Krypton Evening Post: Tesla offers up to $6,000 discount for Cybertruck in US inventory; Nestle's sales growth in 2024 hits the lowest in more than 20 years.
Big Companies:
On February 13, Nissan Motor announced its third-quarter results for the fiscal year 2024. During the three-month period ending December 31, the consolidated net revenue was 3.159 trillion yen, the consolidated operating profit was 31.1 billion yen, with an operating profit margin of 1.0%; the net loss was 14.1 billion yen. During the nine-month period ending December 31, the consolidated net revenue was 9.1432 trillion yen, the consolidated operating profit was 64.0 billion yen, with an operating profit margin of 0.7%; the net profit was 5.1 billion yen. Nissan Motor announced a downward revision of its full-year outlook for the fiscal year 2024, expecting a net revenue of 12.5 trillion yen and an operating profit of 120.0 billion yen. Nissan Motor expects to record a net loss of 80.0 billion yen for the fiscal year 2024. (Jiemian)
Tesla Offers Up to $6,000 Discount for Cybertrucks in US Inventory
Tesla is offering up to $6,000 in discounts for Cybertrucks in its US inventory, tripling the discount it introduced last month. According to the company's website, the discount for the base series Cybertruck is up to $6,000, and the discount for the non-base series Cybertruck is up to $5,100. These offers are applicable to the new 2024 models. In January of this year, Tesla only offered up to $2,000 in discounts for the non-base series Cybertruck. (Sina Finance)
On February 13 local time, Nissan, Honda, and Mitsubishi Motors agreed to terminate the memorandum of understanding on exploring the possibility of business integration, as Honda and Nissan have officially canceled the merger negotiations. In the future, the three companies will cooperate within the framework of a strategic partnership for intelligent and electric vehicle. This framework is based on the memorandum of understanding signed by the three parties on August 1 last year, aiming to maximize the corporate value of each company. (Jiemian)
36Kr has learned that the data of AliExpress' "10 Billion Subsidy" shows that during the platform's Spring Festival non-stop activity, traditional dominant categories such as projectors, headphones, and game consoles continue to produce new bestsellers, with growth rates of more than 300%; new brands in categories such as vacuum cleaners, coffee machines, watches, and bracelets have also strongly emerged, becoming the "New Year goods" that are popular worldwide. The AliExpress 10 Billion Subsidy New Year Goods List shows that in addition to consumer electronics products, there are also vacuum cleaners, coffee machines, watches, bracelets and other home and accessory items, decorating the New Year of overseas consumers, demonstrating the boosting effect of the 10 Billion Subsidy on diversified quality supply.
36Kr has learned that recently, the vocational education enterprise Fenbi announced that the company has fully embraced the DeepSeek large model by the end of 2024, promoting the release of the performance of Fenbi's self-developed vertical domain large model. Through the intelligent technology matrix, it reconstructs the public office training industry ecosystem, achieving an intelligent upgrade of the user experience and an exponential improvement in operational efficiency, opening up a new paradigm of value growth for the education technology industry. It is understood that the current technological upgrade has covered the core scenarios of the civil service examination, building a technological moat in key links such as user practice evaluation and interview evaluation.
Nestle's 2024 Sales Growth Hits the Lowest in More Than 20 Years
Affected by the pullback in consumer spending after years of high inflation, Nestle reported the weakest annual organic sales growth in more than 20 years. The company said on Thursday that organic sales grew by 2.2% in 2024, a sharp slowdown from 7.2% growth in 2023 and slightly better than analysts' expectations of 2.1%. The company said its net profit fell by 2.9% to 10.88 billion Swiss francs in 2024. Nestle expects its underlying operating profit margin (UTOP) to reach 16% or higher in 2025, lower than 17.2% last year. (Sina Finance)
Investment and Financing:
Mazda Plans to Invest Nearly $150 Million to Produce Electric SUVs in Thailand
The Thailand Board of Investment issued a statement on February 13 stating that Mazda plans to invest 5 billion baht (approximately $150 million) to produce compact electric SUVs in Thailand, with a target annual production capacity of 100,000 units for local sales and exports to Japan and Southeast Asian markets. (Caixin)
"SuperView" Completes Over 100 Million Yuan Series B Financing
36Kr has learned that recently, "SuperView", which is dedicated to the research and development of high-end biomedical equipment, announced the completion of over 100 million yuan in Series B financing. This round of financing is jointly led by Fosun Capital Xingweilai Fund, Shenzhen Capital Group Social Security Fund and its own funds, and jointly invested by CIC Investment Co., Ltd. The funds raised will further assist the company in the innovative research and development of high-end scientific instruments and innovative medical devices, as well as the expansion of domestic and overseas markets, accelerating the company's global layout.
