DALIAN, China — Cisco is “very optimistic” about its growing business with Chinese electric car companies as they expand overseas, the company’s Greater China head told CNBC on Tuesday.
The EV segment is the U.S. tech giant’s second-largest for the region — Cisco generates most of its revenue in Greater China from manufacturing companies, and within that, electric cars form the largest category, said Ming Wong, vice president and CEO of Cisco Greater China.
Chinese EV-makers have ramped up their global expansion in the last year as domestic competition intensified.
However, trade tensions have escalated, with the U.S. and likely the European Union, increasing tariffs on imports of Chinese electric cars.
Cisco, which provides networking equipment and software for businesses, is working with at least 10 electric car customers as they build factories, offices and research and development centers overseas, according to Wong.
“At least as of now, we don’t hear anything from the [EV] customers saying that, ‘Oh, because of this, we need to stop investing, or we need to slow down,'” he added.
“It’s actually the other way around. A lot of things happening. They will keep pushing, going forward, and we’ll see how this will evolve.”
It’s unclear how much spending such business expansion will generate, said Shiv Shivaraman, Asia region leader, and partner and managing director at consulting firm AlixPartners.
“But you should expect that there is going to be manufacturing-related capex as well as office-related capex,” he said. “And I think tariffs will definitely accelerate, if not increase it.”
Getting China businesses back to growth
The U.S.-based tech company has run into challenges in the China market as the two countries increasingly rely on domestic players in the name of national security.
The company’s revenue in the country fell by 25% on an annualized basis in the quarter ended late July 2019, Cisco said at the time.
“What we’ve seen is in the state on enterprises … we’re just being — we’re being uninvited to bid,” Robbins said. “We’re not being allowed to even participate anymore.”
Sales to carriers declined more forcefully as well, he said.
Looking ahead, Wong is hopeful that the China business can return to growth this year. He did not specifically reference the 2019 period in his remarks.
He pointed out that state-owned and non-state-owned businesses are turning to Cisco as they expand globally. “So we are shifting our focus and portfolio to that side,” Wong said.
Also supporting Cisco’s business are Chinese internet companies such as Alibaba that are expanding globally, Wong said. He added that Cisco also benefits from its ability to connect different graphics processing unit providers together in a market where AI giant Nvidia is restricted.
GPUs are the chip systems powering the training and implementation of the latest artificial intelligence models.
In Cisco’s latest quarterly reporting period, which ended in late April, total revenue fell by 13% from a year ago, with revenue in Asia-Pacific, Japan and China falling 12% during that time.
Wong pointed out the latest slump in the Asia-Pacific, Japan and China revenue is off a high base, and he expects it to grow more quickly in the next one or two years.
“Asia Pacific is still the highest growth area for Cisco,” he said.
Mario poses at the “SUPER NINTENDO WORLD” welcome celebration at Universal Studios Hollywood on February 16, 2023 in Universal City, California.
Rodin Eckenroth | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Nintendo on Tuesday cut forecast for Switch sales for its fiscal year ending March 2025 as demand wanes for its ageing console.
The Japanese gaming giant said it now expects to sell 12.5 million units of the Switch over the course of the period. That’s down from a previous forecast of 13.5 million units.
Nintendo has been contending with fading demand for its flagship Switch console, which is now more than seven years old.
Investors are waiting for news surrounding a successor to the Switch, which they hope will re-energize Nintendo’s gaming business. In the past, the company said that the Switch successor will be announced in its current fiscal year, which ends in March 2025.
Nintendo also cut full fiscal year forecasts for sales and operating profit. The company said it now expects sales of 1.28 trillion yen versus a previous forecast of 1.35 trillion yen. The operating profit outlook for the period was slashed from 400 billion yen to 360 billion yen.
Here’s how Nintendo did in its fiscal second quarter ended Sept. 30 versus LSEG estimates:
Revenue: 276.7 billion Japanese yen ($1.8 billion), compared with 273.34 billion yen expected.
