36Kr 8:00 Briefing丨The premium of iPhone Duo has plummeted to 3000 yuan; multiple leading A-share technology companies have announced share repurchase plans; Wang Ziru stated that he wants to reach a reconciliation with Luo Yonghao

Today's Hotspot Guide

DeepSeek's new model cuts token consumption by more than 50%

The sales proportion of fuel vehicles in the Chinese market has fallen below one third for the first time

Tesla is about to release its financial report, and SpaceX will announce its second financial report after its listing

Swisse's "anti-glycation pills" were detected with excessive lead, the official customer service stated that the relevant batches have not been sold in China

The Hong Kong stock settlement mechanism is changing: "T+2" will be changed to "T+1", which will be completed in the second half of 2028

Top 3 Major News

iPhone Duo premium plummets to 3000 yuan

At 8 p.m. on October 16, pre-orders for iPhone Duo went live. Immediately after the pre-orders opened, the pre-sale interfaces on Apple's official website and multiple e-commerce platforms all displayed a waiting status, making it impossible to access the purchase page, and soon the product was marked as sold out on multiple platforms. A few minutes after the pre-sale kicked off, the market transaction price of multiple versions of iPhone Duo exceeded 20,000 yuan.

As early as one month ago, quotations for iPhone Duo pre-sale orders had already started to appear on second-hand platforms. On September 11, the 1TB version priced at 21,499 yuan once had a premium of up to 79,999 yuan, with the premium amount exceeding 58,000 yuan. At present, the quotation of iPhone Duo through third-party channels has dropped significantly. Multiple scalpers on second-hand trading platforms only raise the price by 3000 yuan, and promise that customers can get the device on the first day of official sale. (Kuai Technology)

Multiple leading A-share tech companies announce share repurchase plans, with Shengyi Technology, Hygon Information, Sugon and Montage Technology taking collective actions

On the 18th, a number of leading A-share tech companies including Shengyi Technology, Hygon Information, Sugon and Montage Technology announced plans to repurchase their shares.

Shengyi Technology (600183.SH) announced in its filing that Chen Renxi, chairman of the company, proposed that the company use its own funds or self-raised funds to repurchase part of its A-shares through centralized bidding transactions, with the total repurchase amount ranging from RMB 200 million to RMB 300 million. Hygon Information (688041.SH) announced that Li Jun, chairman of the company, proposed to use its own funds to repurchase the company's shares through centralized bidding transactions, with the total repurchase amount no less than RMB 500 million and no more than RMB 800 million.

Sugon (603019.SH) announced that the company's board of directors has received a proposal from Li Jun, chairman and general manager of the company, to use its own funds to repurchase the company's A-shares through centralized bidding transactions, with the total repurchase amount no less than RMB 300 million and no more than RMB 500 million. Montage Technology (688008.SH) announced that Cheng Yuhua, independent director of the company, proposed that the company use its own funds to repurchase A-shares through centralized bidding transactions, with the total repurchase amount no less than RMB 300 million and no more than RMB 500 million. The repurchased shares of all the above-mentioned companies will be used for employee stock ownership plans or equity incentives. (CLS)

Wang Ziru calls out to Luo Yonghao, stating that he wants to reconcile with him

On October 17, at the Technology Forum of Weibo V Influence Summit, Wang Ziru responded to the question of "If you are given another chance, will you still have a quarrel with Luo Yonghao". He said: "Next time I might be at the crossroads. I'm sending a message through Weibo: no more quarrels, let's make peace. If you want to become a top influencer by picking fights, winning or losing does not matter, just like me for example." (Oriental Finance)

AI Cutting-edge

Meta's revision of commercial service terms sparks controversy over AI training data, relevant statements have been removed

Meta's recent update to its commercial service terms has triggered widespread controversy across the industry. The revised clause involving the use of web content related to enterprise accounts for artificial intelligence model training has drawn extensive public discussion, and the relevant expression has now been officially deleted. (CLS)

