Daily Buzz: 8 September 2026

Huawei, Xiaomi Steal a March on Debut of First Apple Foldable Phone

Chinese smartphone makers Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi debuted new models on Monday just days before US rival Apple is due to unveil its first foldable phone. Huawei's new Mate XT 2 is a second-generation trifold device with two folding mechanisms, powered by its new Kirin 9050 Pro – the first high-performance chip to use the "logic folding" technique that stacks a chip's logic units in layers, shortening signal paths and cutting delays. It is Huawei's first new Kirin flagship chip launched at a phone event in six years. The phone runs HarmonyOS 7, the latest generation of Huawei's in-house operating system. Price of the Mate XT 2 starts from 19,999 yuan (US$2,980).

The new, slim Xiaomi 18 Fold also had its launch, featuring the company's first self-developed XRing O3 chips. Xiaomi chairman Lei Jun pitched the 219-gram device as a "middle fold" between large and compact folding phones. It has a 5.38-inch cover and 7.58-inch inner screens. It is the first handset to deploy memory made by ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT). Its starting price is 10,999 yuan.

The two Chinese phone makers are seeking to claw back market share after Apple's 17 Pro Max became the top seller on the Chinese mainland in the second quarter, according to market research firm Counterpoint. Apple is scheduled to unveil its new foldable iPhone Ultra on Wednesday, along with the new 18 Pro series.

Tesla China Introduces Discounts on Shanghai-Made Models

Tesla China unveiled discounts on its Shanghai-made cars for the first time since the end of 2024, responding to declining deliveries in the world's largest market for electric vehicles, the South China Morning Post reported. Prices of Model 3 vehicles in inventory will be cut by 5,000 yuan (US$745) each, or 2.1 percent, with a 3.8 percent discount on Model Ys of 10,000 yuan, the US carmaker announced on Monday. The discounts run until the end of this month. Domestic automakers are also grappling with weaker sales on the Chinese mainland.

German Chancellor Chastened After Far-Right Election Win

Embattled German Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed to stay in office despite an election that saw the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) win a landslide victory in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, the first time a far-right party has taken control of a state government since World War II. The party is aiming to win the next national elections. Merz said the vote, which gave AfD a 44 percent vote plurality, has shaken his conservative Christian Democratic Union party "to its very foundations." AfD, an anti-immigration, anti-gay rights party that wrapped itself in the glow of Germany's glorious past, fell short of an absolute majority and its chances of forming a governing coalition remain in doubt as mainstream parties boycott cooperation.

Investor-in-Chief? Trump Lauds Investments on Behalf of the Country

US President Donald Trump, appearing with an online image of himself sitting in front of White House monitors, apparently trading the stock market, said in the post that he has made hundreds of millions of dollars for Americans from government investments. "I do this for my country, not myself," the billionaire businessman said in a caption. He didn't go into detail, but his administration did take a 10 percent government stake in chip giant Intel last year, and Forbes reported in August that the government now owns stakes in 30 companies, marking a shift in a longstanding American tradition of hands-off business ownership.

Top Business

CXMT Becomes China's Most Valuable Listed Company

Shanghai-listed shares of ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), China's largest maker of dynamic random-access memory chips, surged 6.7 percent on Monday to become the most valuable listed company on the Chinese mainland, with a market valuation of 3.97 trillion yuan (US$592 billion). The company is riding the global shortage of memory chips. It posted first-half revenue of 150.3 billion yuan, up 874 percent, and swung to a net profit of 77.6 billion yuan from a loss last year. At a Monday earnings briefing, CXMT said it expects supply to remain tight through the end of year, dismissing concerns about whether its 85 percent gross margin is sustainable. Executives confirmed the company is a supplier to Alibaba Cloud, ByteDance, Tencent, Lenovo, Xiaomi, Honor, Oppo, Vivo and Transsion, while declining to confirm reports that Apple is testing its chips. CXMT is now developing high-bandwidth memory used in AI data centers.