Net profit: 27.7 billion yen, versus 48.06 billion yen expected.
Revenue fell 17% year-on-year. Net profit plunged just over 69% versus the same period last year.
Super Mario, Zelda boost fading
The Switch is Nintendo’s second best-selling console in history, behind the Nintendo DS. Despite the recent fall in sales, Nintendo has prolonged the console’s appeal for an extended period of time since its launch in 2017 by relying on its recognizable characters.
In its last fiscal year, Nintendo managed to reinvigorate sales of the Switch thanks to the the success of the “Super Mario Bros. Movie” and the highly anticipated release of the “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” game, which underscored the appeal of its iconic characters.
But that effect is fading.
On Tuesday, Nintendo noted the boost that the company received in the first half of its last fiscal year, but said “there were no such special factors in the first half of this fiscal year, and with Nintendo Switch now in its eighth year since launch, unit sales of both hardware and software decreased significantly year-on-year.”
Sales of the Switch totaled 4.72 units in the six months ended Sept. 30, compared with 6.84 million units in the same period of last year.
In the face of falling sales, Nintendo has tried to license out its intellectual property for use everywhere, from movies to theme parks. A new Super Mario movie is slated for release in 2026.
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg plans to visit South Korea, scheduling key meetings during the trip, according to a statement by Meta on Wednesday, which did not provide further details. Reportedly, Zuckerberg is anticipated to meet with Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee later this month to discuss AI chip supply and other generative AI issues, as per the South Korean newspaper Seoul Economic Daily, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Meta extended its ban on new political ads on Facebook and Instagram past Election Day in the U.S.
The social media giant announced the political ads policy update on Monday, extending its ban on new political ads past Tuesday, the original end date for the restriction period.
Meta did not specify the day it will lift the restriction, saying only that the ad blocking will continue “until later this week.” The company did not say why it extended the political advertising restriction period.
The company announced in August that any political ads that ran at least once before Oct. 29 would still be allowed to run on Meta’s services in the final week before Election Day. Other political ads will not be allowed to run.
Organization with eligible ads will have “limited editing capabilities” while the restriction is still in place, Meta said. Those advertisers will be allowed to make scheduling, budgeting and bidding-related changes to their political ads, Meta said.
Meta enacted the same policy in 2020. The company said the policy is in place because “we recognize there may not be enough time to contest new claims made in ads.”
Google-parent Alphabet announced a similar ad policy update last month, saying it would pause ads relating to U.S. elections from running in the U.S. after the last polls close on Tuesday. Alphabet said it would notify advertisers when it lifts the pause.
Nearly $1 billion has been spent on political ads over the last week, with the bulk of the money spent on down-ballot races throughout the U.S., according to data from advertising analytics firm AdImpact.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, January 18, 2024 (L), and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 2, 2021.
Reuters
Physical Intelligence, a robot startup based in San Francisco, has raised $400 million at a $2.4 billion post-money valuation, the company confirmed Monday to CNBC.
Investors included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Thrive Capital and Lux Capital, a Physical Intelligence spokesperson said. Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital are also listed as investors on the company’s website.
Physical Intelligence’s new valuation is about six times that of its March seed round, which reportedly came in at $70 million with a $400 million valuation. Its current roster of employees includes alumni of Tesla, Google DeepMind and X.
The startup focuses on “bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world,” per its website, and it aims to do this by developing large-scale artificial intelligence models and algorithms to power robots. The startup spent the past eight months developing a “general-purpose” AI model for robots, the company wrote in a blog post. Physical Intelligence hopes that model will be the first step toward its ultimate goal of developing artificial general intelligence. AGI is a term used to describe AI technology that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks.
Physical Intelligence’s vision is that one day users can “simply ask robots to perform any task they want, just like they can ask large language models (LLMs) and chatbot assistants,” the startup wrote in the blog post. In case studies, Physical Intelligence details how its tech could allow a robot to do laundry, bus tables or assemble a box.