China

  • In the first quarter, the CRB commodity index rose by 27.03%, the largest quarterly increase since 1994; the domestic commodity index rose by 16.18%. (CRB=Commodity Research Bureau)
  • Beijing: In the first quarter, there were about 37,220 second-hand housing transactions, of which 17,085 were signed online in March, up 106.8% month-on-month. Although it fell by more than 20% year-on-year, it rose compared to the same period in 2019. Since March, the new housing market transactions, sales volume, and registration volume have rebounded significantly, and even nearly 10,000 people have purchased real estate.
  • China’s cloud infrastructure market has reached 27.4 billion US dollars, and the “China Four Clouds” consisting of Alibaba Cloud, Huawei Cloud, Tencent Cloud and Baidu Smart Cloud occupy 80% of China’s cloud computing market, maintaining a dominant position. In the post-epidemic era, online office, remote collaboration and other services have become popular. With the launch of the new infrastructure “East Digital and Western Calculation” project, enterprise users’ acceptance of cloud services has been improved.
  • Customers born in the 1990s have gradually become the main force in decoration, which will further drive the increase in the business volume of all-inclusive packaging and resist the pressure of rising raw material prices to a certain extent. A number of decoration companies said that although the price of building materials has continued to rise in the past three years, the price of the whole package will not be adjusted for the time being.
  • Under the Metaverse market opportunity, smart wearable devices usher in a golden age of rapid development. In 2021, the Chinese wearable market will ship nearly 140 million units, a year-on-year increase of 25.4%; the global VR/AR head-mounted display market will increase by 92.1% year-on-year, with shipments reaching 11.2 million units. It is expected to increase by 46.9% year-on-year in 2022 to 2026 The compound annual growth rate is 35.1%.

Company

  • Weilai Automobile: Since March, due to the epidemic, supply chain partners in Jilin, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other places have successively stopped production and have not yet resumed. Affected by this, vehicle production has been suspended; in the near future, many users’ vehicles will be delayed in delivery.
  • Tesla CEO Elon Musk: Considering the skyrocketing lithium price, Tesla may have to get into lithium mining. Lithium itself is not a scarce resource because it is almost ubiquitous on Earth, but it is very slow to extract and refine. The lithium price in 2012 was US$4,450/ton, but it rise to US$78,032/ton in 2022.
  • Tencent: From April 20, the price of Tencent Video VIP and Super Video VIP members will be adjusted. Tencent Video’s VIP monthly subscription price is adjusted to 25 yuan, the continuous seasonal subscription price is adjusted to 68 yuan, and the continuous annual subscription price is adjusted to 238 yuan; the VIP season card price is adjusted to 78 yuan, and the VIP annual card price is adjusted to 258 yuan.
  • SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying four civilian passengers to the International Space Station. Russia has also sent civilian passengers to the International Space Station before, but this trip, code-named “AX-1”, is the first all-civilian space trip, and it is also NASA’s first cooperation in space tourism.

World

  • Brazil’s March inflation rate rose 1.62% month-on-month, the highest level in 18 years and the largest monthly increase since 1994. The prices of eight categories of commodities have increased compared with February, and the largest price increases were in transportation and food and beverages, with an increase of 3.02% and 2.42% respectively.
  • Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of the Republic of Korea: In the first quarter, South Korea attracted US$5.45 billion in foreign direct investment, a year-on-year increase of 14.9%, setting a record for the first quarter of the year; the actual inflow of foreign capital was US$4.33 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 2.6%, the second highest in history. Among them, investment in manufacturing was 1.64 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 267%.
  • Japan: Affected by rising energy and commodity prices, major convenience stores in Japan have recently raised commodity prices. 711 raised the prices of about 60 items, and FamilyMart also raised the prices of some freshly fried foods this week, with an increase of up to 12%; Rosen also raised the prices of about 50 items such as rice balls and sandwiches recently.
  • Japan: JTB, a large travel agency, predicts that during Japan’s “Golden Week (April 25-May 5)” in 2022, the number of domestic tourists will increase by 70% year-on-year.