DeepSeek New Model Reduces Token Consumption by Over 50%

DeepSeek officially launched the new large model version V4.1 Flash-1017. At a time when domestic artificial intelligence large models are generally in the critical period of iteration, this version has taken the lead in completing the upgrade and achieved a significant jump in overall performance. Previous public data has shown its technical indicators, and this time DeepSeek has independently released the Pareto frontier curve for the first time, which intuitively presents the model's comprehensive performance in the dimensions of efficiency and cost. V4.1 Flash-1017 has reached the industry-leading level on this curve: the comprehensive cost per unit task is only 1/100 to 1/20 of that of similar models such as Fable and Astra, with a cost-performance advantage of more than 40 to 50 times. Although the 1017 version released this time maintains the original API price system, it has completed in-depth reconstruction in terms of Token usage efficiency — through task-aware compression, dynamic context clipping and adaptive decoding strategies, it significantly reduces the actual Token consumption of all types of requests. Actual tests show that in most scenarios, the Token usage has decreased by more than 50% compared with the previous version, and the corresponding TCO level will also usher in a new round of substantial decline synchronously. (Sina Finance)

Anthropic Hires Legal Professionals to Help AI Agents Complete Transaction Negotiations

Anthropic is in consultations with legal institutions to solve a brand-new challenge: how AI agents should conduct negotiations to secure the optimal transaction outcomes for human users. Two sources familiar with Anthropic's thinking stated that the company is seeking advice from law firms to study how lawyers carry out negotiations that can both represent clients' interests and deliver fair outcomes. A person familiar with Anthropic's projects said the company is exploring "negotiation norms" for model interactions. As intelligent systems continue to iterate, AI agents will act on behalf of users to engage with other agents with conflicting objectives. The source added that the company is also weighing to what extent agents need to seek human feedback during the negotiation process, and how vigilant they should be when facing other AI counterparts while avoiding falling into paranoid, conspiracy-theory-style judgments. Another person close to the company revealed that Anthropic has also discussed a plan that allows users to issue signed documents to confirm the entrusted matters and all rules that the agents need to comply with. (Sina Finance)

Microsoft Terminates AI-Related Partnership, Major Setback Hits UK's Homegrown Data Center Pioneer

Microsoft has pulled out of a data center deal in Essex, dealing a blow to the multi-billion-dollar listing plan of British firm Nscale. As one of Nscale's two largest customers, the US tech giant recently notified Nscale that it will terminate the cooperation agreement announced last year. This is a major setback for Nscale: Microsoft was originally the anchor tenant of the company's first UK data center located in Loughton, Essex. Despite the brutal sell-off in the AI computing power sector, Microsoft's decision is likely to disrupt Nscale's progress towards a Wall Street listing of up to 35 billion US dollars (about 26 billion pounds). (Sina Finance)

Big Companies / Major Events

Market Share of Fuel Vehicles in China's Market Drops Below One Third for the First Time

Data recently released by the Passenger Car Market Joint Committee under the China Automobile Dealers Association shows that in September 2026, the market share of fuel vehicles in China fell below one third for the first time, and the overall penetration rate of new energy vehicles climbed to a new high of 67%. Five years ago, fuel vehicles still took up over 90% of the share in China's passenger vehicle market. Elon Musk, CEO of the U.S. Tesla, reposted the relevant data and commented that "China's dependence on oil is declining rapidly". (Xinhua News Agency)

Apple Customer Service States That Water-Damaged iPhones Will Not Re-Enter The Market

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore released an announcement on October 14, stating that a Singaporean cargo ship caught fire and eventually sank while passing through the Strait of Hormuz on October 13 local time. All 21 crew members on board were safely evacuated, with no reported injuries. Another Singapore-registered container ship "GFS Giselle" was also damaged in the related incident, but it eventually sailed to a safe anchorage on its own.

Later, a video that began to circulate online showed that a large number of mobile phone packaging boxes printed with the Apple iPhone logo were floating on the sea, small boats shuttled across the sea surface, and fishermen picked up the floating goods into their boats.

According to the latest verified reports, an open-source information investigation team found through reverse search that multiple clips of the so-called "Iranian people salvaging iPhones" originally came from the Instagram account "Nativora". This account positions its content as fictional natural and wildlife-themed images produced with artificial intelligence. The above-mentioned video appeared on this Instagram account on October 16, and the creator also clearly added the "AI Content" mark, indicating that the content is generated by artificial intelligence.