Huawei's Latest 'Tau Law' Paper Says Stacked Chips Don't Have to Overheat

Huawei released a third pre-print of board director He Tingbo's "Tau Law" series, a discourse that discusses the alternative chip design principle introduced by the tech company in May that shifts industry focus from shrinking physical transistor sizes to reducing signal travel time and system latency. Entitled "Huawei's τ Chip Was Supposed to Melt?" the paper addresses the concern that overhanging 3D-stacked chips that pile transistors in layers lead to more heat and power drain. It argues that most of a chip's energy is consumed not by computing but by moving data around, and that folding circuits into layers shortens those trips. Test data from Huawei's smartphone processors show the new Kirin 2026 packs 55 percent more transistors per square millimeter than its predecessor, while drawing 66 percent less power in its neural processing unit and 58 percent less in its graphics processing unit at the same performance. Director He cautioned that Tau is a law of time scaling, not energy scaling, and that manufacturing hurdles will take three to five years to crack.

Geely Invests US$250 Million for Stake in Ford Spanish Plant

Chinese auto giant, Geely Holding, will pay 221 million euros (US$250 million) for a 34 percent stake in Ford's passenger-car unit in Spain, with the partners to jointly control the venture, according to a merger filing publicized by China's market regulator on Monday. The Valencia plant, opened in 1976 and one of Europe's largest with annual capacity of up to 500,000 cars, will build new energy vehicles of both brands for the European market, sparing Geely the EU tariffs levied on China-made cars. The deal delivers on the company's April pledge to expand overseas without building new plants. Geely's first-half exports jumped 158 percent to 474,000 cars, and its full-year export target now stands at 900,000.

Jaguar Land Rover to Cut 10 Percent of Jobs

UK premium vehicle maker Jaguar Land Rover announced it will cut 4,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its workforce, as it struggles with Chinese competition, US tariffs and the transition to electric vehicles. The layoffs will rely on voluntary redundancies and mostly affect head office staff. The company told Yicai that the retrenchment won't affect operations in China.

Economy & Markets

Longsys Begins HK Trading Today, Shares Drop on 'Gray Market'

Shares in Shenzhen-based chipmaker Longsys Electronics begin trading today in Hong Kong after declining in pre-market "gray trading." The shares closed 0.3 percent lower on Futu Securities' platform, 1 percent on Bright Smart Securities' platform and 0.7 percent on Philip Securities' online trading site. The company raised about HK$6.2 billion (US$791 million) via the sale of shares at an offer price of HK$236 a share.

Moore Threads Plunges as Share Lock-Up Period Ends

Shares in Moore Threads, a designer of graphics processing units, plunged by the daily limit of 20 percent in Shanghai on Monday to its lowest since listing last December, after nearly 26 million restricted shares – or 5.5 percent of share capital – were released from lockup and available for trading. The company, which went public in a high-profile US$1 billion IPO, told the stock exchange that nothing has changed the fundamentals of the company. A share lockup is a legally binding contract that prevents company insiders and early institutional investors from selling their shares for a set time after an IPO.

China Taps the Brakes on Energy-Storage Battery Industry

China, the world's largest manufacturer of energy-storage batteries, has temporarily suspended approvals for new factories, Reuters reported, citing Chinese financial news outlet CLS. The pause comes amid a review of existing and planned energy storage production capacity as the industry rapidly expands, raising fears of oversupply. The suspension will affect projects that have not broken ground yet but not those already under construction. Chinese authorities are concerned that the industry for storage batteries will follow in the footsteps of solar panels and electric cars, where a surge of players created excess supply and price wars.

China to Sell Special Bonds to Finance Capital Injection for Banks, Insurers

China's Ministry of Finance said it will soon issue 300 billion yuan (US$44 billion) of special treasury bonds to support the 360-billion-yuan capital injection package to boost core capital at eight state-owned banks and insurers announced on Sunday. The beneficiaries include Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Life Insurance and People's Insurance Co. The capital replenishment is aimed at strengthening institutional operational capacity, enhancing resilience to risks and providing stronger support for the nation's economic growth.

