the price and technical specifications.

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Samsung Electronics signs $16.5 billion chip-supply contract in boost to foundry business; shares rise

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Samsung Electronics signs .5 billion chip-supply contract in boost to foundry business; shares rise

A Samsung flag flies outside the company office in Seoul, South Korea on February 05, 2024.

Chung Sung-jun | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Samsung Electronics has entered into a $16.5 billion contract for supplying semiconductors to a major company, a regulatory filing by the South Korean company showed Monday.  

The memory chipmaker, which did not name the counterparty, mentioned in its filing that the effective start date of the contract was July 26, 2024 — receipt of orders — and its end date was Dec. 31, 2033.

Samsung declined to comment on details regarding the counterparty.

The company said that details of the deal, including the name of the counterparty, will not be disclosed until the end of 2033, citing a request from the second party “to protect trade secrets,” according to a Google translation of the filing in Korean.

“Since the main contents of the contract have been not been disclosed due to the need to maintain business confidentiality, investors are advised to invest carefully considering the possibility of changes or termination of the contract,” the company said. Its shares were up nearly 3% in early trading.

Local South Korean media outlets have said that American chip firm Qualcomm could potentially place an order for Samsung’s 2 nanometer chips.

While Qualcomm is a possibility, given its potential 2 nanometer project with Samsung, Tesla seems the more probable customer, Ray Wang, research director of semiconductors, supply chain and emerging technology at The Futurum Group, told CNBC

Samsung’s foundry service manufactures chips based on designs provided by other companies. It is the second largest provider of foundry services globally, behind Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

The company said in April that it was aiming for its foundry business to start mass production of its next-generation 2 nanometer and secure major orders for the advanced product. In semiconductor technology, smaller nanometer sizes signify more compact transistor designs, which lead to greater processing power and efficiency.

Samsung, which is set to deliver earnings on Thursday, expects its second-quarter profit to more than halve. An analyst previously told CNBC that the disappointing forecast was due to weak orders for its foundry business and as the company has struggled to capture AI demand for its memory business.

The company has fallen behind competitors SK Hynix and Micron in high-bandwidth memory chips — an advanced type of memory used in AI chipsets.

SK Hynix, the leader in HBM, has become the main supplier of these chips to American AI behemoth Nvidia. While Samsung has reportedly been working to get the latest version of its HBM chips certified by Nvidia, a report from a local outlet suggests these plans have been pushed back to at least September.

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