Apple's official customer service said: The company has no relevant notices at present, but it will not allow this batch of defective goods to re-enter the market, and consumers do not need to worry. (Sohu Video, Red Star News)

Shenghe Resources: Plans to Transfer 51% Equity Stakes of 4 Rare Earth Smelting and Separation Subsidiaries to China Rare Earth Development

36Kr learned from the public announcement of Shenghe Resources that the company intends to carry out equity cooperation with China Rare Earth Group Industrial Development Co., Ltd., and transfer 51% of the equity of each of the four companies including Leshan Shenghe (after stripping non-rare earth smelting and separation businesses), Quannan New Resources, Jiangyin Jiahua and Zibo Jiahua to China Rare Earth Development. The total pre-valuation of the target companies ranges from 3.25 billion yuan to 3.55 billion yuan, and the corresponding transaction consideration is expected to be between 1.6575 billion yuan and 1.8105 billion yuan. After the transaction is completed, the four target companies will no longer be included in the scope of consolidated financial statements, and the company's accounting treatment for the target companies will be converted from the cost method to the equity method. This equity cooperation is limited to the rare earth smelting and separation business, and does not involve other businesses of the company. China Rare Earth Group has advantages in resources and industry. This time, by introducing the wholly-owned subsidiary of China Rare Earth Group to hold shares in the four rare earth smelting and separation enterprises through equity transfer, the two parties realize equity cooperation in the smelting and separation business.

Musk's flying car gets "challenged": One company's flying car is 11 years earlier than Tesla's

On the day Elon Musk unveiled the Tesla Roadster flying sports car, Alef Aeronautics, the world's first flying car developer that obtained the Special Airworthiness Certification from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and also a leading Silicon Valley electric flying car startup, released a video.

In the video, the company's electric flying car flies over Tesla's Cybertruck and the newly launched Roadster sports car, and the company calls this video a welcome to the "flying car race".

According to reports, Musk showcased the globally stunning Roadster flying sports car at SpaceX's test base in Texas on Thursday. He stated that this vehicle is powered by "ultra-high pressure gas tanks". It is known that the flying car of Alef adopts distributed electric propulsion, airfoil body and rotating cockpit, and its takeoff power comes from air instead of stored compressed gas. Alef says its lighter design enables the vehicle to be equipped with a full-vehicle ballistic parachute. (Red Star News)

iPhone 18 Pro Max activation volume hits record, with nearly 900,000 units activated in a single week in the Chinese market

According to tech blogger Digital Chat Station, the iPhone 18 Pro Max has once again refreshed the record. In the 41st week of 2026 (October 5 to October 11), the single product recorded nearly 900,000 activations in the domestic market within one week. In addition, the cumulative sales volume of the two models in the iPhone 18 Pro series has exceeded 4 million units at present.

Recently released Android flagship models have generally raised prices due to the rising cost of key components. The price gap between top-tier Android flagships in the 10,000-yuan price range and the iPhone Pro series has narrowed significantly, which objectively strengthens the perceived value of Apple's high-end models. A considerable number of users who originally preferred top-tier Android flagships have switched to the new iPhone, coupled with the low sensitivity of high-end consumer groups to price changes, which jointly support the sustained high activation volume.

It is worth noting that the iPhone 18 Pro series has also participated in the Double 11 promotion campaign recently, with a maximum comprehensive subsidy of 800 yuan available for the entire product lineup, which significantly reduces the purchase threshold and will further stimulate sales. (Kuai Technology)

Tesla is set to release its financial report, and SpaceX will unveil its second financial report after going public

Recently, Meta, Tesla, SpaceX, Texas Instruments and Western Digital will successively disclose their performance, covering AI capital expenditure, chip demand and the profit prospects of popular technology companies. On the other hand, the financial reports of companies including Procter & Gamble, American Express and GE Aerospace will help investors test the resilience of consumer and industrial demand.

