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Pop Mart’s Wang Ning urges restraint amid global Labubu surge

6 mins read

Pulses

DBS partners Granite Asia on AI fund

just now
Granite Asia
DBS Group has entered a three-year partnership with Granite Asia to offer investment products to its wealth clients and financing support to Asian growth companies. The tie-up begins with the close of a USD 110 million AI-focused IPO fund, managed by Granite Asia and distributed exclusively to DBS clients.

Fandom gold lifts China demand

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Nikkei Asia
With gold surpassing USD 5,000 per troy ounce, Chinese consumers are turning fandom into investment, buying character-themed gold jewelry such as Hello Kitty and Chiikawa pieces as both collectibles and stores of value. Gold ownership among those aged 18–24 reached 62% in 2025, while the central bank extended its gold purchases to a 15th consecutive month.

ByteDance expands hiring for US AI team

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Bloomberg
ByteDance is recruiting nearly 100 US-based staff for its Seed unit, with roles spanning LLMs, image and video generation, and drug discovery research. The hiring push follows its TikTok divestment deal and comes as Hollywood studios challenge its new Seedance model over alleged copyright violations.

Zaihui files for HKEX, SGX IPO

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The Paper
Restaurant online operations provider Zaihui has filed for a dual listing in Hong Kong and Singapore after reporting RMB 494.9 million in 2024 revenue, up from RMB 378.5 million in 2023, while net loss narrowed to RMB 235.3 million. It said proceeds will fund AI development, cooking robots, overseas expansion, and working capital.

Yuanbao exceeds 50 million DAUs

just now
Tencent
Tencent's Yuanbao surpassed 50 million DAUs and reached 114 million MAUs, the company reported on February 18. The disclosure came a day after Tencent reported that Yuanbao's RMB 1 billion "red packet" campaign logged more than 3.6 billion cumulative draws.

Lufax admits rule breaches, restates

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Nikkei Asia
Lufax acknowledged breaching Hong Kong listing rules and restated its 2022 and 2023 reports, disclosing 59 previously unreported wealth product subscriptions totaling over RMB 45 billion. Four transactions worth RMB 2.1 billion required shareholder approval. The moves follow auditor warnings over possible related-party transactions.

ByteDance in talks to sell Moonton

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Reuters
ByteDance is in advanced talks to sell Moonton, creator of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, to Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group for USD 6–7 billion. The companies have reached broad agreement on terms and could seal a deal this quarter. ByteDance bought the studio in 2021 at a roughly USD 4 billion valuation.

Qwen sees 130 million AI shoppers

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36Kr
More than 130 million people tried using Qwen’s AI for shopping for the first time during the Lunar New Year holiday, according to data released by the app’s operator on February 17. Ticket orders rose 22-fold in two days, transport bookings climbed more than sevenfold, and movie ticket purchases jumped 372-fold, with nearly half of orders coming from county-level areas.

Robot orders jump 150% after gala

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Securities Times
Robot orders jumped 150% in the first two hours of China’s televised Lunar New Year gala, with JD.com searches rising more than 300%. Unitree, which showcased humanoid robots performing complex routines, is targeting 10,000–20,000 shipments in 2026. Galbot’s RMB 700,000 model reportedly secured hundreds of orders within 24 hours.

BYD, Geely eye Mexico plant

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National Business Daily
BYD and Geely have reportedly made the final shortlist to acquire a vehicle factory in Guanajuato, Mexico. The plant produces the Mercedes-Benz GLB and Nissan Sentra, and has established production capacity and supply chains, offering access to North and South American markets.

ByteDance upgrades Doubao model

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Reuters
ByteDance has launched Doubao 2.0, upgrading China’s most widely used AI chatbot with complex reasoning and multi-step task execution capabilities. The company said the Pro version matches OpenAI’s GPT 5.2 and Google’s Gemini 3 Pro while cutting usage costs by roughly an order of magnitude.

ByteDance’s Seedance hit by IP row

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SCMP
ByteDance said it is strengthening safeguards in its Seedance 2.0 video model after Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter alleging infringement of characters from the Marvel and Star Wars franchises. The backlash includes criticism from SAG-AFTRA and the Motion Picture Association, as well as a Japanese government investigation into AI-generated anime content.

CaoCao hits 100 robotaxis in Hangzhou

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CaoCao Mobility
CaoCao Mobility has expanded its robotaxi fleet in Binjiang, Hangzhou, to 100 vehicles, marking a milestone in its shift toward fully driverless operations. The company also launched a mobility hub equipped with automated battery swapping and dispatch systems, and plans to debut a purpose-built robotaxi model this year with a target of deploying 100,000 units by 2030.

Genki Forest logs third year of growth

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Jiemian News
Genki Forest posted double-digit growth for a third straight year, with founder Tang Binsen saying profitability and operational efficiency improved further in 2025 after an initial breakthrough in 2024. Vitamin water sales jumped about 128% YoY, iced tea rose 56%, and the company expanded its retail footprint to 1.28 million outlets by year's end.

MiniMax unveils M2.5 model

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MiniMax
MiniMax has launched M2.5, a foundation model it said delivers state-of-the-art coding and agentic performance, including 80.2% on the SWE-Bench Verified benchmark. Served at up to 100 tokens per second (TPS), the model can reportedly run continuously for about USD 1 per hour at 100 output tokens per second, with a lower-speed version priced at roughly half the cost.

Tencent integrates Uber abroad

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IT Zhijia
Tencent has integrated Uber into its mobility-focused WeChat mini program, allowing users to book rides overseas without downloading a separate app. The feature spans more than 20 countries and regions, including Hong Kong, Japan, the UK, and the US, covers over 1,000 destinations, and supports WeChat Pay without the need for currency exchange.

Pangdonglai rules out IPO, caps scale

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Jiemian News
Pangdonglai will never go public and will halt expansion after completing its planned model targets, founder Yu Donglai said. He also mandated that the firm’s top executives step down from key roles before age 60. The announcement coincides with Yu’s formal retirement after the Lunar New Year, marking a leadership transition for the company.

Temu partners Dekra on testing

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Temu
Temu has partnered with Dekra to provide independent testing for selected electrical and electronic products, integrating the services into its platform to give merchants direct access. The move expands Temu’s network of more than 20 testing, inspection, and certification partners and follows a reported USD 100 million global investment in compliance and quality control in 2025.

OpenAI flags DeepSeek to US panel

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Bloomberg
ChatGPT maker OpenAI has told US lawmakers that DeepSeek used distillation and “new, obfuscated methods” to extract outputs from US-made AI models to train its R1 chatbot, according to a memo. The company said accounts tied to DeepSeek sought to bypass safeguards via third-party access routes.

Grab buys US fintech firm Stash

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Grab
Grab, operator of the eponymous Southeast Asian app, has signed definitive agreements to acquire 100% of US digital investment platform Stash, valuing an initial 50.1% stake at a USD 425 million enterprise value at closing, with the remainder to be acquired over three years. The deal, expected to close in Q3 2026, expands Grab’s fintech operations beyond Southeast Asia.
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    How TikTok Shop gives China’s factories a direct line to the world

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