Chinese Smartphone Maker Xiaomi’s Revenue and Profit Slides

This photograph shows the Xiaomi logo at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the telecom industry's biggest annual gathering, in Barcelona on February 27, 2023. (AFP)
This photograph shows the Xiaomi logo at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the telecom industry's biggest annual gathering, in Barcelona on February 27, 2023. (AFP)
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Chinese Smartphone Maker Xiaomi’s Revenue and Profit Slides

This photograph shows the Xiaomi logo at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the telecom industry's biggest annual gathering, in Barcelona on February 27, 2023. (AFP)
This photograph shows the Xiaomi logo at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the telecom industry's biggest annual gathering, in Barcelona on February 27, 2023. (AFP)

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp on Friday reported a record drop in fourth-quarter revenue as the company weathered a slowdown in consumption and disruptions due to China's COVID-19 curbs.

Sales in the fourth quarter of 2022 reached 66.05 billion yuan ($9.6 billion), down 22.8% from 85.58 billion yuan a year earlier.

The numbers were slightly ahead of analyst expectations, but they mark the fourth consecutive revenue drop for the company, and its steepest on record yet.

Net income fell to 1.46 billion over the period, down 67.3% from 4.473 billion yuan a year earlier.

The company's revenue for 2022 was 280.04 billion yuan, a drop of 14.7%, while net income came in at 8.52 billion yuan, down 61.4%. Both figures fell short of analyst expectations.

Overall consumption in China dragged on most product categories in the fourth quarter, as the abrupt lifting of strict COVID-19 curbs led to a rapid spread in infections across the country.

All major smartphone brands experienced a sales slump in China over the period, based on research firm Canalys. Xiaomi, however, took the largest hit with shipments dropping 37% year on year, the Canalys data showed.



Nations Building Their Own AI Models Add to Nvidia's Growing Chip Demand

FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand miniature in this illustration, taken June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand miniature in this illustration, taken June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Nations Building Their Own AI Models Add to Nvidia's Growing Chip Demand

FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand miniature in this illustration, taken June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand miniature in this illustration, taken June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Nations building artificial intelligence models in their own languages are turning to Nvidia's chips, adding to already booming demand as generative AI takes center stage for businesses and governments, a senior executive said on Wednesday.
Nvidia's third-quarter forecast for rising sales of its chips that power AI technology such as OpenAI's ChatGPT failed to meet investors' towering expectations. But the company described new customers coming from around the world, including governments that are now seeking their own AI models and the hardware to support them, Reuters said.
Countries adopting their own AI applications and models will contribute about low double-digit billions to Nvidia's revenue in the financial year ending in January 2025, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said on a call with analysts after Nvidia's earnings report.
That's up from an earlier forecast of such sales contributing high single-digit billions to total revenue. Nvidia forecast about $32.5 billion in total revenue in the third quarter ending in October.
"Countries around the world (desire) to have their own generative AI that would be able to incorporate their own language, incorporate their own culture, incorporate their own data in that country," Kress said, describing AI expertise and infrastructure as "national imperatives."
She offered the example of Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, which is building an AI supercomputer featuring thousands of Nvidia H200 graphics processors.
Governments are also turning to AI as a measure to strengthen national security.
"AI models are trained on data and for political entities -particularly nations - their data are secret and their models need to be customized to their unique political, economic, cultural, and scientific needs," said IDC computing semiconductors analyst Shane Rau.
"Therefore, they need to have their own AI models and a custom underlying arrangement of hardware and software."
Washington tightened its controls on exports of cutting-edge chips to China in 2023 as it sought to prevent breakthroughs in AI that would aid China's military, hampering Nvidia's sales in the region.
Businesses have been working to tap into government pushes to build AI platforms in regional languages.
IBM said in May that Saudi Arabia's Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority would train its "ALLaM" Arabic language model using the company's AI platform Watsonx.
Nations that want to create their own AI models can drive growth opportunities for Nvidia's GPUs, on top of the significant investments in the company's hardware from large cloud providers like Microsoft, said Bob O'Donnell, chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research.