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Customers learn about the newly launched iPhone15 at an Apple store in Yantai, East China’s Shandong province, Sept 28, 2023. 

CostFoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Sales of Apple’s iPhone plunged in China in the first six weeks of 2024, according to a Counterpoint Research report.

The analyst firm said in a note on Tuesday that iPhone sales plunged 24% in the period, as Apple faced stiff competition from local smartphone firms like Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi.

In particular, Apple came under major pressure from Chinese tech giant Huawei, whose consumer business is experiencing a resurgence in China after the launch of its Mate 60 smartphone.

Several rival Chinese smartphone companies also logged drops in their unit sales in the six-week period, but the declines were less pronounced than that of Apple. Oppo’s smartphone shipments dropped 29% year-on-year, while Vivo and Xiaomi logged drops of 15% and 7%, respectively, according to Counterpoint Research.

The best-performing smartphone brands for the first six weeks were Huawei and its spinoff Honor, which branched out of the tech giant in 2020 as a result of U.S. sanctions.

Huawei smartphone unit shipments rose 64% year-over-year in the first six weeks of 2024, according to Counterpoint Research. Shipments of Honor handsets, meanwhile, added 2%.

Apple is facing a tough environment in its key market, China. Several notable trends are adding pressure, not least of which is intense competition from local Chinese smartphone makers — including a resurging Huawei.

Last year, Huawei launched a smartphone called the Mate 60, which had 5G connectivity. That was a major surprise to the world, as the U.S. government hit Huawei with numerous sanctions in 2019 and 2020, cutting it off from key chips and technology required for 5G mobile internet.

Once the world’s largest smartphone player by sale volumes, Huawei was really the only major challenger to Apple in China when it came to high-end devices. Customers flocked to iPhones, once Huawei’s phones lost their competitiveness due to the lack of 5G and no cutting-edge semiconductors.

Huawei is seeing the early signs of a revival with the Mate 60.

“Huawei is making a come back trying to win back the defectors to iPhone from a couple of years ago,” Neil Shah, analyst at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC.

“There is some erosion for Apple but more so it’s other non-Apple brands in the premium segment also feeling the heat from Huawei.”

“Apple also had abnormally higher “sell-through” in January 2023 vs. 2024 as the supply shifted to January after the China factory debacle in the fourth quarter of 2022,” Shah added.

Apple’s supply chain experienced major disruptions in late 2022 due to Covid-19 lockdowns in China.

– CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report

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CrowdStrike pops nearly 13% on upbeat long-term guidance at investor day

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CrowdStrike pops nearly 13% on upbeat long-term guidance at investor day

CrowdStrike logo is seen in this illustration taken July 29, 2024.

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

CrowdStrike shares popped about 13%, a day after the cybersecurity firm issued better-than-expected long-term guidance at its investor day.

The company on Wednesday said it expects net new annual recurring revenues to grow at least 20% in 2027, ahead of analysts’ expectations. CrowdStrike plans for ARR to hit $10 billion by 2031, and then double to $20 billion by 2036.

Earlier this week, the firm said it was buying AI security platform Pangea and announced a partnership with Salesforce.

“CrowdStrike is by far the most advanced security platform in the industry, and the plethora of AI-based solutions announced today will further separate CrowdStrike from the competition,” wrote Wells Fargo analyst Andrew Nowinski in a note following the event.

Some Wall Street firms also boosted their price targets.

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Cybersecurity has taken center stage this year as businesses beef up security in the age of artificial intelligence. Many companies have harnessed AI tools to strengthen their offering as threats rise in sophistication.

This year’s biggest tech deals have included Google’s $32 billion acquisition of Israeli cybersecurity startup Wiz and Palo Alto Networks’ $25 billion CyberArk deal.

Cybersecurity firm Netskope hit the public market Thursday, while Thoma Bravo-backed SailPoint debuted earlier this year.

During its recent earnings report, CrowdStrike’s revenue guidance for the third quarter fell short of analysts’ expectations.

