Krypton Evening News | Yu Chengdong: The number of HarmonyOS 5 terminals has exceeded 10 million; Toyota's sales in the first half of the year exceeded 5.54 million vehicles, reaching a new high after a three-year interval; OpenAI launched the ChatGPT Study learning mode.
Large Companies
36Kr learned that on July 30, World Aquatics announced that Alibaba Cloud has become its global exclusive cloud service provider. The two parties will promote the full migration of World Aquatics' core systems to the cloud and cooperate in the data platform and AI applications. This is the first time that an international single - sport organization has fully deployed its core systems in the cloud.
Yu Chengdong: The Number of HarmonyOS 5 Terminals Exceeds 10 Million
36Kr learned that on July 30, Yu Chengdong, the executive director of Huawei and the chairman of the Consumer BG, posted on Weibo that today, the number of HarmonyOS 5 terminals has exceeded 10 million.
36Kr learned that after the high - quality catering joint - production platform "7Fresh Kitchen" under JD.com launched the recruitment of "dish partners", the number of applications in the first week exceeded 66,000. In the first week after the opening of the first 7Fresh Kitchen store, the daily average order volume exceeded 1,000, the repurchase rate was 220% higher than the industry average, and it drove a 12% increase in the order volume of the business district.
Aston Martin Issues a Profit Warning Due to Tariff Interference and Weak Demand
British luxury car manufacturer Aston Martin issued a profit warning on Wednesday, saying it was affected by US import tariffs and the continued weak demand in Asia. The brand said that it now expects the adjusted operating profit this year to be basically flat, while the previous expectation was to achieve positive operating income.
Toyota's Sales in the First Half of the Year Exceed 5.54 Million, Reaching a New High in Three Years
It is reported that Toyota Motor Corporation announced on the 30th that the global sales volume of the first half of 2025 (January to June), including its subsidiaries Daihatsu Motor and Hino Motors, was 5,544,880 vehicles, refreshing the highest sales record for the first half of the year in three years, a 7.4% increase compared with the same period last year. It is expected to exceed Volkswagen's approximately 4.41 million vehicles and remain the world's number one for the sixth consecutive year.
State Power Investment Corporation Establishes a New Energy Company in Shangri - La
36Kr learned that the Aiqicha App shows that recently, Guodian Investment (Shangri - La) New Energy Co., Ltd. was established. The legal representative is Wang Chunxiang, and the registered capital is 130 million yuan. Its business scope includes energy storage technology services, research and development of high - efficiency energy - saving technologies in the power industry, basic software development of artificial intelligence, and sales of new energy vehicles. The equity penetration map shows that the company is indirectly wholly - owned by State Power Investment Corporation.
Hermès' Sales in the Second Quarter Increase by 9%
Axel Dumas, the executive chairman of Hermès, said that so far, the company has no plan to further increase prices this year. Previously, the company generally raised prices by 7% globally and an additional 5% in the US market, trying to fully pass on the impact of tariffs to US customers. Hermès said that its sales in the second quarter ended June 30 reached 3.9 billion euros (equivalent to $4.5 billion), a 9% increase at constant exchange rates, basically in line with market expectations.
36Kr learned that on the evening of July 29, the Zhipu GLM team issued a statement saying that they are deeply sorry and are making every effort to increase machine resources. According to the team, they are glad that everyone loves GLM - 4.5. Currently, there are varying degrees of slowdown, task interruption, or deployment failures in Zhipu Qingyan, z.ai, and the Zhipu Open Platform BigModel. There is also a problem of insufficient concurrent guarantee in the official 50 - yuan monthly limited - quantity activity. The team provides two temporary solutions: for users who have grabbed the limited - quantity coupons, the service will continue after the service stabilizes, and the activity will be extended for one week; for experience users of Zhipu Qingyan and z.ai, it is recommended to use GLM - 4.5 - Air first, and this model can also provide the ability to generate web pages, PPTs, etc.
On July 29 local time, according to media reports, after winning a big order from Tesla, Samsung plans to build an advanced chip packaging factory in the US with an investment of up to $7 billion, targeting the US market where high - end packaging has not been deployed. This will be another major move by Samsung in the US semiconductor field after the Taylor wafer factory.
New Products
OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Study Learning Mode
On July 29 local time, OpenAI officially launched the ChatGPT Study learning mode. The mode is mainly targeted at the education field, providing four methods: interactive prompts, scaffolded responses, personalized education, and knowledge point checks, which can deeply interpret the problem - solving ideas and processes of each difficult problem. Starting from today, this function is open to free, Plus, Pro, and Team users, while the ChatGPT Edu version will launch this function in the next few weeks.
Investment and Financing
"Zhizhi Boyue" Completes a Pre - A Round of Financing of Tens of Millions of Yuan
36Kr learned that the semiconductor packaging materials enterprise "Zhizhi Boyue" recently completed a Pre - A round of financing of tens of millions of yuan, jointly invested by five institutions: Xianfeng Changqing, Dingxing Quantum, Guoqi Investment, Chengdu Beitai, and Haihe Qingwei. The funds from this round will be used for the construction of production bases in South China, the Yangtze River Delta, and Sichuan, as well as the expansion of the R & D team and the introduction of semiconductor packaging testing equipment.
According to people familiar with the matter, AI chip startup Groq is in talks for a new round of $600 million in financing, with a valuation close to $6 billion. However, the deal has not been finalized yet, and the terms may still be adjusted. In August 2024, Groq raised $640 million at a valuation of $2.8 billion; if this round of financing is successful, its valuation will double in about one year. The company has previously raised about $1 billion in total.
Today's Views
The research report on the Chinese equity investment market in the first half of 2025 released by the Zero2IPO Research Center shows that there are initial signs of a recovery in the Chinese equity investment market in the first half of the year. Data shows that in the first half of the year, the number of newly raised funds and investment cases in the Chinese equity investment market increased by 12.1% and 21.9% year - on - year respectively, while the number of exit cases decreased by 43.3% year - on - year. Many investors said that the investment "feeling" has indeed recovered in the first half of the year, mainly manifested in that with the policy adjustment and the recovery of the secondary market, the investment rhythm has begun to recover, and the exits have also improved. However, the problem of "difficult exits" still exists.
Other Noteworthy News
The Preliminary Budget for "Child - Rearing Subsidies and Grants" This Year is About 90 Billion Yuan
The State Council Information Office held a press conference at 14:00 today to introduce the child - rearing subsidy system and fertility support measures. The preliminary budget for "child - rearing subsidies and grants" this year is about 90 billion yuan. For the funds required to issue national basic standard subsidies, the central government will subsidize local governments according to a certain proportion, and the central government will generally bear about 90%.
36Kr learned that on July 29, the "Game Industry Going Global Development Forum" of the 2025 Game Business Conference was held in Shanghai, and the "Research on the Globalization of the Chinese Game Industry" report was released at the meeting. The report pointed out that after more than 20 years of development, the globalization of the Chinese game industry has entered the initial stage of localization. Chinese leading game companies represented by Tencent Games have initially formed a localized R & D layout and independent overseas brands. In 2024, the proportion of overseas sales revenue of self - developed Chinese games reached 33.62%. Currently, China and the United States are the world's top two game markets, with game market sizes of $47 billion and $46.1 billion respectively in 2024.