China Forex Reserves Expand, Gold Holdings Rise

China's foreign-exchange reserves rose more than expected in August, according to central bank data. The nation's forex reserves, largest in the world, stood at US$3.44 trillion, up from US$3.42 trillion a month earlier. The yuan gained 0.5 percent against the ⁠dollar during the month, while the dollar weakened ⁠0.4 percent against a basket of major ⁠currencies. The People's Bank of China reported a sixth straight month of higher gold reserves. The holdings rose to 76.7 million fine troy ounces from 76.1 million ounces in July. The value of those reserves jumped to US$350.1 billion from US$306.4 billion a month earlier.

Second Shanghai Brain-Computer Interface Firm Joins STAR Market Queue

Arfysica Innovation, a Shanghai startup developing non-invasive brain-computer interfaces to rehabilitate people with central nervous system injuries, began pre-IPO guidance on September 4 for a listing on Shanghai's Nasdaq-style STAR Market. The filing comes three months after fellow Shanghai-based brain-computer interface firm Neural had its application accepted by the exchange.

Founded in 2015, Arfysica makes rehabilitation products for limb paralysis, impaired consciousness and neurodevelopmental disorders. Founder Wang Wei, a former member of Siemens Healthineers with a biomedical engineering doctorate from the University of Southampton, has led the company through five funding rounds, the most recent securing investment of several hundred million yuan.

Corporate

Xingyu Auto Lamps Punishes Executives Over Graduate Layoff Scandal

Changzhou-based Xingyu Auto Lamps disciplined its top management on Sunday over the mishandling of graduate recruits last month, The Paper reported. General Manager Zhou Xiaoping will be docked 12 months of salary and the human resources director removed. The supplier to Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BYD hired 440 graduates in its 2025 campus recruitment, then barely a month after they joined the company forced them to resign. The recruits complained that the social insurance paid once they joined had cost them the fresh-graduate status, which is essential in applying for jobs in civil service and state-owned companies. When fair compensation failed to arrive, the graduates sent evidence to local labor authorities, the Hong Kong stock exchange, where the company hopes to list, and the supplier-reporting systems of Mercedes-Benz and VW. Though Xingyu has publicly apologized and promised compensation, the scandal triggered a 17 percent plunge in its Shanghai share price over the past month.

Foxconn Predicts Better-Than-Expected Third Quarter

Taiwan-based Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker, said it expects to outperform market expectations in the third quarter as demand for AI remains strong. The company, formally named Hon Hai Precision Industry, is Nvidia's biggest server manufacturer and a major supplier to Apple. Its second-quarter profit rose 35 percent, beating forecasts. "As AI demand continues to grow and information and communications technology products enter their peak season, operations are expected to gain momentum," the company said in a statement. Foxconn, which operates factories on the Chinese mainland, doesn't give numerical guidance. However, the company said August revenue hit a record.

Fosun Pharma Plans Share Buyback, Pares India Investment

Shanghai-based Fosun Pharma announced plans to repurchase up to HK$1 billion (US$128 million) of its Hong Kong-listed shares. The company's directors said its current share price doesn't accurately reflect the value of the company. The company also announced it has sold a 6 percent stake in its Indian unit Gland Pharma for about US$294 million, diluting its controlling share to 45.8 percent from 51.8 percent.

China Overseas Land Plans Foshan REIT Spinoff

China Overseas Land & Investment plans to spin off its Foshan mall real estate investment trust (REIT) for a listing on the Shenzhen stock exchange. The mall is owned by subsidiary Foshan China Overseas Unipart Commercial Management. It is expected the fund will raise 1.5 billion yuan (US$223 million).

Lenovo's New Yoga Models Embed Nvidia RTX Spark

China's Lenovo, the world's biggest personal computer maker, has added two premium laptops in its Yoga series, integrating Nvidia's RTX Spark, a chip and computing platform developed for Windows laptops and compact desktop computers. The company said the models allow users to capture and develop ideas through pen, voice, vision and touch.

Snack Retailer Busy Ming Apologizes for Rigged Scales

Busy Ming Group, China's largest discount-snack chain, apologized on Monday after stores were caught overcharging customers on rigged scales. A Hebei consumer complained he was billed 64.58 yuan (US$9.62) for a beef jerky that weighed only 17.3 yuan worth. The company has promised 10 times the price difference on any mis-weighed items going forward.