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CrowdStrike shares drop 8% despite quarterly beat

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Nvidia CEO Huang says $5 billion stake in rival Intel will be ‘an incredible investment’

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Nvidia CEO Huang says  billion stake in rival Intel will be 'an incredible investment'

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attends the “Winning the AI Race” Summit in Washington D.C., U.S., July 23, 2025.

Kent Nishimura | Reuters

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that the company’s $5 billion investment and technology collaboration with Intel comes after the two companies held discussions for nearly a year.

Huang said that he communicated personally with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan about the partnership. He called Tan a “longtime friend” on a Thursday call with reporters after the companies announced that Nvidia would co-develop data center and PC chips with Intel as part of the investment deal. On the call, Tan said he and Huang have known each other for 30 years.

“We thought it was going to be such an incredible investment,” Huang said.

Nvidia said it will collaborate with the chipmaker to create artificial intelligence systems for data centers that combine Intel’s x86-based central processors with Nvidia’s graphics processors and networking.

Intel will also sell CPUs for PCs and notebooks that integrate Nvidia graphics processors, or GPUs.

The transaction itself took a few months to come together, Intel’s revenue chief Greg Ernst wrote in a LinkedIn post, adding that the agreement was reached on Saturday.

The investment highlights how the fortunes of the two companies have switched atop Silicon Valley’s pecking order as a result of the AI explosion ushered in by OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT in late 2022.

Intel shares are down 31.78% in the last five years, while Nvidia shares are up 1,348% as of opening prices on Thursday. Nvidia is worth over $4.25 trillion, while Intel is only worth $143 billion.

How Intel and Nvidia will collaborate

For decades, the most important part in a PC or server was the central processor, and Intel dominated the market for those chips. But AI infrastructure, like the machines in the $4 billion data center Microsoft announced on Thursday, often needs two or more Nvidia GPUs for every one CPU.

Nvidia AI systems, like the NVL72 used by Microsoft, come with Arm-based CPUs, instead of Intel x86-based CPUs. On the call, Huang said Nvidia will soon support Intel’s CPUs in its NVLink racks for AI.

“We’ll buy those CPUs from from Intel, and then we’ll connect it into super chips that then becomes our compute node, that then gets integrated into a rack scale AI supercomputer,” Huang said.

Nvidia will also contribute GPU technology to Intel chips that ship in laptops and PCs, which is an underserved market, Huang said. In total, the addressable markets for the two product collaborations are worth $50 billion, Huang said.

“We’re going to become a very large customer of Intel CPUs, and we’re going to be a large supplier of GPU chiplets into Intel” chips, he said.

Huang said the deal with Intel will have “no” impact on Nvidia’s business relationship with Arm.

Thursday’s investment deal is focused on the relationship between Nvidia and Intel’s product division, not its foundry. The two companies, however, did not rule out future foundry partnerships.

“We’ve always evaluated Intel’s foundry technology, and we’re going to continue to do it, but today, this announcement, is squarely focused on these custom CPUs,” Huang said. Nvidia currently uses Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to manufacture its chips.

The collaboration will use Intel’s packaging, which is a part chip manufacturing that occurs toward the end of the process and combines several chip components into a single part that can be installed in machines.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan makes a speech on stage in Taipei, Taiwan May 19, 2025.

Ann Wang | Reuters

Tan said he was grateful for Nvidia’s vote of confidence.

“‘I’d like to thank Jensen for the confidence in me, and our team and Intel will work really hard to make sure it’s a good return for you,” Tan said.

Last year, Intel’s board removed previous CEO Pat Gelsinger because of rising costs in its manufacturing business and the company’s failure to gain a foothold in AI chips. In March, Intel named Tan, a well-connected investor who had turned around chip software firm Cadence Design Systems, its new chief executive.

Tan has focused on cutting costs and raising money in his short tenure leading Intel even as the future of the company’s manufacturing business, called Intel Foundry, remains unclear.

