Industry

  • The international price of wool used in suits and uniforms has reached near a one-year high.
  • eBay Italian gardening sells nearly 2.03 million items annually. Recently, data from eBay Italy shows that in 2020, the sales of gardening-related products on the platform will be close to 2.03 million, an increase of 75% compared to 2019, ranking first in sales; sales of outdoor furniture-related items such as tables, recliners, sunbeds, etc. Nearly 280,000 pieces, ranking second; the sales of planting bulbs, insecticides and mosquito repellents ranked third, with more than 147,000 pieces.
  • The Boston Consulting Group has nominated the 50 most innovative companies in the world for 2021. A total of 5 Chinese companies were selected, namely Huawei, Alibaba, Lenovo, Tencent and Xiaomi. Huawei ranks eighth and is the only Chinese company in the top ten. Huawei’s R&D investment in 2020 will reach 141.9 billion yuan, accounting for 15.9% of the annual revenue; Alibaba’s 2020 technology R&D investment will exceed 30 billion.
  • Gartner: In 2020, the global cloud computing market will maintain rapid growth, with a market size of 64.286 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year increase of 40.7%. The market is further concentrated on top vendors, and the global cloud computing 3A pattern is stable, with Amazon, Microsoft and Alibaba Cloud ranking top three in the world. Among them, Alibaba Cloud’s market share reached 9.5%, surpassing Google’s 6.1%. In the past five years, Alibaba Cloud’s market share has nearly tripled, and Microsoft has nearly tripled.
  • Strategy Analytics: In the first quarter, China’s smartphone shipments increased by 35% year-on-year to 94 million units. Domestic manufacturers Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo ranked third to fifth in global mobile phone shipments. Among them, vivo shipped 37 million units in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of 85%, and its market share was 11%. In terms of growth rate, vivo is the fastest growing company among the top five manufacturers.
  • The value of the global fleet has broken the $1 trillion mark.
  • Coca-Cola will increase its price.
  • Procter & Gamble will increase the price of baby care, feminine care and adult care products in September this year.
  • Paper giant Kimberley will increase its business in infant care, adult care and Scott bathroom tissues at the end of June.
  • Mars Wrigley will officially raise prices for the Green Arrow 5-piece series, Yida 40-capsule bottle series, and Yida 12-piece series from April 1st.
  • Cooking oil rose.
  • Packaging: “Up 3 times a month, 200 at a time”, and the costs of paper, hardware, and leather have all increased.
  • Home appliances rose against the trend in the off-season. February and March of each year are the off-season for home appliance sales, but recently they have risen against the trend. Some of them have a rise of 1,000 to 1,200 yuan, and low-end machines have a 4%-5% increase.

Company

  • On April 21, Alibaba invested US$350 million in Trendyol, a well-known online fashion retailer in Turkey.
  • Head of Lamborghini Pacific Region: So far, Lamborghini’s order volume has covered the production capacity of 9 months of the year. The order volume of the Chinese market this year has been scheduled to the end of the year. China is expected to become Lamborghini’s second-largest sales market in the world.
  • Meituan raised tens of billions of dollars to invest in drone and self-driving car delivery technology.

World

  • More than 60 countries have incorporated Chinese language teaching into their national education systems.
  • China has become Austria’s second-largest source of imports. Statistics released by the Austrian Statistics Office show that China will become Austria’s second-largest source of imports for the first time in 2020. In 2020, Austria’s imports from China amounted to 10.15 billion euros, accounting for 7.0% of its total imports, rising to second place for the first time; its exports to China were 3.93 billion euros, accounting for 2.8% of its total exports, ranking No. ten.
  • Iran is suffering from the fourth wave of the epidemic. The government decided that starting from April 10, Iran will impose a 10-day blockade on 23 provinces across the country. During Ramadan starting on April 13, all religious gatherings will also be banned.