Among them, SpaceX will release its second post-listing financial report after the market closes on Tuesday, and the market expects its adjusted earnings per share to turn positive for the first time. As Tesla discloses its performance after the market closes next Wednesday, market speculation about the potential integration of the two companies will draw wide attention; Meta will release its Q3 performance after the market closes next Wednesday local time, serving as a key window to observe the return on AI investment of large technology companies. (CLS)

BofA: The combined free cash flow of hyperscale cloud service providers over the next 12 months has plummeted to below negative $100 billion, with capital flowing to semiconductor suppliers in a historic trend

According to the report from BofA Global Research, the total free cash flow of hyperscale cloud service providers in the next 12 months has plunged to less than negative 100 billion US dollars, and capital expenditure has consumed 95% of operating cash flow, marking a historic shift of capital to semiconductor suppliers. In sharp contrast, as of September 2026, the combined free cash flow of the three leading semiconductor manufacturers NVIDIA, Micron and Broadcom in the next 12 months has soared to nearly 500 billion US dollars. This huge divergence originates from a radical wave of infrastructure construction: cloud giants including Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Oracle and other cloud leaders have drastically increased their expenditures before the corresponding revenue is realized. (Sina Finance)

Nvidia dispels rumors of RTX 5090 production discontinuation: It only faces insufficient production capacity and will not cut off supply

According to the news on October 18, as reported by TechPowerUp, the news about the discontinuation of Nvidia RTX 5090 graphics cards has aroused widespread attention in the industry. Jeff Fisher, Senior Vice President of Nvidia's Personal Computing Business, publicly responded to relevant rumors at a related event in Taipei a few days ago, explicitly denied the statement of production discontinuation, stating that RTX 5090 is still the core product of the enterprise and will continue to maintain supply in the follow-up period. (Global Network)

The first licensed dedicated center opens after the implementation of the new regulations on bank custody

Eight months after getting the approval for preparation, on October 16, the Beijing Financial Regulatory Bureau approved the opening of the Asset Custody Center of China Guangfa Bank. This asset custody center has thus become the first licensed institution specializing in independent custody business that has obtained approval and opened after the "Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Commercial Bank Custody Business (Trial)" (hereinafter referred to as the new bank custody regulations) came into effect on February 1 this year.

According to the reporter, China Guangfa Bank previously set the Asset Custody Department as a first-level department. The bank positioned the custody business as an important business segment at a relatively early stage, made full use of the resources of its shareholder China Life, and kept investing in system construction, collaborative custody and other aspects. The reporter reviewed the bank's 2025 annual report, and some wording revealed the operating performance of the bank's custody business: by the end of 2025, the scale of China Guangfa Bank's asset custody and operation outsourcing business reached 4.33 trillion yuan. In 2025, the scale of the bank's public and private fund custody exceeded 1 trillion yuan, realizing a custody business fee income of 586 million yuan. (Securities China)

Swisse "anti-glycation pills" found with excessive lead, official customer service: The relevant batches have not been sold in China

Recently, the Import and Export Food Safety Bureau of the General Administration of Customs of China released a notice, stating that two batches of "Beauty Skin Regeneration+" (commonly known as "anti-glycation pills" in Chinese) under the Australian brand "SWISSE" were detected with excessive lead, reminding consumers to stop using the involved products immediately. On October 18, the official customer service of Swisse responded that after verification, the product recall only involves two batches 144520 and 143217 for the Australian market. The above batches have not been circulated to end consumers, nor have they been sold in the Chinese market. (The Paper)

Hong Kong stock market IPOs are booming, with fundraising hitting a 15-year record, and the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong warns against suspicious subscriptions

In the first three quarters of 2026, the Hong Kong stock IPO market delivered a performance far exceeding market expectations, with a total of 115 enterprises listed and total fundraising of HK$385.566 billion. This fundraising scale has surpassed the full-year level of any year since 2011. When looking ahead to the fourth quarter, Deloitte and KPMG have recently stated successively that the full-year IPO financing amount of Hong Kong stock market is expected to approach HK$500 billion. The booming market also benefits intermediary institutions, with a very prominent head effect: the total underwriting scale of the top three underwriters has accounted for 42%. However, the resource shortage problem and practice quality of sponsoring institutions still receive regulatory attention.