It is reported that the French grid operator RTE plans to invest 100 billion euros by 2040, of which about 40% of the funds will be used for offshore wind power projects. In addition, it will also upgrade the main transmission lines with a total length of nearly 40,000 kilometers. (Jiemian)
New Products:
36Kr has learned that the official post of Vivo's mobile phone operating system OriginOS announced that Vivo will deeply integrate the full-blooded version of DeepSeek, claiming "Dual Drive of Blue Core Large Model and DeepSeek".
36Kr has learned that recently, Ecovacs' newly released GOAT A Series and GOAT O Series lawn mowing robots will be officially launched and sold in multiple markets. It is introduced that the GOAT new series products are fully equipped with Digico Robotics' newly launched Xuri 5 intelligent computing chip, with a computing power of 10 TOPs and rich heterogeneous computing resources, which can support the robot to complete the efficient computing of the full-stack tasks locally.
Tencent Yuanbao Gets Updated, Synchronously Supporting Hunyuan and DeepSeek Models
36Kr has learned that Tencent's AI assistant, Tencent Yuanbao, has received an update and now supports both the Hunyuan and DeepSeek models. By opening Tencent Yuanbao and entering the conversation interface, users can freely use the full-blooded version of the DeepSeek-R1 model. It is understood that the DeepSeek provided by Tencent Yuanbao supports online search and integrates Tencent's ecological information sources such as WeChat Official Accounts and Video Accounts, enabling it to provide users with more stable, real-time, comprehensive, and accurate answers.
Today's Views:
Musk said on February 13 local time that Grok 3 has entered the final development stage and will be released in about one to two weeks. Musk said: "Grok 3 has extremely strong reasoning ability. In the tests we have done so far, its performance is better than any published product we know." (Jiemian)
ECB Governing Council member Boris Vujcic said on Thursday that the ECB may cut interest rates three more times this year, even if the Fed slows down the pace of rate cuts, but the premise of the easing policy is a rapid decline in underlying inflation. Since June last year, the ECB has cut borrowing costs five times and hinted at further easing, which has led investors to speculate about the speed and extent of further rate cuts. "The market expects three more rate cuts this year," Vujcic said in an interview. "These expectations are not unreasonable." (Sina Finance)
Joe Tsai Confirms Alibaba's Cooperation with Apple
On February 13, at the World Governments Summit 2025 held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Alibaba co-founder and Chairman of the Board Joe Tsai responded to rumors of Alibaba's cooperation with Apple. He said that Apple needs a localized partner in China to serve their mobile phone services. Apple has been very picky and they have talked to many companies in China. Eventually, they chose to do business with us. We are very lucky and honored to be able to do business with such a great company as Apple. (CBN)
Unilever Plans to Spin Off Its Ice Cream Business for Listing
Unilever said on Thursday that it plans to spin off its ice cream business and list it in Amsterdam, London and New York. The company said: "This decision was made after the board conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the divestment plan." The company announced plans to spin off its ice cream division last year to regain the confidence of investors after years of poor performance. Unilever said Jean-Francois van Boxmeer has been appointed as the prospective chairman of the separated ice cream business. (Sina Finance)
Other News Worth Noting:
36Kr has learned that the Central Bank released the China Monetary Policy Implementation Report for the Fourth Quarter of 2024. In the next stage, efforts will be made to increase support for the replacement of consumer goods with old ones, provide good financial services for key consumption areas, and continuously stimulate consumption vitality. Focus on promoting the implementation of the financial policies and measures that have been introduced, increase the activation of existing commercial housing and land, promote the stabilization of the real estate market, improve the basic real estate finance system, and help build a new model for the development of the real estate industry.