In addition to the $5 billion from Nvidia and $8.9 billion from the U.S. government, Intel has taken a $2 billion investment from SoftBank, sold a majority stake in its ASIC subsidiary Altera to Silver Lake for $3.3 billion and sold $1 billion in stock from Mobileye, its self-driving car subsidiary.

Intel has also cut significant staff, saying in July that it would eliminate 15% of its workforce by the end of the year.

The company develops its own chips as well as manufacturing them. It wants to manufacture chips for companies like Nvidia or Apple, but has yet to secure them as customers. Analysts say Intel needs a big foundry client to signal that its technology is stable and ready for volume production.

But cutting-edge chip manufacturing is expensive, and Intel has signaled that if it can’t get enough customers, it may not continue investing in its foundry. That could spark a reaction from Washington, whose politicians and lobbyists consider Intel to be strategically important for the nation because it is the only American company capable of manufacturing the most advanced chips.

The Trump administration took a 10% stake in Intel in August. Intel was previously in line to receive $8.9 billion in grants and loans from the CHIPS Act, but the Trump administration asked and received an equity stake in the chipmaker in exchange for the money.

Huang was with Trump this week in England to attend a State Dinner at Windsor Palace and announce new projects and investments in the U.K. But the Trump administration wasn’t involved in this deal, according to a White House official and Huang.

“Intel’s new partnership with Nvidia is a major milestone for American high-tech manufacturing,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.

— CNBC’s Megan Cassella contributed to this story

WATCH: Nvidia wants Intel’s consumer business, says Deepwater’s Gene Munster

Nvidia wants Intel's consumer business, says Deepwater's Gene Munster

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How robotic beehives use AI to protect bees from climate change

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How robotic beehives use AI to protect bees from climate change

Bees get AI-powered home makeover to keep them safe from natural disaster

Bees are critical for ensuring an abundant food supply year-round, but the bee population is in big trouble.

More than one-third of the crops we eat are pollinated by bees, but 40% of bee colonies are collapsing each year, California-based Beewise said.

One reason is climate change – specifically, stronger hurricanes, more frequent fires and the use of more pesticides.

The wooden beehive was invented around 1850 for commercial pollination, but these basic boxes are not very protective and not at all nurturing.

Startup Beewise is taking on the traditional beehive with AI and robotics. The company invented the BeeHome, a robotic, AI-directed beehive that growers can rent.

“A robotic beehive is essentially like a traditional beehive. It’s completely backwards compatible, so it uses the same frame, same bees. We populate these robotic beehives, and in that robotic beehive, there’s cameras that monitor the bees,” said Saar Safra, CEO of Beewise.

The cameras connect with AI software that monitors each individual bee and identifies its needs. The robotic apparatus can then treat the bees according to their characteristics.

“So if there’s not enough food in the hive, there’s a food container inside this robotic beehive and the robot will take some food supply to the bees. Same thing with medicine, thermoregulation, too cold, too warm, there’s a storm. We can keep the bees comfortable in their home without them being harmed by external weather patterns,” said Safra.

Last year, hurricanes Helene and Milton damaged or destroyed thousands of commercial beehives in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina alone.

The BeeHome costs about the same as the traditional wooden beehive and can robotically manage up to 10 hives each, saving growers on labor costs. Next-gen products could scale that up dramatically — a feature particularly attractive to investors.

“You’ll be looking at a BeeHome in a few years that can not only manage 10, but go up to 40 or more. And that’s where you get a lot of operating margin and operating profit off of the same investment,” said John Caddedu, co-founder and general partner at Corner Ventures.

Safra said the Beehome results in 70% lower bee colony loss and healthier hives. There are already thousands of these operating in the field. Safra said revenue, device and customer growth have been enormous, adding that the devices are seeing gross margins of 40%.  

In addition to Corner Ventures, Beewise is backed by Insight Partners, Fortissimo, Lool Ventures, and APG. Its total funding so far is $170 million.

CNBC producer Lisa Rizzolo contributed to this piece.

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