On October 13, the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong stated that the current resource tension has been alleviated, which is reflected in the proportion of listing applications under review handled by the five most active sponsors dropping from 77% at the beginning of the year to 65% in September, and the number of overburdened principal signatories has decreased by 78%. The Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong specially reminded that sponsoring institutions should be alert to opaque arrangements involving initial public offerings and post-listing activities. These arrangements may generate suspicious subscription instructions, artificially exaggerate the share demand of initial public offerings, or fuel potential market manipulation trading activities after listing. (Securities China)

The probability that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates unchanged in October stands at 83.9%

According to CME "FedWatch": The probability that the Federal Reserve will maintain the current interest rate level by October is 83.9%, and the probability of a cumulative 25-basis-point rate hike is 16.1%. By December, the probability that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates unchanged is 8.2%, the probability of a cumulative 25-basis-point rate hike is 77.3%, and the probability of a cumulative 50-basis-point rate hike is 14.5%. (China Finance Information Service)

National Data Group is expected to be officially established in the near future

National Data Group is expected to be officially established in the near future. (China Securities Journal)

Elon Musk: We are developing a dedicated negotiation robot that can save the world 6 trillion US dollars every year

Elon Musk posted that we are devoting massive resources to developing Hagglebot, a dedicated negotiation robot for commercial scenarios. We believe this product can improve enterprises' cost efficiency by 5% or even higher. Calculated from the dimension of global GDP, the maximum annual cost savings can reach up to 6 trillion US dollars. All enterprises that use Grok can obtain an immediately quantifiable competitive advantage. (CLS)

ST Juewei: Other Risk Warnings to Be Lifted, Trading Resumes on October 20

36Kr has learned from the announcement of ST Juewei that the company's shares will be suspended for 1 trading day on October 19, 2026, and resume trading starting from October 20, 2026. The other risk warning on the company's shares will be lifted, the A-share short name will be changed from "ST Juewei" to "Juewei Food", with the stock code remaining "603517". After the other risk warning is lifted, the company's shares will be transferred out of the risk warning board for trading, and the daily price fluctuation limit for the company's share trading will be 10%.

National railways in China registered 3.71 billion passenger trips in the first three quarters of this year, hitting a record high for the same period in history

On October 18, China State Railway Group released data showing that in the first three quarters of this year, the national railways accumulatively sent 3.71 billion passengers, up 4.8% year on year, hitting a record high for the same period in history. During the first three quarters, the national railways arranged an average of 11,511 passenger trains per day, a year-on-year increase of 5.3%. A total of 2860 tourist trains were operated by national railways in the first three quarters, up 25.5% year on year, including 1613 special tourist trains and 1247 tourist dedicated line trains. The Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong High-Speed Railway and the China-Laos Railway carried 25.845 million and 265,000 cross-border passengers respectively, up 11.8% and 37.8% year on year. The national railways sent 19.002 million foreign passengers, up 33.4% year on year. (Cailian Press)

Dedicated pension wealth management products are being launched intensively

A number of banks and wealth management companies have intensively rolled out exclusive wealth management products tailored for the elderly group. Backed by robust underlying assets, these products mainly invest in deposits, certificates of deposit and high-grade credit bonds, with maturities ranging from 1 year to 2 years. Industry insiders remind that when the elderly group choose wealth management products, they shall pay attention to the adaptation of investment strategies to their life cycles. For people in their middle age, it is recommended to realize the preservation and appreciation of assets over a longer period through investment options with multiple assets and multiple strategies. For people who are about 10 years away from retirement, it is suggested to gradually tilt their asset allocation to relatively stable assets with low volatility. For people approaching retirement, it is advised to pay more attention to the return certainty of financial products and the ability to generate relatively stable cash flows. (CCTV Finance)

Tech journalist Gurman: Apple launched the iPhone Duo prematurely amid limited supply

Tech journalist Gurman said Apple has not disclosed whether its physical stores will have iPhone Duo units available on the first day of release. Apparently Apple rolled out the iPhone Duo prematurely with constrained supply only to bring it to the market earlier. He believes that Apple knows a reasonable level of supply will not be accessible until November at the earliest. (CLS)

