SEA
Singapore-headquartered e-commerce portal, Qoo10 collaborated with Bank of China again, to release a co-brand Mastercard credit card. The company believes this will elevate their offerings for their users to get better value and convenience beyond the Qoo10 platform. (e27)
Singapore-based logistics startup, Haulio, has completed a $747,000 seed funding round led by PSA unboXed, Singapore Port Authority’s corporate venture capital arm. Dubbed as the ‘Uber for container trucks’, it aims to cut idle team and optimise fleet management. (Deal Street Asia)
China
Didi Chuxing, with a current valuation of USD 55 billion, is eyeing to list on HKEX. The ride-hailing company is likely to start its IPO process in the second half of 2018. (PingWest)
Chinese smartphone maker, Xiaomi continues to defy slowing global smartphone trend as it expands into France and Italy. In the first quarter of 2018, Xiaomi posted solid growth in Europe, boosting shipment by 999% even as Europe’s smartphone shipment fell 6.3% year-on-year. (South China Morning Post)
Chinese Tech Unicorns are turning to selling convertible bonds to raise funds, where holders of these bonds can convert them into stocks later on. The trend was fuelled by the increasing need of cash by these companies for future ventures. These Unicorns include Didi Chuxing and Bytedance Technology. (WSJ)
U.S. President Donald Trump has raised a plan to roll back more severe penalties and instead fine ZTE Corp of up to US$1.3 billion and shuffle its management for its violations, a plan that ran into resistance in Congress. The response of Congress could harm Trump’s efforts to gain concession from China that would decrease the annual trade gap. (Reuters)
iQiyi is creating an editing and casting system encompassed by AI. IQiyi is building a database of physical information, theatrical genres, behavioural patterns and clothing style of actors, that will help directors cast supporting actors and edit films, saving time and money on casting. (Technode)
Tencent and Sinosoft Tehcnology are facilitating a pilot program of issuing electronic health cards to residents through WeChat, part of wider plan to improve healthcare services by 2030, currently available to patients at Peking University Hospital and Beijing Friendship Hospital. (Technode)
WeChat has introduced a new WeChat Mini Program, Yue Sheng Shi, that handles 142 different local government functions, allowing residents in southern China’s Guangdong province to skip government queues. Users will have to register with their real names and other personal information to access all the functions. (SCMP)
Baidu is working on its search app-based download-free mini app, similar to WeChat mini program. The search giant is likely to launch the feature in July. (PingWest)
“Baidu is ready to embrace the era of video,” said Baidu VP XIANG Hailong, “Baidu’s AI technologies are going to push for the acceptance of video content for everyone.” (36Kr)
Douyin made a second public outcry by issuing an open letter on WeChat Public Account, accusing Tencent of taking down Douyin short videos uploaded to Tencent Video, Tencent’s video streaming service. (PingWest)
Foxconn Industrial Internet announced to raise up to 27.1 billion yuan (approx USD 4.16 billion) in mainland China’s largest IPO in almost three years. (Reuters)
Xiaomi has chosen its cornerstone investors, and investment banks have started the first round of price consultation which might value Xiaomi at USD 63-68 billion. (AWTMT)
Rest of Asia
Uber is planning to launch its first taxi-hailing pilot service in Japan, relaying passengers to other taxi providers as Uber has been restricted from building up a fleet of drivers there. The pilot will run through March 2019. (Reuters)
Samsung India claims to have a 40% market share in the mobile phone industry earning Rs 34,300 crore (approx. US$5 billion) of revenue from the sales of mobile phones in India for the financial year ending 2017, a 27% increase. All Samsung products sold in India are made in India, and they are trying to double the current capacity. (ET.IT)
World
Sony Corp will become the world’s largest music publisher with the acquisition of EMI for about US$2.3 billion, an investment in content intellectual property. (Reuters)
Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg dodged difficult questions and apologized to European Union lawmakers over the fake-news and privacy scandals that has engulfed Facebook Inc. (Wall Street Journal)
Consumer Reports will retest Tesla Inc’s new Model 3 sedans after a software update to fix its brake speed and hopefully rewrite the negative review. According to Barclays analyst Brian Johnson, 80% of mid-sized car’s sales volume come from Consumer Reports. (Reuters)
Following the recent rectification against flaws Spectre and Meltdown, Intel Corp is facing a new found flaw in their chips and are in the midst of correcting it, planning to release patches for this vulnerability. (WSJ)
Gadgets
The latest version of the Razer Blade has been redesigned with a 15.6-inch display in three different configurations and packed with Intel’s latest eight-generation Core i7 processors and NVIDIA’s Max-Q architecture that levels with the best gaming laptops currently in the market. Another update would be user-replaceable parts: the RAM and M.2 SSD storage. (The Verge)
Good News Bad News
China slashes car tariffs by 10% after a truce between Donald Trump and Chinese officials to avert an all-out trade war. This will boost shares of automakers from India to Europe. Shares of Tata Motors Ltd and BMW AG posted largest intraday gains in more than a month, following the news. (Bloomberg)