Changes to Hong Kong Stock Settlement Mechanism: The "T+2" Rule Will Be Adjusted to "T+1", and the Relevant Transition Will Be Completed in the Second Half of 2028

On October 16, The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (HKEX) released the consultation conclusion document concerning the shortening of the settlement cycle for the Hong Kong stock spot market. The market has broadly supported the implementation of the "T+1" settlement cycle in the Hong Kong stock market. After taking into full consideration the opinions of all market participants, HKEX plans to complete the relevant transition in the second half of 2028 on the premise that the market is fully prepared and the plan is approved by regulatory authorities. Industry insiders pointed out that the launch of the "T+1" settlement cycle is a major reform of Hong Kong's stock settlement and trading market, which enables investors to reinvest and adjust positions within a shorter settlement cycle, improves capital turnover rate, and is expected to lift the trading activity of the Hong Kong stock market. (Shanghai Securities News)

Ongoing Listings

Luxeed to obtain independent automobile manufacturing qualification, insiders confirm the company's listing plan

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published the "Announcement of Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturing Enterprises and Products (412th Batch)" on October 16. The announcement shows that Anhui Luxeed New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Luxeed" or "Luxeed Auto") is included in the list of "newly admitted vehicle manufacturing enterprises to be released", and the public notice period lasts until October 23. Afterwards, the news that "Luxeed has obtained independent automobile manufacturing qualification" spread immediately. On October 17, an insider of Luxeed Auto confirmed that Luxeed Auto will obtain the independent automobile manufacturing qualification after being approved when the public notice ends, "the factory of Chery is assigned to Luxeed". The insider also confirmed the information that Luxeed Auto plans to be listed independently in the future. (Yicai)

Large Corporate Earnings Reports

Hengli Petrochemical: Net profit for the first three quarters is expected to increase by 104.20% year on year

36Kr learned from the announcement of Hengli Petrochemical that the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company in the first three quarters of 2026 is expected to reach 10.256 billion yuan, up 104.20% year on year. The performance change is mainly attributed to the improved industry supply and demand pattern and rebounding prosperity, with the continuous sound operation of the industrial chains of refining & chemical, aromatics, PTA and new polyester materials. The company gives full play to the advantages of its "large-scale chemical industry" platform that features deep integration of "oil, coal and chemical industry", with stable operation of core units and unlocked synergy effect across the industrial chain. The remarkable recovery of processing margins in the refining & chemical and PTA sectors has effectively increased its operating performance.

Cinda Securities: Net Profit in the First Three Quarters Dropped 4.83% Year on Year

36Kr learned from the announcement of Cinda Securities that it achieved an operating revenue of 3.305 billion yuan in the first three quarters, representing a year-on-year increase of 9.48%; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 1.288 billion yuan, down 4.83% year on year. Its operating revenue in the third quarter was 870 million yuan, down 11.37% year on year; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 191 million yuan, down 42.03% year on year. The change in net profit is mainly caused by the increase of current income tax expense which leads to the decrease of net profit.

Investment and Financing

Embodied brain company "Gewu Tongzhi" has completed an angel round of financing of nearly 100 million yuan

36Kr learned that Gewu Tongzhi, an embodied brain company, has completed an angel round of financing of nearly 100 million yuan. The investors include Peak Investment, Hongfu Assets, Hangzhou Capital, Hangzhou Talent Group, a provincial-level embodied industry investment institution, and a number of leading listed companies. The raised funds will be mainly used for large-scale pre-training and technology iteration of the physical inversion world model, hardware and ontology construction, accelerating talent introduction and team scale expansion, as well as promoting PoC verification in multiple scenarios and real data collection. Maple Pledge Capital acted as the exclusive private equity financing advisor for this round.

"Liufang Semiconductor" completes equity financing of over 100 million yuan in Series C1 round

36Kr has learned that "Liufang Semiconductor" recently completed its Series C1 equity financing of over 100 million yuan. This round of financing is jointly funded by Beijing Canglin Capital and Zhuji Industrial Investment Group Co., Ltd. The funds raised in this round will be mainly used for R&D of cutting-edge new products and production capacity expansion, and the new plant covering an area of 100 mu is expected to be officially put into operation in December 2026.

Edited by | He Yuting